506 



IV. Some Elements of Technical Information for Political 



Decisionmaking 



This section offers some observations drawn from the case studies 

 that may provide insights into the problem of securing and applying 

 teclinical information bearing on political issues. 



Priority of a technical issue einbedded in a political issue 



In the management of a political issue with substantial scientific 

 or teclniological content, the political issue is always larger in scope 

 than the scientific question within it. In principle, the scientific ques- 

 tion needs to be dealt with first. It is important that the scientific 

 question or issue be carefully framed so that the answer to it provides 

 a useful and significant piece of evidence for guidance in the consid- 

 eration of the broader political issue. 



All of the cases examined in this study involved this situation. 

 As a general rule, when the technical question was not firmly resolved 

 in advance, the political resolution of the broader issue tended to be 

 defective. For example, the Point TV decision would have produced 

 more effective and durable results had the technical problem of tech- 

 nology transfer and the anthropological problem of teclinology ac- 

 ceptance first been defined and studied. The Mohole project would 

 have been subjected to more effective review, had the nature of its 

 engineering risk and the limitations of the existing state of the art 

 been identified for the Congress at the outset. In the development of 

 the Office of Coal Research, considerable attention was given to the 

 kinds of research that the industry recommended, but no attempt was 

 made to translate these into potential future specific impacts on the 

 markets or technology of coal. In the Salk vaccine case, the primary 

 problem was distribution, but not until the technical issue of safety 

 was resolved could the distribution issue be resolved. 



The important point is that the identification of a technical issue 

 embedded in a political issue is frequently difficult. It is easier to see 

 the technical issue or problem afterwards; but at the time it can be 

 very difficult to detect. In the AD-X2 hearing, the imderlying tech- 

 nical issue seems to have been the use of IS1BS to test consumer products 

 for quality and truth in advertising : Could a great national labora- 

 tory perform routine testing to support Government regulations for 

 consiuner protection without impairing the quality of its scientific 

 research program? Another important technical question was to the 

 comparative validity of laboratory tests versus user testimonials. The 

 broader political issue was the general question of protection of the 

 consumer versus the right of the entrepreneur to meet the test of the 

 marketplace. All the technical details about the chemistry and testing 

 of the battery additive were irrelevant to the political problem of 

 consumer protection versus the rights of business enterprises to market 

 an unproved product that offered no positive hazard to the consmner 

 and might be beneficial. The committee could not Imowledgeably 

 make a finding as to the technical merits of the additive, nor did it 

 do so, although it tried. But the investment of time and attention in 

 this question diverted the committee from the questions that were 

 germane to its function, and to the underlying political issue of Gov- 

 ernment regulatory policy and procedures. 



