00:00:00 The following program is produced by KGED and the American Chemical Society.

00:00:06 This is big science.

00:00:07 This is little science.

00:00:10 Which comes first?

00:00:12 Is sending this to the moon more important than tearing this down?

00:00:17 Who decides between radio telescopes and more food?

00:00:21 Or if more money is spent by people interested in links of viruses to cancer than by the

00:00:26 scientists seeking ways to harness the atom?

00:00:30 And where will the money go?

00:00:32 To Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Berkeley, California, or Tulsa, Oklahoma?

00:00:38 With a $16 billion slice of the federal budget going to science and technology, those questions

00:00:43 concern all of us.

00:00:46 They affect how we live, where we work, what we do with our leisure, the quality of the

00:00:51 air we breathe, the water we use, the soundness of our health, all offshoots of what some

00:00:58 have called the American theology, promising salvation by material works.

00:01:05 It is an institution for which tax funds are appropriated almost on faith.

00:01:10 Here is the moderator, David Perlman, science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

00:01:19 Our guests this evening are Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, chairman of the United States Atomic

00:01:24 Energy Commission, Dr. Robert W. Cairns, who is president of the American Chemical Society

00:01:30 and vice president of Hercules Incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware, and Dr. George B.

00:01:35 Kischakowski, professor of chemistry at Harvard and vice president of the National Academy

00:01:41 of Science.

00:01:43 This evening we want to talk about a good many aspects of science and how it gets done

00:01:49 in the United States.

00:01:50 And I suppose the first question is how it gets financed.

00:01:54 And Dr. Seaborg, since you are working in a scientific establishment that probably has

00:01:59 a largest chunk of financing among, well, not counting NASA perhaps, but a pretty large

00:02:05 chunk of financing, I'd like to ask you something about how decisions are made, where and how

00:02:12 scientific money gets spent within the Atomic Energy Commission.

00:02:16 That's a complicated question, and the answer has to be correspondingly complicated.

00:02:24 Science is supported by a number of agencies, including agencies whose function is explicitly

00:02:33 for the support of science, and then a number of mission agencies, of which mine is an example,

00:02:39 the Atomic Energy Commission, which support science on a large scale, supposedly related

00:02:47 to their missions, but actually rather broadly interpreted in terms of the needs of science.

00:02:53 So we have the Department of Defense.

00:02:56 And in terms of the whole picture, research and development, and I hope we'll get back

00:03:00 to a definition of these terms because that's very important, their percentage support is

00:03:07 the largest.

00:03:08 And I believe NASA comes next.

00:03:11 And then agencies like the Atomic Energy Commission and HEW and all of its component parts, the

00:03:20 National Institutes of Health and so forth, the Department of Agriculture, Department

00:03:25 of Commerce, Department with the Bureau of Standards, Department of Interior, and some

00:03:34 other agencies are the main components of this.

00:03:37 National Science Foundation.

00:03:38 And of course the National Science Foundation that George Kistiakowsky has mentioned.

00:03:43 Well, in your own agency, certainly there are large areas which are not directly science.

00:03:49 They're weapons development, for example, which accounts for a big chunk of the Atomic

00:03:54 Energy Commission's budget, $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion, something like that?

00:03:59 Well, the research and development component of our budget, our total budget is about $2.5

00:04:05 billion.

00:04:06 The research and development component of that, which covers all aspects, the weapons

00:04:10 development and the reactor developments, and all that we put into basic research and

00:04:17 physical science and the biological sciences and isotopes and so forth amounts to a little

00:04:25 bit more than $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion, or $1.7 billion at the present time, but most

00:04:32 of that is in the development part of the research and development.

00:04:36 Our support of basic research is in the neighborhood of $300 million, and then in the related field

00:04:45 of applied research, perhaps another $100 million.

00:04:48 And that's somewhat similar to the ratio between basic research and the total research and

00:04:54 development.

00:04:55 Federal government supports research and development as a whole to the extent of about $17 billion

00:05:03 as an annual budget at the present time, but of this, the basic research component is only

00:05:08 a little bit more than $2 billion.

