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SCIENCE POLICY TASK FORCE— QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 



Walter A. McDougaH 



1. Do you agree with the Science Policy Task Force Agenda when 

 it daims that changes in science policy usually occur only in times of crisis? 

 What are the major exceptions to this assertion? 



I agree that major changes in science policy occur usually in 

 times of crisis. Of course, this statement is open to disputation about what 

 constitutes a "major" change or a "crisis". But the historical evolution of 

 U.S. science policy is certainly bound up with war. The National Academy 

 and Morrill Act date from the Civil War, the National Advisory Committee 

 for Aeronautics from World War I, the Office of Scientific Research and 

 Development and the Manhattan Project from World War n, and the National 

 Science Foundation from the Cold War. Sharp increases in funding of R&D 

 occurred during the Korean War and again after Sputnik, when NASA and the 

 current structure for defense-related R&D also emerged. The two most 

 fundamental changes in the scientific posture of the federal government 

 were when applied science for military purposes came to be viewed as vital 

 to national defense, and then during the 1950s when basic and civilian 

 science came also to be viewed as vital to national defense, both because of 

 the accelerating pace of scientific advance, and because of the overall 

 competition with the U.S.S.R. for prestige (especially in the Third World) in 

 which science, racial harmony, national health and welfare were as much 

 tools cf foreign policy as missiles or ^es. 



Of course, it could be said that sharp changes in any arena of 

 public policy tend to occur during perceived crises, be it anti-trust laws 

 during the "robber baron" era, social security during the Depression, the CIA 

 and military unification during the Cold War, or farm pcdicy today. In a 

 pluralistic democracy it is difficult to mobilize support for a new 

 governmental posture in normal times. This is a useful check against the 

 over-zealoios, esp^nally in the executive branch: "if it ain't broke, don't fix 

 it." But it can also tempt factions anxious for change into provoking a crisis 

 mentality where none need exist. The ups and downs of the space program 

 are an obvious example: when there is no perceived threat from the Soviet 

 Union, space budgets dwindle, no matter how important continued progress 

 may be in the long run. 



When policy changes are perceived as necessary in the absence of 

 a crisis, consummate pcQitical skill is called for. Change in organizatdon and 

 procedure is more easily done than change involving significant new public 

 expense, and such "non-crisis" change is more easily led by the White House 

 than from below. 



2. What have been the historical barriers to international 

 cooperation in science? Can you discern a current trend? 



The very realization of the importance of science to national 

 economic and military security, which got governments into supporting 

 science in a big way, also militated against international cooperation. IE 

 scientific research were deemed innocuous and discretionary, cooperation 

 would be easy, but at the same time governments would have little incentive 



