WALTER J. MURPHY, EDITOR
The Technological Reformation: M a n
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industrial organization and the scientific record, both inventions of man, have grown tremendously in recent decades. But as these creatures of his genius have enlarged they have demanded ever more from the human individuals who use them as tools. Progress today depends just as much on the effertive use of our present knowledge as on the need for new discovery. This is a large and relatively new challenge to the scientist: How can he utilize, individually or in efficient organization, the pre-existing resources that will aid him on a specific problem? Respected anthropologists and psychologists have found no evidence that the basic intelligence of man has advanced in the period of recorded history. However, the problem we face in utilizing existing knowledge is more quantitative than qualitative. Discovery normally demands more of the intellect than does understanding when discovery is reported. But there is a limit to the number of facts an individual can absorb, certainly a practical limit imposed by the time available, and probably an intellectual limit based on the volume he can assimilate. He must eventually restrict his intake. What should he select to make his most effective contribution to the project team, through which most of us will make our technical contributions? A few proposals made recently imply that some of the team functions are difficult to fulfill through personnel trained in the present scientific disciplines. Paul E. Klopsteg of the National Science Foundation, speaking recently at the Gordon Research Conferences, advocated the establishment of instrumentology as a new professional field. Gordon S. Brown and Donald P. Campbell, writing in the September issue of Scientijc American, see the need for a college curriculum in control system engineering, whose graduate “will need t o know the mathematics of differential equations, functions of a complex variable, statistics, and nonlinear techniques, and to have a thorough grounding in modern physics and chemistry. H e will also need t o be familiar with coniputational aids, such as differential analyzers and computers.” Both these proposals in effect argue that we should assemble new specialties by picking certain components from a number of established scientific disciplines. Interesting observations might result if we were to analyze the basic skill components in these proposals. Perhaps certain groups would prove to be characteristic requirements for many specialties. If this proves true, we may wonder whether the present technical scholastic courses themselves need to be replaced by a system that better answers the demand placed on the modern technical man. Our technical curricula may prove more fruitful if they are organized around tool functions rather than subject specialties. If such a reorientation were made, what sort of human resources might be available for the project team? First of all, the team members would of course all know the specialized fields that principally concern the organization they work for. Regardless of his formal training, the competent employee will rapidly pick up this information following his employment, HE
perhaps with the aid of a company training program. I n addition, each should have certain specialized skills, derived from his college training. One member might be a measurement expert. Consider how fertile his project contribution might be if his educational background had acquainted him with all techniques of measurement and test apparatus design, rather than only those of physics, biology, or chemistry. Another member might be an expert in recorded data, with a broad and extensive lcnowledge of sources and the search techniques for assembling information known to be pertinent t o the project. The team leader might bk a person whose training specifically developed his latent abilities t o analyze the broad objectives and translate them into the specific factors that must be measured, and t o synthesize the factual results of the team into the framework of the objectives. The design of the experiment itself could get powerful aid from a “methods” man, skilled in the tools of statistics, analogy, and experimental approaches. A theorist might contribute the scientific insight to frame logical hypotheses and interpret the fundamental significance of the data, from his broad education in the laws of nature and his mastery of the mathematical tools through which those laws can be discovered and expressed. As the project advances t o pilot plant and production stages, the technologist finds his proper place. H e can supply the art and science of compromise when the limitations of cost, equipment, and process must be accommodated. These speculations are presented primarily to stimulate others to think about the problem, and not as a detailed blueprint for the technological reformation we think may come eventually. Yet we believe that many technical persons, regardless of their formal training, are today making their most valuable professional contributions in one or another of the areas we have drscribed. Their personal interests and vocational function have led them to supplement their original formal training until they can perform such functions. I n the process many of their college-developed skills have fallen into complete disuse and now exist only as little-used terms in their vocabulary and ever more obsolete elements of their technical culture. At the same time, the inexorable march of science demands more and more self-education in the subjects that are their principal tools. Every citizen of our modern industrial civilization should be deeply interested in the efficient utilization of our technical manpower. We are rapidly approaching the point, if we have not indeed already reached it, where this is a controlling factor in our material prosperity and our national security. If we can perceive a route that promises to multiply the potential productiveness of our scientists and technologists, we should test it. Cooperative studies between our industries and the technical colleges could be started now to analyze in most fundamental terms the interrelated factors of educational preparation and organizational utilization. I n capable hands, the consequences of such investigations could have far-reaching import.
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