00:05:10 It might be interesting or profitable or amazing, I guess, just to note in passing, that the

00:05:16 $17 billion research and development figure contrasts to, I think it was something like

00:05:21 $40 million in 1940.

00:05:24 Yes, and I think all of us lived through those days when it was quite the exception.

00:05:30 Well, more than the exception, before 1940, we didn't have any support from the federal

00:05:36 government for our research.

00:05:37 It was all supported in the universities by the universities themselves, and of course,

00:05:44 in some instances, this meant state support with some private foundation support.

00:05:49 In those days, agriculture was about the only subject that received very much government

00:05:53 support.

00:05:54 That's right, and to be accurate, that part was supported by the federal government, but

00:06:01 in the physical sciences and the biological sciences, the federal government wasn't in

00:06:06 the picture at all.

00:06:07 Dr. Kischikowski, do you think that as of now, federal funding of scientific research

00:06:15 is at an adequate level?

00:06:17 That's almost like asking me whether I stopped peaking my wife.

00:06:23 You have to define first what's the word adequate.

00:06:26 Well, by your definition, if I may.

00:06:28 By my definition.

00:06:29 Then tell me whether you think we're spending enough money.

00:06:34 I would say yes and no.

00:06:38 We have probably the world's largest support for science.

00:06:43 I'm now talking about science only, not the engineering operations, which are referred

00:06:50 to as development, which are aimed at producing very specific items, whether it be the military

00:06:57 hardware or space engine of some kind, or commercial project software, whatnot.

00:07:04 What do you make, for instance, in your spare time at Hercules?

00:07:10 I'm talking about scientific research, which generally is defined as activity aimed at

00:07:18 enlarging human knowledge about the world we live in and ourselves as part of that world.

00:07:25 On that basis, of course, the United States is way ahead of everybody, and I think that

00:07:31 there is some fat in the budget in the sense that some of the work that's being financed

00:07:39 is maybe financed on a somewhat unnecessarily generous scale.

00:07:47 I remember going into one laboratory.

00:07:49 I want to identify the agency which supports that laboratory, where I discovered that every

00:07:55 graduate student had a small mass spectrometer attached to his piece of equipment, and when

00:08:02 they discussed what they were doing, the subject didn't sound very exciting.

00:08:07 So there are funny things like that happening, but on the other hand, I think that there's

00:08:14 also not enough money, particularly in the last few years, because of the problem that

00:08:21 it's very difficult to cut out the fat.

00:08:24 I mean, the problem of stopping projects which are not really the best and so on is an exceedingly

00:08:33 difficult operation in any kind of a large organization.

00:08:37 Well, it must be very difficult just to make a qualitative judgment that a project isn't

00:08:41 the best before the project is completed, and at that point you found out it wasn't

00:08:44 the best, but you had to follow the rule anyway.

00:08:46 Well, George, for example, isn't there some feeling that the support in chemistry is inadequate?

00:08:52 The report of the Westheimer committee, for example.

00:08:55 That's right.

00:08:56 It's been very much inadequate as a result of Westheimer's report, and I'm very proud

00:09:02 for having started all of these science reports.

00:09:06 Yes, that was one of the National Academy of Sciences reports that really started under

00:09:10 George's aegis.

00:09:11 The statistics, though, don't show that there's been very great change subsequent to that

00:09:16 report.

00:09:17 Well, there has been relative to other scientific support.

00:09:22 I mean, the rate of growth in chemistry hasn't been spectacular, but the reason for that

00:09:28 is that some other sciences, that scientific budget as a whole has been only growing at

00:09:35 a rate of something like 5 or 6 percent the last three years.

00:09:37 Now, didn't the National Academy at one time indicate that the rate of growth of federal

00:09:43 support for scientific research should be at the rate of about 15 percent a year?

00:09:48 I am one of the guys who proposed this figure.

00:09:52 And the rate, you say, is about 5, in actual fact?

00:09:54 No, I think it's a little higher than 5, George.

00:09:56 I think it's closer to 10 even the last few years.

00:10:00 It was up to about 30 percent per year in the period from about 1955 to 1965, and now

00:10:07 it's dropped back by a factor of about 3 or so, but maybe not a factor of 6.

00:10:13 Well, Glenn, there are so many reasons.

