“IN a democracy it is the duty of scientists to explain science to the public, and the duty of the public to try to understand it.” This statement on the dust jacket of J. B. S. Haldane’s Science Advances (Macmillan, $3.00), its title, and the fact that the author is so eminent a scientist and so able a popularizer may lead the expectant reader to think, “Ah, here at last I can get an integrated picture of what the scientists are doing, and why.” Such hopes will only partly be fulfilled, for the scope of the book is far less broad than the title indicates.

Haldane has presented us with another collection of short journalistic essays on assorted scientific subjects, most of which are biological. They were written during his busy war years, and all are very topical and timely as to the week in which they were written, but apparently unedited except for an occasional footnote. Since 1938 Haldane has done a weekly science column for the London Daily Worker, of which he is, or was when the articles appeared, chairman of the editorial board. The output of the first sixteen months of his column was collected in 1939 under the title Science and Everyday Life. The present volume continues the pattern of the first through 1944, with its minor irritating features somewhat more noticeable.

Of the eighty-two brief excursions included, fifty-two have to do with biology and medicine, ten with the accomplishments of “some great men ” (Newton and Karl Marx lead the procession, and others obviously were included because they had recently died, or were important in the contemporary scene), and thirteen with “Soviet Science and Nazi Science.” This leaves seven essays to cover the remaining advances of science, most of which are not mentioned. Those included are grouped in a section called “Inventions,” apparently for want of a suitable label, since the topics discussed range from fish-farming to polarized light, neither of which was invented.

In his preface the author states that he anticipates being told by critics that he has “dragged in Marxism like King Charles’s head.” One can hardly object to the occasional appearance of a severed head amid the scenic props if this is necessary to keep Professor Haldane at his scientific expositing. The whole book gives the impression, however, that it is King Charles who is really occupying the center of the stage, and that each succeeding scene differs from the last largely in whether the head is propped up by a discussion of blood factors or the habits of newts.

The essay on “Inventions That Made Men Free,” which comes as close as any to fulfilling the promise of the title Science Advances, begins, “No one doubts that the great inventions of the last, two centuries have revolutionized human society, and profoundly altered the course of history. To that extent everyone is a Marxist. However, opponents of Marxism go on to say that these inventions depended on the development of scientific theory, and that the really revolutionary influence has been that of scientific ideas. There is some truth in this; but only in some kinds of society does theory lead to invention, and it is worth while for Marxists to know something of inventions which were certainly not based on any scientific theories, and which changed the course of history.” The inventions referred to are the modern horse collar and the iron horseshoe, the rudder, the water mill, and improved forms of gearing. “Every teacher who is even slightly influenced by Marxism,” says Haldane again, “should be able to show how human progress has depended on technological improvements.”

Haldane seems to assume that every portion of the scientific parade which he chooses to show us will be most acceptable if viewed through redcolored glasses, and the book is still ostensibly addressed to readers of the Daily Worker, presumably because no one took the trouble to edit it from its original column form. The repeated references to Marx, Lenin, and Stalin in wholly unnecessary contexts, such as Lenin’s views on electrons, and to the superior way things are done in Russia (trees there are much more appreciated by people than they are in England, because everyone owns a share in every tree) make one feel while reading as if he had barged into a private meeting of the Comrades.

If this were a book by one of lesser stature in either science or letters, or if Haldane had accurately labeled it “Slants on Science for Socialists,” I could have got on much faster with this analysis of its contents. As it is, disappointment is doubly keen because it is not another book by the same name which the world badly needs. Scientists are up to tricks; some of them appear worried over the outcome and some do not. Should we be worried? Eddington and Jeans are gone, and of the science popularized of the great English school Haldane is one of the few outstanding figures remaining. If he is not to tell us, who will?

Haldane’s answer, as suggested by the publisher’s jacket blurb, is that Socialism is of far more consequence to the world than the atomic bomb, and in this he may be correct. This gives him no license, however, to distort into the warped space of Marxist perspective all that is good in science, and to ascribe to the capitalistic state all that is bad.

If we read Science Advances with the determination quietly to ignore all ideological reference and political diatribe, we find an enjoyable series of vignettes which illuminate progress in those scientific fields which surround biometry, the application of higher mathematics to biological problems, in which Haldane is an outstanding leader. They are breezily informative and in the tradition of wellinformed “good talk” at which the British popularizes are so expert.

“A comrade in the Corps of Signals has sent me a question which I cannot answer. But it is so interesting that I am going to devote an article to it. He wants to know what happens when a man learns Morse, finding it difficult at first, but finally sending signals or taking them down automatically.” This serves as introduction to a brilliant discussion of the process of learning, in terms of brain cells, nerve fibers, and reflexes, which probably goes further than the inquiring signaler ever expected. Many others of the essays are directed toward answering questions which inevitably arise in the mind of any thoughtful person, and these Haldane discusses with the scope of intellect and awareness of scientific progress which have long been associated with his name.

The book can be recommended, but American “capitalists, aristocrats, and bourgeoisie” who are subject to high blood pressure will do well to subscribe to a special filtered edition.