CROWTHER LECTURES ON SCIENCE AND POLITICS

J. G. Crowther, of London, scientific correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, said in he public lecture yesterday that the current American belief in political experimentalism is a product of the influence of science. Yesterday's lecture was the third of a stories of six being given this week and next on "The History of American Science."

Crowther stated "The structure of the American Constitution has provided one of the channels for the exceptional influence that scientific ideas have had on the history of America," and explained that the Newtonian idea of checks and balances and mechanical equilibrium prevalent in that age influenced the framers of the Constitution.

"The Constitution is more than ever the center of American political thought and if the form of the Constitution is partly due to the influence of certain scientific ideas.

"In the past, politicians have asked for power on the ground that they alone knew how to solve all social problems and only needed power to carry out the solutions. They regarded their assertion of omniscience as essential to political prestige. Today a new attitude has appeared in America; political leaders have plainly said that they did not know beforehand the solutions to all the problems but merely wished to have power to try various experimental policies.

Today's lecture in Hunt Hall at 4 o'clock is to be "Joseph Henry and the Smithsonian Institution."