Contents
Editorial
You might as well ask Picasso...
Newscripts 72 Drink from b a n a n a s
Scientists have too often assumed that they needn't communicate directly with the public, or, if they do, that the onus is somehow on the public to sort it all out. A strange notion, we think, but one that surfaced once again—this time at the Roche symposium (see page 24). The meeting was tame enough until Dr. Niels Kaj Jerne, head of Basel Institute of Immunology, let fly with this remarkable statement: "Scientists should communicate to the public what they are doing . . . through scientific publications . . . . You may say they [the public] will not understand. Why don't they [scientists] do it in a different way? If others don't understand, that's their problem. You cannot popularize science. You might as well ask Picasso why he doesn't paint differently " It took some 24 hours in coming, but the resulting flak from fellow scientists, I'm glad to say, was formidable. Sample: "If we really stick to that attitude . . . and mean that we cannot explain to people in a manner that they can understand what we are doing, I think we have lost the whole ballgame . . . " (C. A. Berry). And another: "People are afraid of scientists because they don't understand what they're doing. Now science is indeed an extremely complicated and highly developed subject. And intelligibility is a problem . . . . Between branches of science, there is an intelligence network . . . and we must set up a similar network between scientists and lay people" (A. S. U. Burgen). Sometime columnist Joshua Lederberg then entered the fray. Firmly committed to communicating science to the people, the geneticist would like to reverse the trend of alienation between scientist and layman because, as he puts it, it's the public that pays for research and because the scientist is, after all, part of the community of people "whence he comes and to whom he is responsible." But he thinks it very difficult for scientists themselves to act as popularizers. He sees this as a specialized role—that of the scientific journalist. "He urges such journalists be encouraged with consequent reciprocal benefits." Well, it's a subject dear to our heart, needless to say. We think Dr. Jerne, if we understood him correctly, is wrong. Apparently some scientists do view themselves as Picassos, dabbing on the canvas of life, answerable to no man. There it is. Make of it what you will. To a degree, we share this notion of the beauty of science. But science is not art, though having similar attributes. The Picasso analogy is false. Picasso can do what he likes, and people can applaud or yawn, take it or leave it, their basic well-being unaffected. The scientist, on the other hand, may innocently conjure up works of technical beauty which may affect all mankind, for good or bad. What begins as a work of art can become a picture of Dorian Gray. That's why scientists and the public must continually review the state of the art—together. But we think Lederberg is right, too. Scientists shouldn't be asked to be popularizers any more than journalists should be expected to become scientists. But both groups should work at it, meeting at convenient transfer points and garnering Lederberg's reciprocal benefits. Patrick P. McCurdy
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C&EN EDITORIALS REPRESENT ONLY THE VIEWS OF T H E AUTHOR AND AIM AT TRIGGERING INTELLIGENT DISCUSSION.
Chemical & Engineering News
October 25, 1971 Volume 49, Number 44 Letters 5 Ignorance and morality Chemical World This Week 9 GPI earnings rebound 10 Industry recruiting drops 10 Textile import curb 11 Science and ethics 11 Ft. Detrick converted 12 Water pollution bill 12 Ocean law bad for science Industry/Business 13 Concentrates 14 Specialty gases 16 Rubber chemicals m a r k e t 19 Industry This Week in Brief Government 20 Concentrates 21 Patent bill International 23 Concentrates 24 Roche symposium Science 26 Concentrates 29 Photoelectron spectroscopy 30 Cryobiochemistry 32 C&EN Talks With . . . Technology 36 Concentrates 37 Allied's fertilizer process 35 New Products ACS News/People 41 Election candidates 59 Meeting p r o g r a m
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Norman Favin
C&EN OCT. 25, 1971
