Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no … - J.B.S. Haldane

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Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe. So far from being an isolated phenomenon the late war is only an example of the disruptive result that we may constantly expect from the progress of science. The future will be no primrose path. It will have its own problems. Some will be the secular problems of the past, giant flowers of evil blossoming at last to their own destruction. Others will be wholly new. Whether in the end man will survive his ascensions of power we cannot tell. But the problem is no new one. It is the old paradox of freedom re-enacted with mankind for actor and the earth for stage...But it is only hopeful if mankind can adjust its morality to its powers.

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About J.B.S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964) was a British geneticist and evolutionary biologist.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: John Burdon Sanderson Haldane
Alternative Names: J. B. S. Haldane
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Additional quotes by J.B.S. Haldane

It took man 250,000 years to transcend the hunting pack. It will not take him so long to transcend the nation.

The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deiciders.

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To the biologist the problem of socialism appears largely as a problem of size. The extreme socialists desire to run every nation as a single business concern. I do not suppose that Henry Ford would find much difficulty in running Andorra or Luxembourg on a socialistic basis. He has already more men on his pay-roll than their population. It is conceivable that a syndicate of Fords, if we could find them, would make Belgium Ltd. or Denmark Inc. pay their way. But while nationalization of certain industries is an obvious possibility in the largest of states, I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge.

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