Science and Public Policy: The Open World 79 



the existence of national academies of science with limited 

 memberships restricted to the best men. To the lay-man, and to 

 scientists as well, these academies are the embodiment of the 

 prestige of science and, as a result, become the most important 

 guardians of quality. The third is the existence of international 

 institutions which accord rewards for scientific work of the 

 highest quality, such, for example, as the Nobel prizes. 



So far I have spoken only about the qualities which one 

 would expect to find in the ideal scientist, and about the 

 mechanisms whereby the world of science assures its own 

 standards of excellence. To them must be added more general 

 virtues when we seek for people who would be competent to 

 advise on science policy, by which I essentially mean advice 

 about the most reasonable ways in which the scientific resources 

 of a country can be cultivated and deployed. First of all, we 

 would seek not just narrow specialists, but men who have some 

 idea of what goes on in fields of science other than their own, 

 and who have the competence and interest to learn. Second, 

 we would seek people with the minimum of prejudice — cer- 

 tainly about subjects if not about persons. And finally — and 

 this perhaps is the most difficult — we would seek men whose 

 sophistication extended outside the domains of science, men 

 who had an awareness of the vast changes which are taking 

 place in the world as a whole, and of the forces which are 

 bringing them about. 



But having drawn my blue-print, I have to ask whetlier it 

 is a realistic one? Is the environment of today one which 

 provides the best conditions either for the emergence of the 

 scientific ideal or for scientific progress? My own answer 

 would be, I fear, very equivocal. While the material oppor- 

 tunities for scientists have never been better, there are many 

 dangers in the present situation. The scientific world is being 

 subdivided not only by its multifarious interests, but also by 

 the facts of international and national secrecy, commercial as 

 well as military. Those who are responsible to their peers for 

 advising on national science policies are in serious difficulty 



