Science and Government in the United States since 1945

Reingold Nathan , “American indifference to basic research: A reappraisal” in Science, American style (New Brunswick, 1991), 54–75.

Lomask Milton , A minor miracle: An informal history of the National Science Foundation (Washington, 1976).

Roszak's Where the wasteland ends: Politics and transcendence in post industrial society (New York, 1973), plus various essays of his and other authors restated in contemporary terms sharpened by the Viet Nam War and the fears of nuclear holocaust, the classic romantic and conservative fears of science and technology.

A good recent example of this genre is Kleppner Daniel , “The mismeasure of science”, The sciences, xxxi (1991), 18–21. I am indebted to John Rumm for this citation. The point is that writings like Kleppner's and like Roszak's are simply endemic in the U.S. situation. They will reoccur no matter what the particulars of any given period.

The NSB now ritually has a chapter in its annual of Science and engineering indicators repeating the good news about popular attitudes. See, for example, ch. 8 in its 1987 report.

Kaarsberg Tina M. Park Robert L. in “Point of view”, p. A50 of the 20 February 1991 issue of Chronicle of higher education. They cite the 1960s as a golden age. For a comment on the “contract” or “bargain”, see Brown L. B. Dresden M. Hoddeson L. (eds), Pions to quarks: Particle physics — The 1950's (Cambridge, 1989), ll.

I am greatly in debt to a wide range of authors who have dealt with science and government in various senses starting with A. Hunter Dupree's classic Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1957). I am particularly conscious of my indebtedness to writings from those in political science and science policy because I am simultaneously sensitive to differences arising from my allegiance to the ways of doing and thinking of the historians' guild. Among recent works I would note Smith Bruce L. R. , American science policy since World War II (Washington, 1990) and U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Federally funded research, decisions for a decade (Washington, 1991). From the middle of the period of this article, I would strongly recommend Brooks Harvey , The government of science (Cambridge, Mass., 1968) and Reagan Michael D. , Science and the federal patron (New York, 1969), the latter especially for stating the case made then for the social sciences and for his comment (p. 235): “Money cannot, as was once suggested to be the desire of scientists, be left in a hollow log in the dead of night to be picked up anonymously by scientists who would then need to make no accounting whatsoever.” Going even further back, Rosa Edward B. , “Expenditures and revenues of the Federal Government”, The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, xcv (1921), 1–113. I thank Nelson R. Kellogg for the Rosa reference.

I am influenced by the belief that we need to avoid the categorizations based on disciplines and fields and the hierarchical schemes derived from physical sciences and mathematics while at the same time seeing the role of particular knowledge-cultures in the every day activities of non-researching practitioners.

See the last paragraph in William P. Carey's memo dated 31 May 1961 to files reporting the cool response of Drs Wiesner, Kistiakowsky and PSAC members to increasing support of the social sciences, file E4–2/61.1a in records of the Office of Management and Budget (RG 51), U.S. National Archives. Also Carey to Elmer Staats, 7 May 1963, with 6 May enclosure on high energy physics (P7–2/61.1a) where the Budget Bureau staff tries to promote support of behavioural science among the members of the Ramsey Panel on High Energy Physics.

Social science concepts, particular findings, and jargon are quite widespread in U.S. society. Not everyone likes that situation by any means, ranging from right to left on the political spectrum. Social scientists who complain about relative lack of Federal support are, in effect, expressing a preference for formal acts of recognition rather than the more casual way in which their contributions are selectively absorbed by the vernacular culture.

Brooks , op. cit. (ref. 7), 56–57.

“What happened after Sputnik? Universities and federal research policy, 1959–1968”. To appear in the conference proceedings, “Science and the federal patron: Post-World War II government support of American science”.

Based on work in progress on the role of the Office of Manpower and Budget during the Nixon years.

Dupree's Science in the Federal Government is the best over-all source.

Smith , op cit. (ref. 7), 50, notes that Nixon's moves tried to establish an expenditure plateau and some redistribution of funds.

Comments on the small actual support of basic, despite words of support, are in Forman's Paul “Behind quantum electronics: National security as basis for physical research in the United States 1940–1960”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, xviii (1987), 149–229. For comments on reclassification, see Brooks , op. cit. (ref. 7), 130–2, and Reingold Nathan , “Physics and engineering in the United States, 1945–1965: A study of pride and prejudice”, in. Goldberg S. Stuewer R. (eds), American science in the age of Michelson, 1870–1930 (New York, 1988), 288–98.

Reingold , “Physics and engineering …”.

