45 



organizations; (6) the organic law of NBS authorized dissemination of 

 information of interest to private groups, and did not determine or 

 restrict the use to be made of the information; (c) the conduct of 

 scientific research was inherently regulator}^ — 



* * * All progress in science and technology is regulator}-. The invention of 

 the incandescent lamp bulb made obsolete gas lights and so on, so that if j-ou 

 carry this too far, then you would never disseminate any scientific information 

 because it might have some effect on curtailing the marketing of some products 

 that it is related to. i^-a 



Dr. Weber's description of the MIT tests 



Since the MIT tests of AD-X2, performed at the committee's re- 

 quest, had been interpreted and represented as substantiating the 

 advertising claims of Pioneers, Inc., the appearance of Dr. Weber 

 before the committee had special significance. Dr. Weber, a professor 

 of chemical engineeruig at JNIIT, had conducted the tests and had had 

 a casual interest in AD-X2 for some time. Dr. Laidler had been quoted 

 in a release by the committee as concluding from the residts of the 

 MIT tests that the NBS evaluation of the additive was "reprehen- 

 sible." ^-^ However, vhen the full report and test data were released 

 by MIT, they had created uncertainties rather than helping to resolve 

 the issue as to the merit of the additive. Dr. Astin had dismissed these 

 tests as uninformative because, he said, the electrolyte used in them 

 was of much lower specific gravity than would be requhed for service 

 use, and the effects noted did not correlate with any significant change 

 in battery performance.''*^ 



It was notable that in his comments about the performance of 

 AD-X2 to the committee. Dr. Weber was careful to restrict himself 

 to the formal wording of the MIT report; he provided no interpretation 

 of the test data. He disassociated himself from Dr. Laidler's conclu- 

 sions and accepted, as a precise paraphrase of his own thinking, a 

 statement by James A. Beattie, professor of physical chemistry, 

 concerning the MIT report. Its concluding paragraph read: 



I would say that the addition of AD-X2 certainly does have an effect on the 

 behavior of a lead-acid battery. From my brief contact with the work, I cannot 

 say that this effect is correlated with a beneficial action from the standpoint of the 

 normal use of such a battery. I feel that the latter can be determined only after 

 the examination and statistical evaluation of extensive field tests. i^i 



The testimony of Dr. Weber differed from that of Dr. Astin in some 

 respects. Thus, wliile recognizing the competence of the National 

 Academy of Sciences Committee that was to make a definitive finding 

 as to the virtue of AD-X2, said Weber ("* * * I certainly have 

 confidence that they will render as good a decision as such an eminent 

 group of scientists could render"), he nevertheless attached more 

 importance than had Dr. Astin to the "field data" on the additive. 

 For himself, he said that a scientist coidd not aftord to disregard user 

 testiniony.'^^ He called attention to a passage in the MIT report that 

 said, in part, "* * * laboratory findings must be supplemented by 

 field-use data if a true evaluation is to be obtained." '^^ (By contrast, 



i2'a Ibid., pp. 315-316. 



129 "Senate Unit Flays NBS Battery Test," op. cit. 

 131 Hearings, op. cit. pp. 225-226. 



"1 Ibid., p. 393. The complete MIT report, and related correspondence are presented in the appendix to 

 the hearings, pp. 565-618. The comments by Professor Beattie are on pp. 589-590. 

 »32 Ibid., pp. 383, 386. 

 133 Ibid., p. 375. 



