Editor's Page
Science and the social purpose Gerald Laubach is president of Pfizer. He recently received an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University and he also delivered the commencement address for the school's natural science division. Here is part of what he had to say. I do believe that the steady stream of antiscience news does bespeak sentiments of some influential sectors of society. Often exaggerated, superficial, and without pretense of objectivity, the headlines themselves nourish a growing, and real, antiscience cast in society as a whole—one that bodes ill for both science and society. Antiscience bias in our society can work only to impair our ability to get on with the pressing job at hand. And, there are strong inferences that obsessive concerns with the hazards of technology have already had a material impact. It is a matter of empirical fact that the erosion of public confidence in science is being paralleled by an actual decline in U.S. research, development, and technological innovation. A striking case in point was the very nearly successful campaign a year or two ago to write a federal law that would have brought academic molecular biologists under truly Draconian controls. Here was a case where the concerns of a few scientists about so-called recombinant DNA research were systematically exaggerated by a vocal minority seemingly bent on denying socjety the potential benefits of a major new fundamental discovery—one that promises entirely new approaches in the fight against disease, and to meet the world's food and energy needs. And yet we were very nearly denied that promise. I think this case illustrates how susceptible science can be to political naivete, and to the general trend toward more centralized controls. I am convinced that scientists should be concerned about these trends—not least because a good many ingenuous scientists, and a smaller, but important number of politically zealous scientists, have been part of the problem. As science becomes increasingly an issue of public policy, there is a need for greater thoughtfulness and self-discipline within science. There is a need for standards of professional integrity and objectivity in a scientist's policy judgments at least as high as those that govern a scientist's work in his or her technical specialty. Indeed, all scientists need to become more alert to the reality and to the danger of advocacy science, or politicized science, or the science of confrontation—phenomena that have become so prominent in our time. I refer here to those instances where the issues in contention turn out to be not so much what are objective scientific facts, nor even what are the likely social benefits and costs of the outcome, but rather, who shall control and direct, who shall be the arbiter of scientific truth. The case of Soviet geneticist-turned-commissar Trofim Lysenko, of whom some of you may have heard, should have taught us a lesson. In the Stalin era, Lysenko was able to use his authority as director of the Soviet Institute of Genetics to enforce a quite demonstrably false theory of heredity as scientific doctrine. And hence the word "Lysenkoism" entered the vocabulary of science—as a term meaning the enforcement of scientific orthodoxy with the power of the state. We have come very, very close to doing just that. Since the Age of Enlightenment, the power and productivity of science have sprung importantly from its pluralism and its consequent freedom. The gravest danger of all is that, in our time, scientists themselves will, thoughtlessly or foolishly, give both away. Each generation of scientists has always been greeted by its own special set of problems and opportunities. Your generation seems destined to wrestle with the problem of how science, with its great power but also its inherent uncertainties, can best serve an increasingly demanding society. But the mood of the times is changing. There are signs of a growing public impatience with those who would destroy, or do nothing, rather than build. One sees some glimmers of hope that this generation might be destined to re-establish the historic partnership between science and society. It is a critical task, and I wish you all well as you face this challenge and the opportunities that lie ahead. •
Views expressed on this page are those of the author only and not necessarily those of ACS
July 9, 1979 C&EN
5
