OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 271 



I doubt very much whether any national council could have guided 

 research so that penicillin would have been found more quickly, or 

 indeed fomid at all in moldy bread, or if Dr. Menard's interest in sea 

 mounts could have been coordinated in advance with large schools of 

 tuna. 



A fundamental truism sometimes forgotten is that projects based 

 on a rationale of justification are seldom basic in nature. "Projecti- 

 tis," which is the inevitable result of high-level coordinating bodies 

 and with which we are already plagued, tends to reduce the amount 

 of basic research we can undertake. 



The coordination envisioned by the proposed Council may indeed 

 be useful in connection with survey work, but could be lethal to re- 

 search programs. 



As I have tried to illustrate, research into the mysteries of the 

 oceans differs greatly from surveying. For research superiority we 

 depend entirely on the new ideas of the creative worker, while in 

 surveying we want to methodically execute well-conceived plans. 



Thus me Council, if created, would wish to treat very differently 

 these two closely related but widely different areas of oceanography, 

 and I would think would be greatly assisted by some added member- 

 ship of scientists engaged in oceanography. 



Recognizing the need for coordination in Federal spending and its 

 useful role in surveying the oceans, I would submit a fervent hope 

 that coordination of research would be limited to the exchange of 

 information, which we are now doing, and that the freedom of the 

 research worker will not be infringed or coordinated. 



This legislation also proposes to establish under the Council a Na- 

 tional Oceanographic Data Center, primary standards for oceanogra- 

 phic measurements, and a National Instrumentation Test and Calibra- 

 tion Center. The objectives of these proposals are excellent, and ones 

 which we endorse enthusiastically. It is obvious that the excellent 

 start made by the existing Data Center under six agencies of the Gov- 

 ernment should be protected and that any new legislation regarding 

 such a center should be enacted only if the mission of the center can 

 be enhanced and strengthened. 



The need for the establishment of primary standards for oceano- 

 graphic measurements is not self-evident, and needs further analysis. 

 In order to analyze properly such a requirement, it is necessary that 

 the nature of oceanographic work be thoroughly understood. 



We believe oceanography not to be a scientific discipline in a basic 

 sense, but rather to be an area of interdisciplinary research which 

 unites and utilizes the fundamental scientific disciplines, such as 

 biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics in its exploration of the 

 oceans. Thus, the primary standards of these basic disciplines are 

 also those of oceanography. The oceanographer, who may be a sea- 

 going physicist, uses the primary standards of length, time, and mass 

 in his work just as any other physicist. Or, again, the chemical 

 oceanographer uses the standard atomic weights along with all other 

 chemists. 



The national responsibility for primary standards has for many 

 years rested with the National Bureau of Standards. To establish 

 special standards for oceanography would only confuse and limit the 

 functions of this Bureau, which has done a job the excellence of which 



