DDT and creationism in the Atomic Age

I am a total sucker for old science books, which d.w. just doesn't seem to understand. In fact, she is rolling her big, brown eyes at me as I write this. Old books offer a lot of perspective. I have come to accept, for instance, that everything cutting-edge I am studying now will soon be embarrassingly quaint. It really takes a lot of the pressure off: "So what if I make up data? This won't matter in a couple of years anyway!"

Dude, I'm joking. Really.

Anyway, I bring it up because our local public library's annual book sale was today, and I brought home a stack of lovely, musty old library books. One that will find a place (again, d.w. rolling her eyes) on the new shelf of baby books is Functional Anatomy of the Newborn. Useful stuff, in case we ever want to know the weight of the hatchling's pituitary gland, or the anteroposterior length of the maxillary sinus. By far the best find was a general science textbook from 1950, entitled Our Environment: How We Use and Control It. A few select tidbits:

On physics:

No savage can tell you why a log or canoe floats, but he uses the principle of bouyancy every day of his life if he lives near water.

On chemistry:

Whether or not DDT will prove as useful in the protection of crops against insects as it has in the protection of human beings, time alone will tell. We shall consider this remarkable insecticide in greater detail at a later point in our study.

On geology:

At best a theory is only a guess and should never be taken too much for granted. By contrast, the story of creation as told so beautifully in the Bible gives us the great truths of creation. We should keep that story constantly in mind as we study [geology]. Yet, as we read and reread its simple, inspiring narrative, we realize that it purposely leaves many interesting details for men's inquiring minds to fill in.

On engineering:

Hardly had the steam engine become well-established  when along came the gasoline engine with its invaluable contributions, especially in the related field of transportation. Then came the dynamo and the Age of Electricity. Now we are face to face with the Atomic Age, and no one can yet foretell what wonders of industry its power holds for the world. Perhaps the time may come when we shall be flying around with enough atomic energy packed away in our pockets to keep our automobiles or airplanes running for a lifetime.

And finally, on genetics. Hoo boy:

Some families have been known to science for many years in which immoral, feeble-minded, pauper, vagrant, and drunken traits appear with regularity through several generations. There are others where the descendents were generally of a high type physically, mentally, and morally.

There are thirty-five normal-minded persons to every feeble-minded person in this country. The future well-being of the nation depends upon these normal-minded people. To encourage the recognition of this fact the science of eugenics has developed. Eugenics is the science of improving the human race by better heredity through better parents.

So what insights can we glean from such a, um, perspective? Well, in 1950, apparently only white people understood basic physics and being poor was a genetic disorder. Oh, and scientific theories (like gravity) were really no more than a wild guess.

It does make me wonder though. Are my kids going to think that this decade (whatever the hell it's called: ots? oughts? aughts? oh's? owe's? o's?) is as backward as we the 50's were?

I can only hope so.

Comments

[Christian]

Hey, I have 35 normal-minded friends...

[CroutonBoy]

Hey, I have 35 feeble-minded friends. Then again, my family is descended from the first vagrant created on the sixth day of creation, and we've been sprinkling DDT on our corn-flakes since we moved next door the nuclear reactor...

[dutch]

good for you rescuing those books. I like old books make great blog fodder, such entertaining (and frightening) old perspectives.

keep an eye out for old Victorian schoolbooks, too.

[Papa Bradstein]

I forgot to mention before that I still have the encylopedia set that my dad grew up with. It's from the late 30s, early 40s. It's a little unwieldy for the overhead bin, so it's still at my Mom's but I love to read through it when I visit. Someday I will find a way to get it and those cozy chairs of mine back here. Or find a way to get back to Cali.