SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY — HAFSTAD 209 



seems to have a time constant — an RC, or response time, if you 

 please — of roughly 10 years. Successive responses to the four im- 

 pulses listed above can therefore be predicted to require about 40 

 years ! Now it is true that in the historical sense 40 years is not long 

 in the life of a civilization, but one begins to wonder what the time 

 constants are in competitive societies and how such societies are likely 

 to react under similar impulses. Above all, one wonders why, with 

 our highly developed communications facilities, our response times 

 should be so surprisingly long. 



Perhaps no small part of the explanation lies in the fact that 

 scientists and engineers, who have long been aware of this situation, 

 are, after all, a numerically very small fraction of our population. 

 Added to this is the fact that the effects on a society of the activities 

 of this group are invariably long delayed. A complete work stoppage 

 on the part of the creative scientists would not, for example, be felt 

 by our society as a whole for a decade or more. Thus it is difficult 

 for the majority of our population to appreciate fully the function 

 or significance of this relatively inconspicuous group. After all, the 

 larger affairs of our society are, and no doubt always will be (and 

 quite properly) , handled by nontechnical people. 



It is interesting to speculate about the somewhat anomalous situa- 

 tion into which we have gotten ourselves. There seems to be a tacit, 

 but not clearly expressed, assumption that the purpose of the kind of 

 society we favor is one which gives the greatest good to the greatest 

 number. Our society has seized upon technology as a clearly appli- 

 cable means to this end, so far as gratifying material wants is con- 

 cerned. One would then assume that society, or more accurately 

 the nontechnical controllers of that society, would as a matter of 

 enlightened self-interest pay particular attention to the education 

 and training of an adequate supply of what they refer to as "techni- 

 cians." Instead, it is the technicians, the scientists and engineers, 

 who have been calling for an increase in the supply of talent even 

 though it would be to their own self-interest to restrict this supply 

 of skills and thus improve their bargaining position. As scientists 

 and engineers we ask the question from time to time, "For what and 

 for whom are we working?" The sociologists from whom we assume 

 we should expect a reply seem bewildered that the question should 

 even be asked. By them technology seems to be considered as some 

 extraneous activity apparently introduced or perpetrated by the 

 scientists. 



It is this deeper conflict in outlook and attitude between the hu- 

 manist or sociologist and the scientist or engineer which gives me the 

 greatest concern. The shortage of scientists is serious ; but here the 

 incentive forces are being brought into play in a direction to correct 



