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Russia's party-line science is doomed to fail and its progress ultimately will almost stop, President Conant stated last night at a dinner marking the dedication of a $30,000,000 Dupont Experimental station in Wilmington, Delaware.
The halt will come "once the borrowed momentum of the science of the free world has been exhausted," Conant went on. He pictured Soviet control of science as a secret weapon working in favor of the free world.
"Ridicule Freedom"
"The Russians impose a party line in biology, physics, and other sciences," he said. "They deny and ridicule freedom of inquiry to seek new facts and basic truths. Independent inventors and amateur scientists have disappeared."
For the short run, the Soviet system can succeed, Conant stated, and "we must not underestimate the immediate technological power of Russia. But for the long pull, the verdict of history may well be otherwise."
Conant said further that barring global war--"which I believe is by no means inevitable"--young scientists will live to see the outcome of the struggle between the American type scientific system and that of Russia. "I for one place my bet on freedom," he added.
Conant concluded his speech by saying that our system of allowing scientists to work on their won results in more new discoveries.
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