00:10:15 I know.

00:10:16 I agree with you.

00:10:17 In any event, it's not nearly up to the level at which the National Academy believes it

00:10:22 was.

00:10:23 If we notice, for example, in the figures, the actual amount that is supporting chemistry

00:10:28 out of that $2.3 billion is about $130 million, which is a fairly small fraction considering

00:10:36 the all-pervasive nature of chemistry.

00:10:38 Now, if you look at some other areas, for example, astronomy is roughly twice that.

00:10:43 Well, astronomy grew in the last two years to double what it was.

00:10:47 And has some very expensive instruments.

00:10:49 I was going to say, if you were to touch what they believe in, astronomy would be the...

00:10:54 Well, chemistry is getting fairly complex, too.

00:10:56 As you mentioned, the mass spectrometer in every laboratory.

00:11:00 Nevertheless, there are favorites that are being played in this game, and they relate

00:11:05 to the human motivations that are more of political nature behind them.

00:11:09 Everybody knows that science became of age because of the dominant need for national

00:11:15 security.

00:11:16 This certainly applies to the Defense Department, which is the bulk of that $16.7 billion.

00:11:20 It certainly applies, at least in the initial phases, to Atomic Energy Commission.

00:11:25 And one of the reasons that chemistry, by and large, is not so strongly supported is

00:11:30 because it pertains more to the ordinary pursuits of mankind, food, clothing, and shelter, and

00:11:36 mundane things like that, rather than to these very strong motivations that one gets in national

00:11:42 security.

00:11:43 Of course, if I, as a spokesman for the non-scientific community, were to interject an opinion here,

00:11:50 it would be to the effect that an area that seems to me singularly lacking in support

00:11:56 is that area of behavioral and social science research, which hopefully might arrive at

00:12:02 social controls over some of the things that we're doing with the technological development

00:12:06 for the last few years.

00:12:07 And, Dave, you might add to that the area of the humanities, too.

00:12:09 In fact, that's probably even more under-supported than the social sciences, I suppose you're

00:12:14 right.

00:12:15 I would like to return back to this general question, is there enough scientific support?

00:12:21 And as I was saying, there is still a tremendous amount of work going, and some of the work

00:12:27 is very generously supported.

00:12:29 I think, though, that what we ought to emphasize, even more broadly than what Bob Kearns said,

00:12:36 is the lack of support for new projects that are proposed by younger people.

00:12:43 There's enough federal money to keep going what there is, but there's less and less money

00:12:51 for the young people.

00:12:52 And so what we're really doing, we're living, in a way, in a borrowed time, because these

00:12:56 young people are not given the opportunities to develop themselves further.

00:13:04 The same thing applies to some new graduate students whose work is in finance so that

00:13:12 they can do the best experimental work they could otherwise.

00:13:17 And that is, of course, really the normal first evidence of slowdown of the growth rate.

00:13:25 Yes, this is the first, this is the place where it hurts you first, starting new projects.

00:13:32 In addition to that slowdown of the growth rate in terms of financing young people, you're

00:13:36 going to become face-to-face in science with a slowdown of the growth rate of scientific

00:13:40 manpower, aren't you, if the new draft policies begin to take up to half the students as they

00:13:47 graduate from college?

00:13:48 The figure is about 70 percent in the physical sciences if one takes the figures from the

00:13:53 Scientific Manpower Commission and applies them to incoming students into the graduate

00:13:58 schools.

00:13:59 Seventy percent will be gone in the future if the current proposal in the draft policy

00:14:04 is carried out.

00:14:05 What's this going to do to science?

00:14:06 It will mean there will be mostly women, couples, and multiple fathers.

00:14:13 Well, I don't know that necessarily women don't make good scientific researchers.

00:14:17 You owe a debt to Madame Curie.

00:14:19 The number would be down to 30 percent.

00:14:21 Boy, I have nothing against women.

00:14:24 No, but my question is a serious one.

00:14:27 What's going to happen to science ten years ago if you draft 70 percent of your students

00:14:30 in the physical sciences?