Rouse Joseph , Knowledge and power (Ithaca, 1987). See also the writings of Eda Kranakis such as “Science and technology as interacting socio-cognitive worlds”, in the preprint of the Critical Problems Conference, Madison, 1991. In this and other writings Kranakis is arguing for a technology driven science. Rouse and others, noting the impacts of applied missions, simply downgrade the role of theory and of the drive for knowledge as a motive for research. Many scientists and even some historians and philosophers of science argue for a split and refuse to even consider some interaction of truth-seeking and social goals which is my position. See Beretta Marco , “Lavoisier revisited”, Nuncius, vi (1991), 191–203, esp. pp. 202–3.

See the Budget Bureau staff report (22 Sept. 1961) on “Organization of science policy machinery”, 1ff. in E4/61.1a, RG 51. Another point dwelt on relates to cost sharing: If research is a function of the university, why should the government bear so much of the costs? The response from academe was to suggest that the grant and/or contract for basic was to do work required by the State.

From various tables in such a compilation as NSF, Federal funds for research and development: Detailed historical tables, fiscal year 1955–1986, especially for the years before Reagan, it is possible to make a case for the appreciable role of the university in applied and even development research. This is particularly true if off campus FFRDCs are included. The point is not to denigrate the sincerity of words about basic research but to give a balanced, accurate picture of what occurred and is occurring.

The point is important for what follows on big science. The universities, acting on a sub-set of the ideology of basic research, want to pretend as far as possible, to being ideally redoubts of pure grand savants. It is increasingly difficult to maintain that stance.

Shropshire W. Jr (ed.), The joys of research (Washington, 1981), 115.

U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, Federally funded research: Decisions for a decade (Washington, 1991), 38.

Reingold Nathan , “The case of the disappearing laboratory”, in Science, American style (ref. 1), 224–46.

Galison Peter Hevly Bruce (eds), Big science: The growth of large-scale research (Stanford, 1992), 318, 320.

Weinberg Alvin M. , Reflections on big science (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) is a useful collection of his writings. The reference to the statistics is on p. 68.

The best source for the Smithson story is the recently published vol. vi of the Papers of Joseph Henry (Washington, 1991), edited by Rothenberg Marc .

Reingold Nathan , “National science policy in a private foundation”, in Science, American style (ref. 1), 190–223.

See Kevles's D. J. treatment of the period in The physicists: The history of a scientific community in modern America (New York, 1978), and Reingold Nathan , “Vannevar Bush's new deal for research …”, in Science, American style (ref. 1), 284–333.

Discussed in Reingold Nathan , “Choosing the future: The American research community, 1944–1946”, to appear in the proceedings of the Conference “Science and the Federal Patron”. Based on Long Commission hearing transcripts in the National Library of Medicine.

Olson Keith W. , The G.I. Bill, the veterans, and the colleges (Lexington, Ky, 1975).

Margaret Rossiter's essay, “Science and public policy since World War II”, Osiris, 2nd ser., i (1985), 273–94, has a good brief discussion of education. It is by far the most interesting attempt by an historian of science to survey the terrain. Although this essay aims elsewhere, I am much indebted to Rossiter.

See ref. 30.

Ibid. The positions referred to assumed a small community of grand savants and near grand savants, not the large mass research community characterizing U.S. R & D especially after the Second World War. Note the demeaning judgements of the Rockefeller experiences, the Polio Foundation and the USDA, so different from later popular and scholarly assessments.

At the launching of NSF's biology program, its first after coming into existence, Melvin Calvin objected to the agency's funding a well-established scientist in a privately endowed body (Rating, 17 Sept. 1952, in RG 434, Box 75 of Melvin Calvin Papers). In her comment to me on this item, Dr Toby Appel, who is preparing a history of biology in NSF, noted that the agency “wanted the stars on their rolls”. Calvin (later funded by NSF) wanted the agency to promote the development of new talent, not support specific, already ongoing research. The Calvin Papers are in the Pacific-Sierra Regional Archives of the National Archives and Record Administration, San Bruno, California.

See the Reingold essays cited in refs 16 and 29.

See ref. 16. There is a growing literature discussing medical research in terms of relationships of basic, clinical, and technological development: Vaughan C. Smith B. L. R. Porter Roger J. , Knowledge, xiv (1992), 91–109; Star Susan L. , “Triangulating clinical and basic research”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 29–48; Amsterdamska Olga , “Medical and biological constraints: Early research on variation in bacteriology”, Social studies of science, xvii (1987), 657–87.

Kistiakowsky G. B. to Staats E. , 11 Jan. 1961, Box 3, 61.1b, RG 51.

Schultz G. to McElroy W. D. , 9 Sept. 1970, R7–4/69.1a, RG 51.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 7), 50, 164. For example, the 1987 defence outlays were a lower percentage of GNP than in the heyday of U.S. economic hegemony.

