878 



. . . the advance of science is something to be welcomed and 

 encouraged, because it multiplies our possibilities faster than 

 it adds to our problems. 



Science and American Foreign 

 Policy: The Spirit of Progress 



THE HONORABLE GEORGE P. SHULTZ 



l3oon after the dawn of the nuclear age, Albert Einstein 

 observed that everything had changed except our modes 

 of thinking. Even so dramatic a development as the nu- 

 clear revolution took a long time to be fuHy understood . In 

 recent decades, the world has seen other extraordinaiy 

 advances in science and technology — advances that may 

 be of even more pervasive importance and that touch 

 every aspect of our lives. In so many of these areas, the 

 pace of change has been faster than our ability to grasp its 

 ramifications. There have even been moments when our 

 mood was more one of fear than of hope. 



In the 1970s, many were preoccupied with the idea that 

 ours was a small planet and getting smaller, that natural 

 resources were limited and were being depleted, that there 

 were inescapable limits to growth. Food would run out; 

 forests would disappear: clean water would be scarce; 

 energy sources would vanish. There was, in short, a deep 

 pessimism about the future of our planet and of mankind 

 itself. 



Fortunately, that spirit of pessimism has been replaced 

 in recent years by a new spirit of progress. More and 

 more, we are returning to the belief traditionally held by 

 post-Enlightenment societies: that the advance of science 

 is something to be welcomed and encouraged, because it 

 multiplies our possibilities faster than it adds to our prob- 

 lems. More and more, we see that unleashing the vast 

 potential of human ingenuity, creativity, and industrious- 

 ness is itself the key to a better future. Science and tech- 

 nology cannot solve all our problems, but the experience 

 of recent years reminds us that they can alleviate wide 



Secretary of Stale Shultz presented this speech during an Academy 

 Industry Program (AIP) seminar on "Science, Technology, and the 

 National Agenda" on March 6. 1985 The AIP is sponsored by the 

 National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sci- 



areas of human suffering and make a better life possible 

 for millions around the worid. We can only imagine what 

 they might achieve in the decades to come. 



When I was at MIT, I knew an economist at Harvard 

 who had an uncanny knack for making accurate predic- 

 tions. I always wondered about the secret of his forecast- 

 ing ability, and when he died, someone going through his 

 papers found part of the explanation. He had written that 

 he was more successful at economic predictions than 

 others because he was "an optimist about America," a trait 

 he attributed to two things: his ongins in the Midwest, 

 "where the future is more important than the past," and the 

 fact that he grew up in a family of scientists and engineers, 

 forever "discovering" and "doing" new things. 



Optimism alone will not be enough to carry us through 

 the difficult times that lie ahead, and mindless optimism 

 would be as foolish as the mindless pessimism of years 

 past. The scientific and technological revolutions taking 

 place all around us offer many great opportunities, but 

 they also present many challenges— challenges that come 

 from the need to make choices, challenges that lie at the 

 intersection of science and politics, and perhaps most 

 important, challenges to our ways of thinking about 

 ourselves and our world. 



DILEMMAS AND CHOICES 



The revolutions in science and technology have opened up 

 seemingly limitless possibilities for transforming our 

 world. With each new breakthrough, however, come new 

 and difficult dilemmas. For while we may seek ways to 

 change the world around us, there is also much we would 

 like to preserve. Our civilization is not based on material 

 things. Our culture, our moral values, and our political 

 ideals are treasures that we would not sacrifice even for 

 the most amazing scientific miracle. 



SPRING 1985 II 



