concepts of science and technology are weighed along with, or balanced 

 against, the qualitative values of politics and society. In the projected 

 series of case histories of recent political decisions involving science 

 and technology, attention will be given to ways in which the Congress 

 came to grips with this fourfold problem. Specifically, answers will be 

 sought to the folio \ving questions: 



1. How are scientific issues brought to the Congress and how does 

 the manner of then* presentation influence the outcome? 



2. What information from what sources, bearing on the issue, was 

 received by the congressional decisionmakers, and how did it influence 

 the outcome? 



3. What institutional decisionmaking method was employed in the 

 Congress for each issue, and how did the method of decision influence 

 the outcome? 



4. What was the outcome of each issue, both in terms of the values 

 expressed at the time of decisionmaking, and in retrospect — as judged 

 by the values of the present day? 



The Political Framework 



It would seem to be a basic proposition that any assessment of the 

 social function of science, or of political decisionmaking as to the social 

 uses of science, must be relative to the goals of the society. The pri- 

 mary goal that has historically been shared by all political factions in 

 the United States is personal liberty or human freedom. All functions 

 of government in the United States can surely be regarded as con- 

 tributing to this unifying goal. Freedom, in this context, is a very broad 

 and comprehensive term. It may generally be taken to mean the pro- 

 tection of man against undesired compulsions of the environment, 

 both physical and human, and protection against undesired compul- 

 sions of the body and mind of the individual. Science undoubtedly 

 contributes in many important ways to the means by which freedom is 

 sought and attained. But the determination of which program to 

 carry out, or which aspect of freedom to emphasize, is essentially a 

 political task. 



Because freedom is elusive, poUtical means to achieve and expand 

 it in the United States have taken many directions and raised many 

 issues. Its achievement has been sought according to different political 

 and economic concepts, logically developed and pragmatically tested. 

 Emphasis has been placed successively on centralized government, 

 with strongly enforced legal responsibility, economic mercantilism, 

 and expanding credit resources (up to 1800); then on local initiative, 

 local police power, and local monetary management (up to 1860); 

 then on national resource and facility development, large corporate 

 organizations, and concentrated investment (up to 1930); then on 

 welfare capitalism. Federal paternalism, and minimum standards of 

 economic well-being (after 1930). During these successive evolutionary 

 periods of U.S. growth, until after World War II, science was largely 

 peripheral. Except for the encouragement of scientific agricxilture after 

 1863, science remained largely a private matter. Technological support 

 for economc growth rested on domestic technological innovation, 

 drawing largely on basic research conducted in Western Europe, and 

 exploited by private citizens and companies for their own profit. 



