by University of Chicago Press, 1999 (revised edition)
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Review
Historically, the actions and attitudes of scientists have separated them from general society. Choosing a specific problem, the scientist withdrew to the laboratory, where he (much more often than she) used unfamiliar equipment to answer, or at least to better understand, the problem under investigation. This apparent isolation changed with the start of World War II, when science and government became strange, and sometimes estranged, bedfellows. Daniel S. Greenberg's The Politics of Pure Science, recently reprinted, documents this early courtship. The author attempts to explain, like a science journalist turned marriage counselor, the dynamics of this unlikely relationship.
The backdrop of the book is the history of early-twentieth-century American
science; its funding sources, methodology, and public image. With few
exceptions, the public's impression of early, isolationist science was
formed by lay reporters. This produced a negative reflex action in the
scientific community, a response that lingers today. Scientists, the author
says, would "often hasten to warn their professional brethren of the perils
. . . of lay scientific reporting." Scientists' aversion to explaining their
craft to the lay audience would directly effect their
efforts to secure government funding later. The public, not surprisingly,
could easily understand applied science and technology, but couldn't vouch
for unfettered and costly basic research. Between the two world wars,
without a wide public audience, and thus without government support, science
was, as Greenberg suggests, an orphan.
It was the combination of the rapid advancement of nuclear physics, the international character of science in general, and the outbreak of the Second World War that brought government and science together during in this century. From its beginning, the marriage was shaky. Nevertheless, despite the "inbred trait of the government service" to think small, the strong political and scientifically trained voice of Vannevar Bush (a voice that had the attentive ear of the White House), helped reshape this alliance into something beneficial to both parties. Bush, as director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, was crucial in leading the way to productive cooperation.
The freedom associated with scientific research was at first alien to the
government sponsors, primarily those associated with the Manhattan Project -
the government-funded, joint scientific-military project to design and build
the first atomic bombs. Security and control were the government's foremost
concerns. Scientists, by contrast, were used to publishing their results,
and sought to protect the unpredictable thought processes they saw as
essential for the well being of science. In the end, the scientists won.
They felt victorious in their efforts to help end the war, a result that
"would have been unattainable," Greenberg contends, "if the management of
the most significant wartime science and technology had not been left to
scientists."
This righteous attitude would prevail in postwar government-sponsored science. Even though the honeymoon between the two may have been over, government was not going to ignore any potential benefits the scientific community might come up with, particularly when American postwar research had a head start on a Europe ravaged by war. Unfortunately, this newly acquired affluence also brought with it a lack of direction and true leadership, including a lack of a proper role for policy making. Full-time lobbying for support of science required top scientists essentially to stop doing science. Most of the postwar leaders of science were in some sense part-time lobbyists and spokesmen, even as they retained their university posts. Nobel physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, for example, was on numerous governing boards and committees while retaining his university position.
The latter third of Greenberg's book is a historical overview of specific
postwar scientific enterprises, how they evolved and, in some cases,
became extinct. The Westheimer Survey, for example, focused on the direct
applications of chemistry. Despite the significant size of the chemical
industry, it had minimal support for basic research. The survey's conclusion
showed that basic research in chemistry was essential to producing "big
[economic] payoff."
The Mohole project, a proposed drilling venture that promised to secure the secrets from the interior of the earth, was a sad, almost comedic failure from its start. Two geologists, when sorting out grant applications, noticed that a significant pile had accumulated that could not be pigeonholed into any established category. A tangible result of this miscellaneous pile was the realization that few of the geological research grant applications had anything to do with searching for some of the bigger questions in Earth's history, its origin, or plate tectonics. Drilling to the earth's mantle was halfheartedly proposed.
With support of the National Academy of
Sciences, the National Science
Foundation was asked for funds to assess the feasibility of the Mohole
project. What began as a $30,000 study in 1958 would end in 1966 with
estimates of over $100,000,000 to complete the drilling platform, the ship,
and other equipment needed to reach down through the earth's mantle.
Chapters in the saga include the National Science Foundation and the
National Academy of Sciences parting ways; controversies concerning the
benefits of a single drilling hole versus selective, multiple drilling
holes; the seemingly tawdry awarding of building contracts; and various
government subcommittees and review panels that examined the cost overruns.
And Mohole's eventual death would not be solitary. Most high-energy physics projects in the postwar years were carried out in either East or West Coast institutions. The Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA) applied to have this corrected, hoping that government financial support for particle accelerators would benefit their own communities. But with other multimillion dollar accelerators already in near completion on the coast, and with pressure to account for multimillion-dollar expenditures by the Johnson administration, the MURA proposal was killed. Particle accelerators, crucial for understanding the basis of matter itself, were not as sexy as space travel, not as useful to the military, and not likely, in the public's view, to yield "useful" results.
The Mohole and MURA controversies spilled over to other agencies,
particularly the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). "In particular, congressmen demanded to know what the NIH
was doing to spread its [multimillion-dollar, government sponsored] wealth,"
Greenberg writes. The congressional committee that reviewed the expenditures
and intent of the NIH were, as one of its members stated, "dissatisfied"
with the administrative and scientific results. With total government
expenditures for science and technology exceeding $13 billion in 1963,
"Congress not only stood by its . . . concern for how much money was being
sought for science . . . but it also began to probe into why it was sought."
The value of reading or rereading The Politics of Pure Science lies in the historical perspective it provides concerning the present. What is the reasoning behind the excessive competition for research grants? Why is science lopsidedly "applied" rather than evenly divided between "applied" and "basic" research? Indirectly, if unsympathetic or uneducated ears determine the fate of pure science, what does that tell us about the importance and the failures of those who "translate" the language and meaning of science for nonscientists? The Politics of Pure Science provides a vivid picture of the sticky, "untidy" nature of performing science yesterday, the foundation of the often stickier and messier nature of performing science today.
Tim Tokaryk is a paleontologist in Eastend, Saskatchewan, Canada.
The knowledge embodied in a scientific paper is neither useful, salable, nor patentable until it is transformed into a technique, a material, a pill, or some other tangible form. Thus, when the public is asked to support science, it is, from its own scientifically illiterate perspective, being asked to support the production of incomprehensible intangibles.
You may purchase this book (336 pp.) directly from:
Essays on Science and Society - this collection from Science magazine is pertinent to Greenberg's topic.
National Science Foundation: History - five online articles.
Science: The Endless Frontier - Vannevar Bush's outline of possible scientific endeavors was written in 1945 for President Truman.
Basic and Applied Science - explanatory essay from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Issues in Science And Technology (National Academy Press) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (White House) - more government-related issues concerning science and technology can be viewed at these Web sites.
AAAS Directorate for Science & Policy Programs - links to the Center for Science and Technology & Congress, which offers assessments of current science issues before the U.S. Congress.
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