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Perspectives
Jefferson Rides Again
Late in November, about 60 scientists and policy operatives and a smattering of the science press gathered in Washington, D.C., to concoct a new approach to a problem that has been belabored over many years: linking basic research to the needs of society. The conference—“Basic Research in the Service of Public Objectives”—was organized by Lewis M. Branscomb, emeritus professor of public policy and corporate management at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Helping Branscomb with the planning was a steering committee composed of some of the most ageless names in policy, scholarship, and officialdom: historian of science Gerald Holton of Harvard University, veteran policy insider Harvey Brooks of Harvard, former undersecretary of commerce for technology Mary L. Good, former director of the FermiLab Leon Lederman, and three former Presidential science advisers, H. Guyford Stever, John H. Gibbons, and D. Allan Bromley.
So it was a chronologically old and savvy crowd trying to take on a subject around which thousands of pages have been written during the past 50 years, some by themselves. Why was the call more urgent to science policy’s grand masters now than at other times in the past? One underlying feeling was that science had a pressing need currently to rescue its good name or else lose public favor and thus public funds.
What apparently got the whole Branscomb enterprise going was a paper written by Holton and Harvard colleague Gerhard Sonnert that advanced what they claimed was a new approach to organizing and funding research, namely “Jeffersonian Science.” The paper was published last year in Issues In Science and Technology, which also published in the same number a paper by Branscomb that further developed the science-for-society theme. Along the way the group secured grants from the Sloan and Packard Foundations to fund a preparatory workshop held at the National Academy of Sciences, and the conference itself.
The group is prepared to advance the initiative by exposing it to the new Bush Administration and science and technology appointees. Branscomb has prepared a summary of the conference and intends eventually to issue a set of policy recommendations. He, a Democrat, is hoping some of his Republican colleagues such as Bromley will do the necessary legwork with the new Administration.
Just how far the whole thing will go is problematical, given the dismal record of attempts to establish a strongly grounded science policy that aggressively addresses human needs. A bold attempt at the National Science Foundation during the 1970’s to meet social needs head-on through research was trashed back then by prominent colleagues of the conference organizers. Few outside of science—or even those in it—appear to be sounding such a call today. But the names behind the conference nevertheless are luminous and shouldn’t be discounted. The question is whether they possess sufficient political momentum and are truly motivated enough to make any difference at all.
Republicans are dubious participants on ideological grounds. And Congress, said some committee staffers on the conference program, is in hardly any mood to take on new initiatives. Any new Jeffersonian enterprise will take new money, said the Congressional staffers. It will also take the engagement of young research blood that was noticeably absent at the conference (the conspicuous exception was CSPO visiting scholar David Guston).
But just what is this “Jeffersonian Science” that Holton finds so alluring? It is apparently inspired by Jefferson’s own Enlightenment approach to the natural world and the world of reason, most exemplified by his commissioning of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the uncharted West, secure the territory by careful mapping and description, and thus ensure its economic potential. The work was fundamental but at the same time practical. So it can be, they reckon, for the current work of basic scientists in the U.S. to trek off into the thicket of “problems that matter”—educational reform, adaptation to climate change, and bringing about a secure energy future. The model, it was agreed, was the work of the National Cancer Institute and its array of basic science programs that are aimed at understanding that disease. Critics, however, of the medical research establishment and its many arguable working paradigms were not present.
Holton says the big need is to change the mindset of the research community and then attract some funds around which to build a program, and that, of course, is the rub. An even bigger rub, to many of the women attending the conference was the name of Jefferson itself as the inspiration for this new initiative. M.R.C. Greenwood, a former chieftain in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and now president of the University of California at Santa Cruz, said the new scholarship around Jefferson and his slaves would disqualify his name from any contemporary scheme, much less anything requiring the backing of women and minorities. Branscomb immediately responded by saying that neither he nor Holton were particularly wedded to any particular nomenclature. The important thing was to get a discussion going.
What is additionally odd about the Jeffersonian Science idea is that its operative definition—that basic science can be performed with practical solutions in mind— has already been claimed for Louis Pasteur by the late Princeton scholar Donald Stokes in his book, Pasteur’s Quadrant. Pasteur, a working scientist as opposed to Jefferson’s primary role of patron, demonstrated through his working life that basic studies were at the core of important solutions to practical problems. What is unlikely, then, is that Jefferson’s questionable name will endure as the science-for-the-people’s new logo. And since Pasteur’s French name hardly seizes the imagination of America’s common man, Branscomb, Holton, and their group of advisers are in need of a new logo.
As far as the content of the conference went, a couple of points stand out. The first is that much of the rhetoric seemed designed not to bewail or assess the society’s human needs but to articulate a rationale that allows basic researchers to stretch their pride of accomplishment toward wider aspirations than simply expanding the knowledge base. National Science Foundation director Rita Colwell talked about how NSF by its nature, by the design of its programs in information technology, nanotechnology, and biocomplexity, was already such a culmination of the Jeffersonian ideal that it didn’t need anything more than a lot more money to carry out its plans. So it also went with the head of the Energy Department’s Office of Science, Mildred Dresselhaus, in describing DOE’s research agenda.
The second point is more positive. It derives from the three sessions that attempted to bring the issues down home—transfer of educational research to schoolrooms and teachers’ colleges, translating research on global change to local and regional concerns, and bringing rationale to a basic research agenda relevant to the solution of energy problems. Each was meaty and strongly suggestive that the applications of science policy to the needs of the people are indeed local and personal. But whether U.S. science can make the enthusiasm for its work local and personal is the question. So far its record isn’t spectacular.
S&PP asked Branscomb to identify what he thought was unique about the project he is spearheading. “If there is something truly new in our conception,” he said, “it is that there is a public expectation that the huge publicly supported R&D budget will deliver understandable and effective benefits to the nation. There is a keen desire to be allowed to fulfill that obligation with the most creative and effective research they know how to do. This results in two sources of motivation for creative science: the contribution it can make to addressing urgent issues and the contribution it can make to ensuring America’s scientific leadership in key disciplines.”
One “urgent problem” raised informally during a conference lunch break was the outdated voting booth technology that helped throw into chaos the Presidential election in Florida. Wouldn’t that kind of problem, it was suggested, perfectly fit a Jeffersonian science agenda? The response was tepid. Too controversial a topic to risk involvement was the feeling, and the conversation moved on to other subjects. Inherent in the response might have been the sense that improving voting machine technology and voting processes might not prove challenging enough to the average physicist.
How the Branscomb/Holton initiative plays out will be interesting to watch. The country has problems, problems beyond those discussed at the meeting, problems of broken families, public health, increasing stress, childhood neglect, dispirited and decrepit cities, and certainly sets of global problems that are overwhelming in their scope. No attempt was made at the meeting to amass any inventory of concerns. And certainly no social scientists—other than those asked to speak on diversity and educational issues—were assembled to discuss a broad range of social issues or incipient crises. “Once the scientists are prepared to buy this message,” Branscomb told S&PP, “more social science input needs to be encouraged.”
As one attendee summed things up, “The people there seemed to be trying to shoehorn what they are already doing into the new idea rather than figuring out how to do things differently.” Maybe so. Holton says it is the mindsets of scientists that basically need to be changed. But that issue has regularly been raised in almost every science/society forum. Some scientists like to be engaged in social issues, most do not. Meanwhile, the public’s own deeper appreciation for what science is and does continues to languish. And that’s just how it is. Branscomb, et al, have a big job and could probably use a critical mass of younger scientists, policy makers, and social activists hanging around to explain realities from their perspective. |
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