Science Policy: Dimensions and Directions
To most readers of this page, overwhelmed as we are with so many serious and immediate problems of attempting to provide substantive and significant educational programs for restless and ever more apprehensive students in turbulent, soul-stretching times, even the thought of contemplating the ambiguities and complexities of national or international science policy must be oppressive. And yet, it is this very policy-or the absence of it-that will dominate the lives of all, and determine to a great extent the kinds of options and opportunities available for solving many of our greatest problems and reaching our highest goals. Science policy can be defined as that compendium of a nation's plans and strategies designed to encourage and fostcr the utilization of science in the service of man and society. I n the past, and despite brave rhetoric to the contrary, scicnce policy in this country and abroad has been little more than a series of guidelines and tactics for supporting fundamental research and for refereeing disputes on the allocation of what are now diminishing resources in and for science. Little thought was given to linking important social goals or the management of technology with the activities and priorities of the scientific community. Recently several groups have taken the lead in providing some new perspectives on science policy. One of these is an international group of ten led by Harvard physicist Harvey Brooks who also is chairman of the Committee on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences. The Brooks' committee report, "Science, Growth and Society-A New Perspective," was published in Paris by OECD in 1971. A second group consists of rninisters responsible for the science policy of the European member states of UNESCO; its report, "Science Policy and thc European States," was published last year by UNESCO. A third group is President Nixon's Technology Opportunities Task Force headed by W. A[. Magrudcr with assistance from the Office of Science and Tcchnology. The thinking and plans of this group are just now being released to the public. All three groups address themselves to designing science policy so it becomes a key instrument in overall public policy, calling for stronger orientation of the scientific effort toward solving social problems and improving the quality of life, demanding wiser allocation of scientific resources and creative effort, and emphasizing the need for balanced social, economic, and cultural assessments of technological applications. Research policy is now seen as an important arm of a science policy that must dominate and guide all
I editorially speaking
scientific and technological progress. Accordingly, science policy must be developed in the near future to .Help get some high risk but socially and economically useful projects off the ground. Included are projects for better health care and transportation; cheaper methods for extracting needed minerals and fuels, and for air quality control. .Adapt the work style t o the psychological needs of individuals, rather than let economic efficiency and technological expediency set the patterns t o which workers must conform. .Assure the sensible management of technological progress so that change will not be left t o follow the logic of technology alone, hut esch advance will beconsideredin light of itsprobable social, economic, and cultural cost. .Examine the dynamics and feasibility of achieving global environmental stability. Consider international cooperetion in approaching technological problems, especially among developing and developed nations.
Immediate attention is needed, in this country a t least, to encouraging corporations to invest in research, and to be less conservative in marketing new products and processes. The problem of managing technology, and the idea that this might be handled in large part by science should be explored carefully. Basically, the problem is one of assessing the cost-benefit ratio for each significant technological advance, and developing only those that have greatest promise, but without stifling future innovation or permitting one technology to become so dominant that the potential of related technologies goes unrealized. The idea that science can help manage technology is tied in with the need to nurture innovation and to safeguard against unjustified dominance by established technologies. If, as suggested by L. M. Branscomb, director of the National Bureau of Standards [Science, 175, 261 (1972)], the standards for judging whether a specific goal has been met are based upon performance criteria rather than on design specifications, then the scientist and engineer trying to meet the goal can search for innovative solutions with minimum restraint, and everyone will have an opportunity to evaluate how successful the solutions are. I n this way, research and creativity rather than detailed prescriptions based on what could be outmoded or irrelevant technology determine what can be done. I n this way also, science can rationally and creatively help regulate, and thus help manage, technology. But the scientific community must address itself seriously to this problem, demonstrating clearly and unequivocally, that it intends to manage technology and to utilize its own resources responsibly. Otherwise the lawyers and politicians will not only manage technology, they also will become the framers of science policy, and ultimately the managers of science itself. WTL Volume 49, Number
3, March 1972
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