A Summons for Scientists
Perhaps even more than most segments of the American society, the scientific community has cultivated a practiced preoccupation-a posture that except in times of peril, has enabled scientists to remain detached from, sometimes even averse to, major problems in our national life. If this has been a requisite to progress in science, it also has led not only to communication barriers but, in some cases at least, to unfortunate public relations. Not that the scientific community, particularly the academic contingent, has had much occasion to look outside itself in the years since World War 11-massive support for its commendable effort has coutinued through hot and cold wars, during economic recessions, in the midst of major crises involving witch hunts, civil rights, and crime in the streets, and despite the threat of nuclear holocaust or the rising harassmeut of air and stream pollution. This country has been good to science: It has appropriated funds with almost naive reliance; it has permitted science to write its own rules for disbursing the funds; it has tolerated, somewhat surprisingly a t times, a scientific aggressiveuess that frequeutly borders on truculence. To be sure, there are good reasons behind this priviledge, for in the miuds of many, scietme, like the super star on the athletic team, has repeatedly proved its mettle as society's bread-and-butter provider, as its clutch performer in times of trouble, as its wellspririg of streugth and power. However there is increasing evidence that the prohlems that imperil this nation today cannot be solved by a preoccupied science or eveu by a scientific community mobilized to apply its knowledge in traditional ways. It is becoming increasingly more apparent that these problems can be solved only by men whose enlightened compassion as citizens claims priority over their commitment to a discipline, and whose dedication to humanity drives them to action in a wider sphere. It is not so much that scientists, any more than professionals in other disciplines, are blinded by predilection as it is that blind predilectiou is the enemy that can eusnare us. Now, perhaps more than ever, this country needs the wise counsel of science-but of a scieuce matured by responsible citizenship aud motivated by the gravity of events. It needs a science that will state-and restate-its case for theurgency of basic research money with the same force and conviction that it argues for at-
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tacks on poverty, for equal rights for all men, for an end to killing, for the dignity of the humau spirit. This country needs scieutists who respond to discommodity not with threats but with resolution to make do until a more compelling presentation car1 be made. It needs inspired scieuce teachers from all castes within the scientific commuuity-men who, in accepting the obligation to communicate with the society which supports them, also welcome the challenge to advance its intellectual evolution. It needs teachers who will show students how to use science and how to live with its by-products. But most of all it ueeds more of its fine scientific minds in dedicated public service. No doubt public service and especially the political sphere hold a special terror for the scientist, trained as he is to work in the nonviolent world of controllcd experiments with their results and conclusions thrashed out with agonizing profundity. Nowhere in his professional experience hm he been called upon to live by his glands, to respond with only his basic instincts, to take a stand with virtually no reproducible data on issues that have an equal chance of passing unnoticed or of inflaming public opinion around the world. And yet how often fateful decisions are made in that political sphere that a scieutist would have violently opposed or could have helped make more accommodating; how often lawyers have chosen for society what no responsible citizen-scientist could countenance; and how immoral have been certain decisions made by normally moral men through ignorauce of the science and technology that dominate our culture. Therefore it seems important that many more scientists enter public service-not as advisers only but as administrators and office holders, as members of teams that make vital decisions and formulate essential policy. However, the motivation for those answering this call is not that they can expect to find the going in the political sphere easy or to their liking or even that they can expect that their mental assets make them more trenchant or more prudent than other intelligent men who serve. It is simply that, confronted as it is by incredible difficulties, this nation needs its finest minds at the place where the life-or-death issues are being decided. Under these circumstances the scientific community will want to be well represented there. WTL
Volume 45, Number
4, April 1968
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