00:14:31 We have maintained and husbanded these skills and resources since 1940, through the World

00:14:36 War II and through the Korean episode, and now all of a sudden we say we're going to

00:14:41 take that reservoir of skills and put it into the draft supply.

00:14:47 And preferentially, they're all going to be taken first before anyone else goes.

00:14:52 Now, who does this and why?

00:14:54 I mean, this is a stab at our national resources that I cannot understand.

00:15:00 I very much agree with Bob Kearns.

00:15:02 I think it's a fantastic thing to do.

00:15:05 Well, you recently resigned a couple of your consulting posts with the Defense Department,

00:15:10 I believe, haven't you, Dr. Kistiakowsky?

00:15:13 Yes.

00:15:14 I haven't resigned generally from what part-time jobs I have in the government, but I have

00:15:22 resigned from the jobs which had to do very much with the Vietnam problem, because I felt

00:15:30 that I couldn't in good conscience continue to be involved in an area where I have deep

00:15:41 and irreconcilable objections to the present policies.

00:15:47 I didn't mean to imply that.

00:15:49 I was against defense policy in what I said.

00:15:51 No, I understand.

00:15:52 As far as I'm concerned, the defense of these people in graduate school and the people in

00:15:58 critical jobs in industry is important for all of the nation's needs, because we are

00:16:03 seeking world leadership against communism in all branches, not just in the military,

00:16:08 but in the economic and in the cultural and in the scientific areas.

00:16:12 And we do have that leadership today, and I think we are running danger of crippling it in the future.

00:16:16 So you would define in the long or in the broad scope of national security, you believe

00:16:22 these people are essential to our national security, not in the army?

00:16:25 Because we have to win in many more ways than just the military way.

00:16:29 Dr. Seaborg, has the Atomic Energy Commission's budget money for scientific research now,

00:16:38 and I mean the basic sciences, has that support been growing at what you would consider to

00:16:45 be an appropriate rate?

00:16:47 Yes, I think in balance.

00:16:49 It has been growing at a rate that has enabled us to support an increasing number of activities

00:17:02 over the years.

00:17:03 I don't know about the last year or two.

00:17:07 I think it's been a little tight during that period, but I would hope that we'd get over

00:17:13 that and go on back to the rate of growth that we have in the past.

00:17:17 How will we get over it?

00:17:19 Well, if we have the problems to finish, we would hope that we could get on with the job.

00:17:35 A major project of the AEC in the immediate future, hopefully, is not a chemistry project,

00:17:46 but a physics project, and that's the big proposed accelerator in Western Illinois.

00:17:51 What's the likelihood of getting funding for that to meet some kind of a reasonable time schedule?

00:17:57 Well, I don't know.

00:17:59 Actually, we're asking for a partial funding at the present time.

00:18:02 In the present Congress, we're asking for a funding of about $25 million out of the total,

00:18:08 which is now estimated to be about $250 million.

00:18:14 How long will that last, the $25 million?

00:18:18 Well, a year.

00:18:20 Just for one year?

00:18:21 Just for one year.

00:18:22 In other words, we're asking for the funding...

00:18:24 Oh, this is not authorization.

00:18:26 It's just the actual appropriation.

00:18:29 We actually asked for the authorization for the total.

00:18:33 I don't know whether we will succeed in obtaining that or not.

00:18:38 But in addition to that, then, as a separate step,

00:18:43 involving a separate committee in Congress, actually, the Appropriations Committee,

00:18:49 we're asking for the appropriations of $25 million.

00:18:53 You know, I think trying to read Congress's mind is a difficult thing,

00:18:58 and you know much better than anyone, I guess, here that it's difficult.

00:19:03 But Craig Hosmer, on the Joint Atomic Energy Committee,

00:19:09 said in a recent issue of Science, gave an equation,

00:19:14 P.E. equals P.M.

00:19:16 Public esteem equals public money.

00:19:19 And he said the public's love affair with science has been cooling.

00:19:23 He said science should consciously rekindle

00:19:25 some of the public's former affection for science.

00:19:28 The scientific community should take greater pains

00:19:31 to make clear that its efforts contribute directly and indirectly

00:19:34 to the public good.

00:19:35 Research priorities should be adjusted wherever possible

00:19:38 to the public's priorities.

