282 



tory, it might be a wise move "to get ourselves an outfit that does do 

 management work and does it successfully, tell them what our problem 

 is, and try to get them to come up with some reasonable suggestions 

 based on actually known principles of management and how to go 

 about it.'] He noted that : "We have two physicists and three chemists 

 on that side of the talkie. We have a lawyer and a journalist on this 

 side of the table." The subject was management, and "we don't have 

 any experts on that subject." The scientists disagreed ; they had had 

 a great deal of management experience running laboratories, any man- 

 agement consultant would have to go through a lengthy educational 

 process in laboratory' management, and, as Dr. Hornig observed : 

 "This is a management problem for which there is very little experi- 

 ence outside the AEC." " 



Roundtatle dlsoussion inJCAE hearing 



Another novelty of the 1965 hearing was a discussion by nine scien- 

 tists of the allocation of national resources to the support of basic 

 scientific research.^^ 



Extracts of the views of the nine speakers are presented in para- 

 phrase as follows : 



Seitz. The scientific community is looking forward to the next generation of 

 accelerators ; machines are envisaged "which cost hundreds of millions of 

 dollars and require operating budgets in the range of a hundred or more million 

 dollars per year for individual machines." To what extent should the Federal 

 Government support such machines? He admitted that "♦ * * Tensions between 

 groups of physicists and universities in different regions of the country have 

 developed out of the fear that individual groups of scientists might be excluded 

 * * *." However, a meeting under Academy auspices of 2.^ university presidents 

 had unanimously favored construction of a 200-Bev. accelerator, that it should 

 be managed by an association of universities under conditions that would assure 

 access. 



Abelson. "Eventually, our Nation must allocate its research resources, both 

 men and money, more effectively. This will require making value .judgments 

 among various fields and establishing criteria for making such judgments. 

 Through application of intelligence we can arrive at an improved method of 

 allocation." He proposed as criteria : "importance to science, philosophical values, 

 and contributions to the material needs of society." Since every scientist believed 

 his own research to be important, a more objective evaluation was the opinion 

 of other scientists "when self-interest is not involved." He asserted that high- 

 energy physics "recently has had little interaction with other sciences." It had 

 made "great contributions" to philosophical values. The subject had produced 

 Nobel prize winners, but lack of lay interest might limit the prestige value ; the 

 field had "contributed comparatively little toward meeting needs of society." 

 TThile it should be supported because of its importance to science and its philo- 

 sophical values, "the highest priorities should be assigned elsewhere." 



KiSTiAKOwsKT. The Government supported high-energy physics because of its 

 importance for higher education, military and economic technological develop- 

 ment, world prestige and leadership, cultural values, and the claims for support 

 of "outstanding people." It was necessary to recognize that "the interplay of 

 the market, the competitive spirit, has not been able to provide adequate sup- 

 port * * *." Although he "could not assert that (high-energy physics) rates 

 highest in all these ways of rating scientific fields." nevertheless "it is certainly 

 at the top in the cultural and intellectual assessment of sciences." 



McElp.ot. "* * * If we are to understand the fundamental building blocks of 

 matter and the basic forces which determine their behavior, continued research 

 in high-energy physics is absolutely essential. Biology, chemistry, medicine, and 

 other related areas must turn to tlie techniques of high-energy physics in order 

 to investigate in greater detail the submolecular structure of matter. These new 

 frontiers ai-e the ones that are attracting our outstanding thinkers in the bio- 

 losieal .sciences." 



^ Ibifl.. pp. 3SS^.^.R9. 

 » Ibid., pp. 204-237. 



