J D Bernal and the replication of the genetic material - hindsight on foresight

摘要

The 1931 International Congress for the History of Science held in London is famous for the sudden appearance of a powerful group from the USSR, led by Nikolai Bukharin (1888-1938). Their papers were rapidly published as a book (later reprinted) because there was almost no place for them in the time-table. These papers stimulated much interest in the social function of science and in the current philosophical outlook of the new communist state, especially as it was a time of great world economic and social unrest. However, the main business of the congress was elsewhere, and the Soviet intervention was nominally a sideshow, although it excited the main publicity. It enabled J D Bernal to meet Nikolai Bukharin and Boris Hessen with important consequences for attitudes to the role of science in society.