00:19:40 I wonder how you'd react to a statement like that.

00:19:43 Well, the larger the amount of money that you seek in appropriating things,

00:19:46 the higher you get in the hierarchy of politics.

00:19:49 And I think that's what has happened over many years.

00:19:52 Because in the early days, the people that made the decisions

00:19:55 were those who were very directly acquainted with the programs.

00:19:58 Then it became the higher administrators, and still higher.

00:20:01 And finally it gets into the political, straight political arena,

00:20:05 and these people do have to understand the problem.

00:20:07 And I'd say that many of these committees of Congress

00:20:09 do understand the problem very well.

00:20:11 Yes, and the Joint Committee is a perfect example

00:20:13 of one that does its homework very effectively.

00:20:15 I think Craig Hosmer is one of those who does his homework

00:20:18 and understands it, and by the way,

00:20:20 uses some of the most picturesque language in Congress

00:20:24 or out of Congress, and you've just given us a good example of that.

00:20:27 Yeah, well, I would certainly say that the point he makes

00:20:30 is a very, very important one.

00:20:33 I've been for some time wondering about this problem

00:20:38 of how essentially to convince the public,

00:20:42 because in the end it's the taxpayers and the voters

00:20:47 who put together Congress,

00:20:49 that's very much representative of the people,

00:20:52 to convince them that scientific research

00:20:56 is something which is completely essential

00:21:00 for the further growth of our society,

00:21:03 and in fact it's completely inevitable

00:21:06 that as time goes on,

00:21:09 scientific research will be a slowly increasing fraction

00:21:13 of our gross national project.

00:21:15 It's the evolution of our society

00:21:17 toward a more and more highly technological society

00:21:23 with production being automated,

00:21:25 with service being automated,

00:21:27 and therefore more people being available

00:21:30 for creation of new things.

00:21:33 But I think that what we have to do

00:21:37 is to convey, among other things,

00:21:39 is to convey the notion

00:21:41 that even research,

00:21:43 and I'm now talking about research in universities,

00:21:46 institutions of higher learning,

00:21:48 which isn't directly associated

00:21:50 with a practical mission

00:21:52 of a government agency,

00:21:54 let's say the Atomic Energy Commission

00:21:56 or defense or health,

00:21:59 does have a very practical mission

00:22:02 in most cases,

00:22:05 and that is to train young people

00:22:08 so that they will step into the breach,

00:22:12 fill the ranks of future teachers

00:22:14 in the universities,

00:22:15 they'll go into industry,

00:22:17 they'll go into the government,

00:22:19 and without that process,

00:22:21 the progress of our society is impossible.

00:22:25 And so I think that probably

00:22:27 we would need to justify

00:22:31 as money spent for pure science,

00:22:35 for pure acquisition of knowledge,

00:22:38 without any practical mission,

00:22:41 only a tiny fraction of the total federal budget.

00:22:45 The rest all has practical missions.

00:22:49 I'm concerned, though, once again,

00:22:52 at the problem of social controls

00:22:57 and how the public

00:22:59 and its concepts of priorities

00:23:01 in science and technology

00:23:03 how the public develops

00:23:05 a concept of priorities

00:23:07 and then how it puts the pressure on

00:23:09 to see that those priorities are met.

00:23:11 Don't you think that

00:23:13 this problem will be helped to some extent

00:23:15 as the public

00:23:17 learns more and more about science?

00:23:19 I have a feeling that the coming generation

00:23:22 is going to be much better

00:23:24 informed in science,

00:23:26 have a much higher degree of scientific literacy

00:23:28 if you want to put it that way,

00:23:30 than the present generation

00:23:33 or previous generations.

00:23:35 I certainly have the feeling

00:23:37 that this is the case on the basis

00:23:39 of my own children

00:23:40 and what they're learning in school.

00:23:42 They're learning at a grade level

00:23:44 much below where I did

00:23:46 a great deal about science

00:23:48 and I think pretty good science, too,

00:23:50 and broadly.

00:23:52 Yes, but of course, Glenn,

00:23:54 science is at the same time

00:23:56 esoteric.

