Bombs, Births & Leadership

Last week was a week of scientific conventions. In half a dozen cities around the globe, scientists milled in their large, confused gatherings, swapped ideas, canvassed covertly for better jobs and passed along the gossip of their professional circles. When not so engaged, they listened to some of the news of their trade. Items:

Advice to Psychologists. At a Manhattan meeting of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Fred E. Fiedler of the University of Illinois cast doubt on the existence of "natural leaders." Financed by the Office of Naval Research, Psychologist Fiedler spent three years trying to find out what makes certain groups so much more effective than others. He came to the conclusion that the most important factor is not so much the ability of the leader or of the subordinates. It is the "matching" of the leader to the men under him.

In groups as diverse as college basketball teams, student civil-engineering crews and Air Force bomber crews, Fiedler found that an approachable, "outgoing" leader who gets too friendly with his subordinates may find himself no longer able to make clear-cut decisions. But an aloof leader may isolate himself too much from his key man (e.g., foreman, or top sergeant) and thus lose touch with his group. When this happens, the rank and file are apt to turn to someone else as an informal leader. Therefore, the most effective leaders according to Fiedler, are men who are properly matched to their subordinates. When possible, an overly friendly commander should be assigned to a taut unit with rigid barriers between lesser ranks. Overly aloof leaders should command units where barriers of rank are more relaxed.

Worries for Sociologists. The World Congress on Population, meeting at Rome under the auspices of theU.N., was greeted by a blast from the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, denouncing birth control and other curbs on population. The Congress, nevertheless, discussed not only the increase of man's numbers, but also what might be done about it.

According to the Congress' experts, the world's rate of annual population increase has risen in the last five years from 25 million a year to more than 36 million.

But there are signs, reported the delegates, that this situation may not continue indefinitely. In many parts of the world, the increase of population is leveling off. This is true even in Italy, famous for its fertility and its official opposition to population limitation. In Japan, where the government is strongly promoting birth control, one third of the people use some form of contraception. The Welfare Ministry's chief worry, according to Japanese experts, is that too many Japanese women are resorting to abortion. In the last six months, they estimated, there were half a million legal abortions in Japan.

Consolation for Physicists. At the Oxford meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Nobel Prizewinner Sir John Cockcroft announced a bit of long-range good news. He was sure, said Sir John, that long before the world exhausts its supply of uranium fuel, the energy of "the fusion of light elements (as in the hydrogen bomb) can be turned from destructive to peaceful uses. If this is true, the human' race need not worry about its energy supply for a very long time.*

At the same Oxford meeting, Physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, also a Nobel Prizewinner and president of Britain's Royal Society, had a less cheerful comment on the future. He stated that the human race would not survive if more than a few thousand large atomic bombs were exploded, regardless of where they fell.

But he did not blame the physicists; instead, he told them that scientists must be resigned about the potentially destructive effects of their peaceful pursuits. "Advances in natural science cannot avoid advancing methods of warfare. They do so when [ever] they make armies more healthy . . . There is no kind of scientific investigation which might not be used to make war more effective." Curative medicine, said Dr. Adrian, is not above misuse --e.g., the doctor who discovers a cure for paranoia may find that he has revealed a convenient way of producing it.

*In 1950 all of man's needs required about 10^17 B.T.U. of energy. The hydrogen in 1,600 tons of water, if turned into helium, will give roughly this quantity. Since there are 15 by 10^17 tons of water in the ocean, the world's stock of hydrogen can keep man supplied with energy, at the 1950 rate, for more than 900 thousand billion (900 x 10^1^2) years.

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