SOURCE: "The Man of Science," in Everybody's Political What's What, Constable and Company Limited, 1944, pp. 200-13.

In the following excerpt, Shaw considers the absurdity of Pavlov's experiments as they refelct modern scientific practice.

The department of science with which governments are most concerned is biology, the science of life. It includes physiology and psychology, and is the basis of public health legislation and private medical practice. It has gone far beyond the Churches in its violations of individual liberty and integrity. The Christian Church takes an infant from its mother's arms, sprinkles a few drops of water on it, and dedicates it as a soldier and servant of God: a ceremony that has never harmed any infant and has beneficially edified many godfathers and godmothers. The State, by the advice of the biologists, takes the infant from its mother's arms and poisons its blood to exercise its natural...