My CommonPlace

On the subject of science, Aldo Leopold wrote: “We doubt whether science can claim the credit for bigger and better tools, comforts, and securities without also claiming the credit for bigger and better erosions, denudations, and pollutions…. The definitions of science written by, let us say, the National Academy [of Sciences] deal almost exclusively with the creation and exercise of power. But what about the creation and exercise of wonder, or respect for workmanship in nature?” He went on to say, “If science cannot lead us to wisdom as well as power, it is surely no science at all…. We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the twentieth century: our tools are better than we are, and grow better faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.”