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Much of that advancement of science across the world is due to 

 leadership this country has played in making the world a better, 

 more secure place. 



I would find it difficult to decide that the United States was 

 going to sort of be second in some field or other, was not going to 

 be preeminent but be world class. I think that is a distinction that 

 is difficult to make. 



What I would have real trouble with is if the United States found 

 that it was, in fact, not making some of the major discoveries in 

 all the important fields of science. 



There may be subfields where that is not happening right now, 

 but I am not aware what they would be. My belief is that in all 

 the important areas of science this country, scientists, researchers 

 in this country, are making breakthroughs and important advance- 

 ments all the time. 



So I am not sure it is easy, and you did not indicate it was nec- 

 essarily easy, but I am not sure it is such a good strategy to try 

 to draw the distinction too sharply. 



Where I think we are at great risk 



Mr. OLVER. You are the one that is drawing it sharply. I think 

 you said you would find it difficult to even contemplate the U.S. 

 not being, I think, almost preeminent. I think I don't find it dif- 

 ficult with drawing the distinction so that we are never less than 

 world-class, and I don't know how we could expect to be pre- 

 eminent in all scientific fields. That is a measure that is probably 

 beyond our capacities, nor even beyond our arrogance. 



Dr. Lane. Yes. Mr. Olver, I miscommunicated and I apologize. I 

 do not, by any means, believe we can or should expect to be pre- 

 eminent in every field of science. But unless we push as hard as 

 we can, then we are not going to be world-class. I do not see any 

 evidence for that in the past, and I certainly would not believe it 

 would occur in the future. 



We do not ask our scientists to sort of be very good but not excel- 

 lent. We do not ask our institutions to push pretty hard, but not 

 try to be the best. This country does not try to be good, but not 

 the very best. 



So that is all I really meant to imply; that somehow the motiva- 

 tion there, the incentive, has to stay there because this is tough 

 stuff and it is not going to happen unless we are very, very aggres- 

 sive. 



Mr. Olver. How do you think this relates to our interest in co- 

 operation in major scientific areas, major what you might call "big 

 science projects" that we have on the table or that we might have 

 on the table in the future? 



Does our need to be world-class or preeminent somehow make 

 it — have any implications for the capacity for cooperation in broad 

 fields, which obviously means that there is a great deal of openness 

 in who is able to use, and what the data are available for. 



Dr. LANE. I think there is no conflict between cooperation and 

 competition in this regard. And I believe for large, expensive facili- 

 ties, international cooperation makes a lot of sense. 



We hope that we will, in fact, be doing more of that. Certainly 

 in the case of high-energy physics where the Large Hadron Collider 



