103 



work hand in hand with tlie natural scientists" to solve these problems 

 as they arose. Continued the report: 



Under these circumstances, it would have been desirable to include the social 

 as well as the physical and biological, sciences in our investigations. The magni- 

 tude of the task and the pressure of time prevented this, although we did examine 

 a number of instances in which physical and social scientists were working jointly 

 on projects in the Federal Government. These relationships should be further 

 nvestigated, and a survey of the program of the Government in social science 

 .areas would be useful." 



Bills were again introduced in 1948 and 1949, but not until 1950 

 were the two Houses of Congress able to concur in a legislative proposal 

 which the President would approve; like most of its predecessors 

 after July 3, 1946, it provided that the NSF might create additional 

 divisions, presumably including one for the social sciences. 



Contemjjorary relevance oj the social science issue 



The issue of Goverimient sponsorsliip — or more precisely, NSF 

 sponsorship — of basic research in the social sciences, quickly resolved 

 in 1946, continues to be relevant. The intervening two decades have 

 seen a sharpening of national problems which the 1945 Senate hearings 

 identified as important challenges that social science research could 

 heli^ to solve. These problems included: 



Crime Arms control 



Racial stresses Environmental degTadation 



Urban stresses Social impact of new 

 Poverty technology 



After its creation in 1950, the National Science Foundation made 

 a gradual and cautious entry into the field of the social sciences. 

 Mindful of congressional reservations about their controversial 

 character, it restricted its sponsorship to ultrasafe lines of inquiry. ^^ 



No serious challenge of any social science undertakings of NSF has 

 come to national attention. This caution has been rewarded by a 

 steady growth in the scope and level of supported effort, and in 

 December 1960, by action of the National Science Board as the 

 statute had provided, a Division of Social Sciences was formed within 

 NSF. In 1968, the Congress finally accepted the maturity of the social 

 sciences, and instructed NSF to accord them equal status with the 

 other categories of science witlun its purview. ^^ However, the funda- 

 mental question remains as far from resolution in the late 1960's 

 as in tlie mid-1940's: whether the scientific method can be functionally 

 applied by a democratic society under republican institutions to 

 assemble a body of reliable data about society itself that can be sys- 



'" U.S. President's Scientific Research Board. "Science and Public Policy." a report to the President by 

 John R. Steelman, Chainuau. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), five volumes, see 

 vol. I. p. viii. 



'" For example, the Fifth Annual Report of NSF (1955) , describes the "limited program of support of the 

 social sciences" that was approved 1jy the Foundation in August 1954. Criteria for the projects included 

 those areas characterized by the application of the methods and logic of science, "national interest." "con- 

 vergence of the national sciences and the social sciences," and "basic research." It was administered within 

 the existing divisions of the board, and included projects in antliropology, functional archaeology, human 

 ecology, demography, psycholinguistics. experimental and quantitative social psychology, human geogra- 

 phy, economic engineering, statistical design, and the history-philosophy-sociology of science (pp. 60-61). 



i» Public Law 90-407, approved July 18, 1968. specifies in sec. 3 that the Foundation is to "initiate and 

 support basic research in the mathematical, physical, medical, biological, engineeriTig, social, and other 

 sciences * * *;" and toawardscholarshipsandfellowships in these sciences. Sec. 4 provides that the National 

 Science Board's executive committee shall be appointed of persons "eminent in the fields of the basic, medi- 

 cal, or social sciences * * *." And sec. 8 adds the provision that a division of the social science is to be in- 

 cluded in the NSF organization, thereby confirming the 1960 action of the Board. 



