THE PRODUCTION OF SCIEXTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 199 



research can be directed successfully from above. Buckley 

 says: "One sure way to defeat the scientific spirit is to at- 

 tempt to direct inquiry from above. All successful industrial 

 research directors know this, and have learned by experience 

 that one thins^ a 'director of Research' must never do is to 

 direct research, nor can he permit direction of research by 

 any supervisory board." 



Buckley upholds Bush's plan, agreeing, however, that re- 

 search efficiency can be improved by teamwork but objecting 

 to the planning or "mapping out the field of science to reveal 

 gaps in knowledge" suggested by the New York Times. 



Warren Weaver, a prominent member of the directing staff 

 of the National Defense Research Committee, believes that 

 any attempt to use the methods effective during the war 

 would be disastrous if employed to control scientific investi- 

 gation during times of peace. He believes that national sup- 

 port for science should sponsor every movement and develop- 

 ment that helps to create a favorable atinosphere for research 

 but should by no means set up any group to chart its course. 



In an article dated September 9, 1945, W^aldemar Kaempf- 

 fert, a scientific editor of the New York Times, insists that 

 the advance of science should be accelerated by planning and 

 organization, contrasting this with "the inefficient laissez-faire 

 method of the past." He suggests that "a J. Willard Gibbs," 

 who wanted to apply statistical mechanics to chemistry, might 

 "join the organization" and "work happily in its atmosphere." 

 Dr. Kaempffert says: "Whether such a man Tvorks alone or 

 with others, no Director in his senses would tell him ho^v he 

 should proceed." When we remember the history of \\^illard 

 Gibbs, it scarcely seems probable that if an organized research 

 group had existed he would have been invited to join it or 

 would have worked happily in its atmosphere. 



W. R. Whitney, director of the great laboratory of the 

 General Electric Company, the prototype of all industrial 

 research laboratories, wrote in 1931: 



There exist two widely divergent paths by which man- 

 kind has advanced. One is Bacon's "variation in the ef- 



