2 



and must forego systematic monitoring. Current practice goes un-scrutinized 

 and un-updated. The society remains static, conflict ridden and tradition 

 bound. 



This view points to the fact that science is a social phenomenon 

 as well as a technique-gathering mechanism. It is a set of values that, among 

 other things, turn back the harsh edge of self scrutiny and reformulation. 

 It is a manner of discourse by which elements within the society communicate 

 and seek tentative consensus and it also provides a promising system of 

 external communication, cutting at times across ideologic barriers as demon- 

 strated by the fragile, science-based dialogue between the United States and 

 the Soviet Union. Looking ahead a generation or two, it is not difficult to 

 foresee a circumstance in which nations - and bloques of nations with related 

 purposes - will compete with one another, and in this way communicate with 

 one another, not in terms of ideology and philosophic cant, but rather in 

 terms of their ability to generate and apply new technology through science. 



It is precisely because it is a social phenomenon that the under- 

 developed societies resist science and deny domestic scientific activity 

 the authenticity required. The humanists and the practical men have correctly 

 perceived that its presence as an independent ethos will spell the doom of 

 a status quo in which they have equity despite their proclaimed allegiance 

 to modernization. Thus, the action-postponing fiinctionality to their purposes 

 in the endless debate as to whether the Soviet or the Western science model 

 is more economic. Thus the decision-avoidance implicit in the protracted 

 discussion as to whether modernization is really worth the cost and the 

 philosophic search for a third route which will be less "dehumanizing," 

 i.e., more traditional-status quo perpetuating. 



