80 Research and National Purpose 



because of these secret worlds of science. So, too, are individual 

 scientists. Equally, the vast resources which have been made 

 available for scientific work have created what some have 

 called a scientific rat-race, and have also made it possible for 

 some kinds of pseudo-science to emerge and to confuse the 

 scene. Let me deal separately with these issues. 



The open world of science is mainly concerned with 

 Secrecy the secrets of nature which are laid bare by the 

 researcher. In the closed world of science are the 

 secrets of the researcher which have to be guarded because 

 of national or commercial consideration. No active defense 

 scientist, nor any academic scientist who may at some time or 

 other have been engaged in government work, would question 

 the proposition that certain kinds of . information must be 

 protected in the interests of national security. This kind of 

 secrecy is necessary, often vital; but in a very real sense it is 

 also something which is bad for science. 



That is so because communication is a necessary part of the 

 scientific process. Work which is done in secret almost always 

 suffers in quality because it is not exposed to the full blaze of 

 scientific criticism. Secrecy also means that the main body of 

 science is always in danger of being kept in ignorance, at least 

 for a time, of some germinal idea or some new and far-reach- 

 ing technique. In addition, secrecy in Government laboratories 

 may hinder the economic exploitation of new discoveries, and 

 lead to the pursuit in parallel, and in partial if not complete 

 ignorance, of fields of study which necessitate highly expensive 

 facilities. The question which we need to ask, therefore, is 

 whether the considerations which argue for secrecy always out- 

 weigh its deleterious effects, and how the latter can be mit- 

 igated. We first need to ask what is it that we gain by secrecy, 

 even in the defense field? 



In the days before scientific journals began to appear — in 

 the latter half of the 17th century — the small number of 

 scientists who were alive at any one time kept each other 

 informed, by way of direct correspondence, about the work 



