260 • Impacts of Applied Genetics— Micro-Organisms, Plants, and Animals 
Public concern and demand for involvement 
in the policy process is illustrated by the re- 
sponse of communities to plans for laboratories 
that would conduct rDNA research. Perhaps the 
best known example is Cambridge, Mass., 
where plans were announced for construction 
of a moderate containment laboratory at Har- 
vard University. Concern over this facility led to 
the formation of the Cambridge Experimenta- 
tion Review Board (CERB). Composed of nine cit- 
izens— all laymen with respect to rDNA re- 
search— the CERB spent 6 months studying the 
subject and listening to testimony from sci- 
entists with opposing points of view. Their final 
recommendations did not differ substantially 
from the NIH Guidelines; hut the process was 
crucial. CERB demonstrated that citizens could 
acquire enough knowledge about a highly tech- 
nical subject to develop realistic criteria and ap- 
ply them. Similar responses to proposed labo- 
ratories have occurred in a number of other 
American communities, including Ann Arbor, 
Mich., and Princeton, N.J.® 
These reactions, and similar phenomena sur- 
rounding controversies like nuclear power, in- 
dicate that the desire for citizen participation is 
strong and widespread. Recognizing this, each 
Federal agency has its own rules and mech- 
anisms for citizen input. Special ad hoc com- 
missions are sometimes formed to collect infor- 
mation from private citizens before decisions 
are made on particular projects. Congressional 
bearings held around the country and in Wash- 
ington, D.C., are perhaps the best known of 
these inquiries. While these mechanisms some- 
times slow the decisionmaking process, they 
help legitimize some decisions, and their role 
will probably expand in the future. 
In corporate science and technology, public 
demands are being felt as well. Present regula- 
tions for environmental protection and worker 
and product safety have significantly altered 
■'Richard Hutton, Bio-Revolution: DNA and the Ethics of Man- 
Made Life INew York: New American l.ibrarv (Mentor), 19781. 
corporate research and development efforts. 
The public is also becoming more involved in 
corporate decisionmaking— e.g., through '“pub- 
lic accountability” campaigns by stockholders to 
influence company policies. 
With the politicization of science, the process 
of research itself is coming under increasing 
public scrutiny— most recently in cases of possi- 
ble biohazards, research with human subjects, 
and research on fetuses. Some efforts are un- 
derway to require better treatment of research 
animals as well. 
The relationship between science and society, 
between buman beings and tbeir tools, is a con- 
stantly evolving one. Tbe process that bas been 
called the "dialogue within science and tbe dia- 
logue between the scientific community ami tbe 
general public”® will continue to search for 
standards of responsibility. It is likely that as 
long as science remains as dependent on public' 
funds as it has over the past 40 years, it will be 
held accountable to public \ alues. As bas becMi 
noted:^ 
The technologies of war, industrialization, 
medicine, environmental |)rotection, etc., ap- 
pear less as the demonstrations of su|)erior 
claims of knowledge and moi-e and more as the 
symbols of the ethical and political choices un- 
derlying the distrihution of the power of scien- 
tific knowledge among competing social \al- 
ues .... This cultural shift of emphasis from the 
role of science in the intellectual construction of 
reality to the role of science; in the; e'thical con- 
struction of society may indicate a |)rofound 
transformation in the [)arameters of the social 
assessment of science and its relations to the |)o- 
litical order. 
“Uaniel Callahan, "l•.lhil■al Rc.sponsihilily in Si irtu c in Ihr I ,n r 
of tlnccrtain Cons(‘(|iicncc,s, ' Ethical anti Si icntifii Issues rosetl In 
Human Uses of Molecular Genetics, Marc I appe and Rohrrl s 
Morison ((‘d.s.), , Annals nl Ihc New N ni k Acadcim iil srirnrrs Jl,.', 
.Ian. 23, I97(i, p. 10. 
'’Yaron I'./.rahi, " ( lu> I’niilics nl Ihc Social \sscssmrnl ol Si ii'ncc 
in The Sot:ial Assessment of Science, I . Mcndclsnn I) \clkm I' 
Weingart (cds ), Conicrcncc I'mcccdmgs (IliciHi-ld U rsl (.n 
many: /\&.W()pitz, 1978), p 181 
