76 



McDougall, Science Policy Task Force, page 3 



It is often said that science is by nature an international and 

 cooperative enterprise, and that only suspicious governments prevent it 

 from being so. This is false. Throughout history scientists have often been 

 jealous c£ their discoveries, resentful of competitors, prudent to serve 

 their royal patrons, or simpLy patriotic. Whether it be Leonardo da Vinci 

 in the court of the Medicis, English and Germans arguing over whether 

 Newton or Leibniz first discovered the calculus, or Vannevar Bush and Sir 

 Henry Tizard swearing fealty to Roosevelt and ChurchilU scientists have 

 .ysuaHy placed civic duty before devotion to an abstract ethos of 

 universality. If we have an opposite notion today, it is because of the 

 many European scientists who fled Nazism for America and then, after 

 1945, rebelled against the atomic bomb and promoted open, international 

 management of science. But even these scientists, by and large, left 

 Europe only because they were driven out — and those who were not driven 

 out, like von Braun or Sakharov, served even Hitler and S tal i n faithfijlly 

 for years. Even the PHtdown Man hoax of 1912 was sustained in part by 

 hopes that this resounding discovery might restore the prestige of British 

 science. 



To be sure, governments contribute heavily to international 

 competition in science. From the Royal Societies and Academies of the 

 European monarchs to the massive U.S. and Soviet research complexes of 

 today, governments displayed a growing appreciation of the importance of 

 science for military and economic security. 



Nevertheless, beginning in the mid-19th century, governments 

 also came to see value in limited international cooperation in science. 



