121 



should "make up their minds regarding the proper function of scien- 

 tists as contrasted with the functions of citizens." ("Many of them are 

 firmly convinced that it is the peculiar function of social scientists 

 especially, not only to describe reUably the costs and consequences of 

 alternative courses of action, but also to dictate public policy.") 

 The social scientists have been "careless of their scientific reputation 

 in a number of ways": 



Through lack of clarity or lack of intellectual integrity they have failed to 

 make clear to the public when they have spoken as scientists and when they have 

 spoken as propagandists and as citizens. They have posed as social scientists, and 

 frequently claimed academic immunity as such, while actually engaging in ordi- 

 nary pressure group activity. Finally, they have been careless in distinguishing 

 between scientific research and special pleading. 



Another defect was that the social scientists had failed to present 

 examples of their research that would be accepted as "scientific" by 

 other disciplines, although there were many of these available. 



By way of corrective action in the learned society proceedings, he 

 suggested that scientific papers in the social sciences should be care- 

 fully kept separate from papers dealing with normative questions 

 ("It may be that the [AAAS] should have a section devoted to ethics, 

 planning, and social policy and thus avoid the confusion which results 

 from including these topics ^vith the social sciences.") 



Finally, he said, the natiu-e of the scientific method should be 

 thoroughly taught in the schools. The natiu-e of research was not 

 well understood. It was not considered an important function in 

 society. It was not looked upon as an important method of soh^ing 

 social problems."' 



A succinct and prescient lay comment on the issue, at the time, was 

 that of Fortune magazine whose editors concluded that the proposed 

 NSF would probably be forced into the social sciences, regardless of 

 the apparent public antipathy toward them. "It [NSF] will have the 

 problem of studying its own organism for the kind of policies, rotation 

 of personnel, or other techniques it must develop to prevent the 

 ossification that sooner or later afilicts aU academies. And it ^vill have 

 to study the sharper and sharper impact of science and technology 

 upon society, never before systematically investigated under a steady 

 flow of relevant data." "^ 



VII. Federal Sponsorship of Social Science Research After 1950 



A gradual improvement in the acceptance of the social sciences has 

 taken place during the 19 years since the NSF received its statutory 

 charter; the social sciences have enjoyed a healthy growth in numbers 

 of students, a strengthening in their methodologies, and some increased 

 appreciation of the functional relationship between basic research and 

 what is sometimes called social engineering. At the same time, the 

 opening up of the field has provided disturbing evidence of just how 

 vast it is, and how much remains to be disclosed before the field reaches 

 its real potential. There still remain public reservations about the field 

 as a "science." For example, in 1967, the Honorable W. Willard Wirtz, 

 Secretar}" of Labor, said: 



* * * The present development of research in the social sciences falls so far short 

 of both its potential and of the imperative necessity for its infinitely larger de- 

 velopment that I think our problem is actually one of whether there are forms for 



" Ibid., pp. 410-411. 



" "The Great Science Debate," Fortune (June 1946), p. 242. 



