Professor Northrop, in his introduction to Professor Heisenbergs volume in the World Perspectives series entitled Physics and Philosophy, makes the following significant observation:
It is frequently assumed by native leaders of non-Western societies and also often by their Western advisors, that the problem of introducing modern scientific instruments and ways into Asia, the Middle East and Africa is merely that of giving native people their political independence and then providing them with the funds and the practical instruments. This facile assumption overlooks several things. First, the instruments of modern science derive from its theory and require a comprehension of that theory for their correct manufacture or effective use. Second, this theory in turn rests on philosophical as well as physical assumptions… one cannot bring in the instruments of modern physics without sooner or later introducing its philosophical mentality, and this mentality, as it captures the scientifically trained youth, upsets the old familial and tribal moral loyalties. If unnecessary emotional conflict and social demoralization are not to result, it is important that the youth… must see their experience as the coming together of two different philosophical mentalities, that of their traditional culture and that of the new physics.