00:23:58 But I believe

00:24:00 that this

00:24:02 basic understanding

00:24:04 of science

00:24:06 will help people to realize

00:24:08 the intrinsic, broad value

00:24:10 of science

00:24:12 even beyond the area

00:24:14 of their own understanding.

00:24:16 Just as you and I no longer

00:24:18 understand

00:24:20 many areas of science,

00:24:22 I think we have

00:24:24 an intrinsic

00:24:26 feeling for it

00:24:28 and an appreciation

00:24:30 that comes from our

00:24:32 understanding of some areas.

00:24:34 I would say also that what's terribly important

00:24:36 is, and I hope it will

00:24:38 be forthcoming,

00:24:40 is for the scientific community

00:24:42 to

00:24:44 put more and more effort, essentially,

00:24:46 into

00:24:48 the communication with

00:24:50 the rest of our society.

00:24:52 Absolutely.

00:24:54 And I think scientists should spend

00:24:56 the time and the effort

00:24:58 to communicate

00:25:00 with the public,

00:25:02 not only in their own specialties,

00:25:04 but in this whole area of explaining

00:25:06 contemporary

00:25:08 science and contemporary discoveries

00:25:10 and the role that these

00:25:12 will play in

00:25:14 the present society

00:25:16 and in our future technological and scientific

00:25:18 society. Yeah, and it's particularly important

00:25:20 because, after all, it's the public itself which has

00:25:22 to maintain social controls over

00:25:24 science. And, for example,

00:25:26 you know, we've had

00:25:28 a thalidomide disaster, we have a smog

00:25:30 crisis, we have water pollution

00:25:32 crisis, eutrophication killing

00:25:34 fish in the Great Lakes, we have

00:25:36 all kinds of crises

00:25:38 that are brought about by technology. But most of these

00:25:40 have scientific fixes. That's right, they have

00:25:42 scientific fixes. They're brought on by science,

00:25:44 but they have scientific fixes. That's correct.

00:25:46 And that's important to realize.

00:25:48 David Kresh, for example, at the University

00:25:50 of California in Berkeley, asked

00:25:52 recently, must we always find social

00:25:54 policy coming in last

00:25:56 in the constant race with advancing science

00:25:58 and galloping technology?

00:26:00 What I think he's meaning is that the public is not

00:26:02 yet able

00:26:04 to help

00:26:06 formulate social policies to

00:26:08 control and direct science and technology

00:26:10 for the good. And I think they must become able

00:26:12 and I believe they are becoming able

00:26:14 because of the

00:26:16 greater attention to science in the

00:26:18 schools beginning at the lower levels and

00:26:20 all the way through. Well, the chemistry

00:26:22 society, the American

00:26:24 chemical society, has

00:26:26 taken steps in recent years

00:26:28 to try to bring into

00:26:30 the public eye the potential

00:26:32 contributions of chemistry as well as the actual

00:26:34 ones. In the field

00:26:36 of what you call pollution or

00:26:38 improvement of the environment

00:26:40 we have a special study group

00:26:42 under our Committee on

00:26:44 Chemistry and Public Affairs which is devoting

00:26:46 a great deal of attention to what

00:26:48 can be done in the way of contribution to

00:26:50 improvement of some of those conditions that you referred

00:26:52 to. Well, I'm glad to hear that and I would

00:26:54 hope that every scientific discipline

00:26:56 can do the same.

00:26:58 I'm afraid we have to break up our discussion

00:27:00 now and our thanks to you

00:27:02 for participating this evening.

00:27:04 Music

00:27:11 The guests for this program

00:27:13 were Robert W. Cairns, American

00:27:15 Chemical Society,

00:27:17 George D. Kistiakowsky,

00:27:19 Harvard University,

00:27:21 Glenn T. Seaborg, Atomic Energy

00:27:23 Commission. The moderator

00:27:25 was David Perlman, Science

00:27:27 Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

00:27:29 Music

00:27:31 We wish to thank Lederle

00:27:33 Laboratories Division, American Cyanamate

00:27:35 Company, Office

00:27:37 of Economic Opportunity,

00:27:39 and Syntex Laboratories Incorporated

00:27:41 for their cooperation

00:27:43 in providing visuals used on this program.