“Do we really need more Ph.D.s, or is fewer really better”, Science, ccli (1991), 1017; Levin Sharon G. Stephen Paula E. , “Research productivity over the life cycle: Evidence for academic scientists”, American economic review, cxxxi (1990), 114–32. The argument is that there are more scientists but less talented and less motivated than previously when scientists came from a smaller, more élite portion of the population. For the problem of quality, see LaFollette M. C. (ed.), Quality in science (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).

This position is a curious “vindication” of the “Matthew Effect” of Robert Merton. If used in the past (as it was in different contexts), this position would have largely limited most of the children of the great migrations of 1880 to 1925 to modest roles in our society. It can now act (if accepted as a social science truth) to restrict the entrance of the children of newer migrations, women, and anyone else not fortunate enough to gain admission as an exception to the sacred precincts of academe.

Although published too late for the composition of the conference version of this paper, Galison P. Hevley B. (eds), Big science: The growth of large scale research (Stanford, 1992), largely contains viewpoints already in print or presented orally. I had heard or benefited from reading some of its contents. There is an overlap with some of the viewpoints expressed, but I am not wholly in agreement with each and every viewpoint. Robert Seidel's contribution I find particularly useful (see pp. 37–38). A quite different essay I find very dubious is Remington's John A. “Beyond big science in America: The binding of inquiry”, Social studies of science, xviii (1988), 45–72.

Goldwasser Edwin , Science, ccxli (1988), 147.

Panofsky W. K. H. , “Big and small science — How different?”, in DeMaria M. Grilli M. Sebastiani Fabio , The restructuring of physical sciences in Europe and the United States, 1945–1960 (Singapore, 1988), 319–37.

Galison Hevly (eds), op. cit. (ref. 43), 134.

Hoddeson Lillian , “The Los Alamos implosion program in World War II: A model for postwar American research”, in DeMaria (eds), op. cit. (ref. 45), 31–54. In the same source, pp. xi, 741 are the quotes given above.

Shapin S. , “The invisible technician”, American scientist, cxxvii (1989), 554–63. See also Heilbron John L. , “The first European cyclotrons”, Rivista di storia della scienza, iii (1986), 1–44, esp. pp. 35–37.

See Hoddeson , op. cit. (ref. 47).

See Galison P. Brown L. B. Dresden M. Hoddeson L. (eds), Pions to quarks: Particle physics in the 1950's (Cambridge, 1989), 223–32.

The Rosenzweig quote is from an article on the human genome mapping in The chronicle of higher education, 18 July 1990; A1, A24-A25.

Smith Robert W. , The space telescope… (Cambridge, 1989).

Weinberg , op. cit. (ref. 26); De Solla Price Derek J. , Science since Babylon (New Haven, 1961) and Little science, big science (New York, 1963). While I have many differences with Price, he is the first to point out past examples of team research with hierarchial suppression of individuality, as in Airy's Greenwich Observatory.

Originally published in Minerva, Weinberg's influential piece is available in his 1967 collection of writings, Reflections on big science (ref. 26).

Weinberg , op. cit. (ref. 26), 110f., 155.

Discussed in “Choosing the future…”, to appear in the conference proceedings, “Science and the federal patron”. The distinction here is not between supporting pure or mission-oriented research since the development of basic knowledge as for a theoretical structure is seen as a mission (and a worthy one) but a mission of a lower priority than one with some desired applied goal of the society.

Weinberg , op. cit. (ref. 26), 159.

Galison Hevly (eds), op. cit. (ref. 25), 5, where Galison, in discussing science–engineering relations, notes that these occur in the building and running of instruments for the manufacture of effects for the manufacture of papers. I do not know whether the author is reflecting a critical or pejorative downgrading of today's scientists as in Shapin's previously cited paper. Both, I suspect, are in the grip of a belief in grand savants in the history of science. My view is that the belief is incomplete as a description of the past and irrelevant for an analysis of the current scene.

Two recent publications are pertinent. Etzkowitz Henry , “Individual investigators and their research groups”, Minerva, xxx (1992), 29–50, gives a spirited defence of university small science research and education. But note his admission (p. 37) that in large departments the professor is often far removed for the daily laboratory experiences by administration and teaching and therefore far removed from the succession of student generations. This and the reference (p. 35) to the “irreducible hierarchical element” is at variance with the democratic-egalitarian/we are all working and learning together theme pervading the paper. A very interesting contribution is Fruton Joseph S. , Contrasts in scientific style … (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, cxci; Philadelphia, 1990) with its distinction between quasi-military research groups and others more permissive and broader in outlook.