152 



♦ * * Encourage some form of international social science council or associa- 

 tion to facilitate cooperation among the scientists in various countries. 



* * * Provide foreign service officers with additional training in the social 

 sciences.'* 



Responsibilities of Social Scientists in Policymaking 



One result of Senator Harris' hearing was to illustrate the dilemma 

 faced by social scientists in making recommendations for public policy. 

 Kalman Silvert outlined to Harris the ideal contributions of a social 

 scientist to policymaking. To paraphrase his comment : 



He should generate data ; order and analyze data ; interpret them and relate 

 interpretations to a body of social science theory ; and then indicate the costs 

 and benefits of various alternatives.®* 



Silvert added that the present limits of the state of social science 

 research prevent social scientists from making such contributions. The 

 objectives of scientific inquiry demand that social scientists not involve 

 themselves in the application of their findings. Accordingly he called 

 for the training of a new breed of social scientists, to translate the 

 findings of social science into material "usable for those persons who 

 have to make decisions inside Government," 



The Proposal for a Social Science Foundation 



The proposal for a National Foundation for the Social Sciences also 

 received much attention in the hearings and in the press. Some of the 

 social science witnesses who appeared in the first set of Senator 

 Harris' hearings favored creation of the Foundation. (The great ma- 

 jority of statements heard in favor of the proposal came, however, in 

 the second set of hearings on the bill, when individual social scientists 

 testified.) 



Pro 



Those favoring creation of the Foundation gave a variety of rea- 

 sons. Gabriel Almond said that the Foundation should be created be- 

 cause the NSF does not support "speculative moral and legal" ques- 

 tions which are very important in social science research : 



I believe the time has come when the establishment of a National Social 

 Science Foundation ought to be seriously considered. I say this, not out of any 

 criticism of the record of the National Science Foundation, but only to stress 

 that the needs and the characteristics of the human and social sciences are 

 somewhat different from those of the hard sciences. I would feel more com- 

 fortable myself if the principal Government support for the social sciences 

 came from an agency which gave some representation to history and the more 

 speculative, moral and legal disciplines than is true of the National Science 

 Foundation."" 



James Robinson, a political scientist, stated that NSF would never 

 find it possible to support research on policy.^^ Irving Louis Horowitz 

 said that because they are in incipient stages of growth, the social 

 sciences need a big push, and this would be attained only with the 

 creation of a separate foundation : 



Social scientists would feel like stepchildren to a parent organization. I doubt 

 where they would be content with that kind of rearrangement on a longrun 

 basis. * * * Social scientists are now in the process of flexing their muscles. 



88 Ibid., pp. 59, 59-60, 59, 14.5, and 59, respectively. 



8«Ibid., pp. 226-227. 



9«Ibid., p. 11. 



*i National Foundation for Social Sciences, Hearings, op. cit., p. 714. 



