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committees that collaborated in the preparation of the Bush report. 

 The social sciences in World War II had produced no spectacular 

 product like the atomic bomb; there was no widespread recognition 

 of the practical results of research in social science fields. The disci- 

 plines of the social sciences were poorly structured, displaying many 

 conflicts and contradictions in each field, between related fields, and 

 between general scientific and lay opinion as to matters of policy and 

 theory. Distinctions between basic and applied research in the social 

 sciences were poorly drawn. Moreover, the disciplines were not clearly 

 defined, either by Members of Congress, by scientists generally, or 

 even by the social scientists themselves. In short, for the social sci- 

 ences to win equal status with the physical, biological, and medical 

 sciences in the new Foundation, as the President had suggested, would 

 require that compelling evidence and reasoning be assembled in their 

 support. 



As this matter was considered by the subcommittee chaired by 

 Senator Kilgore, and later as it was reviewed by the Senate, the 

 following questions emerged: 



1 . Were the social sciences sufficiently mature to be vested with 

 a public interest? 



2. Were these sciences in fact really "sciences" with proper 

 objectivity and employment of the scientific method? 



3. Were the social sciences sufficiently structured as disciplines, 

 or would their inclusion in a National Science Foundation open 

 the door to limitless scope of meaningless projects, thus siphoning 

 off funds from other, more significant, functions of the Foundation? 



4. Had the methodologies of the social sciences been sufficiently 

 perfected for them to be considered as capable of serious research? 



5. Could researches in the social sciences be satisfactorily 

 classified into basic and a])plied? 



6. If in fact the social sciences lagged behind the physical 

 sciences, was that not an added reason for encouraging an 

 accelerated effort in the former? 



7. By consulting senior men as witnesses in a mature set of 

 physical science disciplines, and also by consulting senior men as 

 witnesses in a less mature set of social science disciplines, was 

 Congress able to obtain a clear picture of the potential of the 

 latter? Would younger researchers closer to the contemporary 

 state of the art have served better as witnesses respecting the 

 potential social utility of the social sciences? 



8. The subjects studied by social science were "controversial" 

 while those of the physical and biomedical sciences were not; 

 thus, would social science research be more difficult to program, 

 elicit political opposition, and embroil NSF in controversy such 

 as to jeopardize its existence as a vehicle for the supjiort of the 

 physical sciences? 



9. Was it not possible to support a considerable range of re- 

 search in the social sciences by calling it something else — as for 

 example, the study of methods of improving the management of 

 scientific information, research in the history of science, improve- 

 ment in educational methods for the teaching of science, and 

 statistical data collection concerning scientific manpower, etc.? 



10. Did the social sciences present the threat that their prac- 



