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matters before them, and finally they must have the mature judgement needed to weigh the evidence presented. Thus, it is almost inevitable that a scientific judge would have earned his distinction in areas other than those in which he could qualify as unprejudiced.

It has occasionally been suggested that the advocates should present their points of view directly to the political leaders who have decisions to make. This procedure suffers from the grave difficulty that political leaders will not be able to spend the time necessary to understand scientific debates in sufficient depth to distinguished the relative validity of positions taken by sophisticated advocates. The scientific judge would differ from the political leader sitting in judgment on scientific questions in that his scientific background should enable him to more quickly assess the evidence presented by opposing advocates and to participate in something analogous to a cross-examination procedure. He would on the other hand, not be expected to have the deep acquaintance with the field required from the advocates.

Scientists are traditionally advocates and judicial functions in small-scale science have never had an importance comparable with that of advocacy. An experiment can always overturn anyone's judgment on a scientific question. However, the judicial function becomes important in large-scale science and technology when we must anticipate the results of experiments which cannot be performed without the expenditure of great amounts of money or time. This increase in the importance of the judicial function requires the development of a group of distinguished people who will devote themselves to scientific judgment. The point has been frequently made that a scientist needs to keep actively engaged in creative work in order to maintain his expertise. I submit, however, that if a mature scientist is deeply involved in finding the truth between the claims and counterclaims of sophisticated advocates, that his education will be continuously improved by the advocates and that he will be continuously mentally stretched in the effort to reach wise judgments. Communication from the judges to the scientific community and the public is an essential part of maintaining their expertise and reputation. A provision for publication of judgments suggested below will help to accomplish this.

The problems of selecting people to serve as judges and advocates will, of course, be the most difficult matter in reaching wise decisions under this scheme as under any other. It would be very important that everything possible be done to elevate the positions of advocates and especially of judges so as to attract people whose wisdom will match the importance of the judgments they must make.

3. The scientific judgments reached should be published

In many cases the results of scientific advisory committees have not been made available to the public for reasons other than national security reasons. The existence of such privileged information makes it very difficult for the public to assess the degree to which a mixed decision is based on political grounds.

I would propose that the opinions of scientific judges reached after hearing opposing advocates should be published within the limits of national security. The publication of these judgments would serve two purposes. First, it would provide the whole political community with a statement of scientific facts as currently seen by unbiased

judges after a process in which opposing points of view have been heard and cross-examined. Hopefully these opinions would acquire sufficient presumptive validity to provide an improved base on which political decisions could be reached. Second, the publication of opinions reached by scientific judges would inevitably increase their personal involvement and thus, could help to attract distinguished scientists to serve in the decisionmaking process.

There is a grave difficulty raised by the traditional conservatism of scientists, even those who have exhibited great imagination and daring in their own work. I have no formula to offer to overcome this bias other than an insistence that the advocates of novel approaches be heard. It is important that they be cross-examined by skeptical experts and that the judges feel a responsibility for not rendering negative judgments on inadequate evidence. It is actually very difficult to offer rigorous proof that something cannot be done, and usually the most that can be said is that I cannot see how to do it. Scientific judges whose opinions would be published should be more accountable for errors in judgment. It is very important that this type of formal procedure not be allowed to interfere with the small-scale creative science which must precede any major decisionmaking. This work has always been pursued with a widespread opportunity for initiative in a kind of private enterprise, laissez faire system in which I firmly believe. When large-scale funding is required we must restrict the number of approaches that are made and the question can be asked would the formalization of institutions for scientific judgement result in harmful restrictions on initiative. However, the scientific advisory procedures which now exist have also been guilty in this respect, and more formalization of these procedures could be designed to control the narrowing of the number of alternatives pursued simultaneously as a project grows in size.

Congressional review of important scientific programs requires an independent source of scientific judgment. It would be valuable to acquire that judgment in a manner different from the procedures which have been developed in the executive branch. I would propose that the Congress create an institution for scientific judgment on an experimental basis. The future of such an institution would depend on the degree to which political and scientific communities would accept its initial judgments in comparison with those of existing techniques. It seems to me possible that a relatively modest start could begin the development of an institution which in the course of time could achieve a much higher level of presumptive validity in communication of the Congress with the scientific community than now exists. Such an institution could be invaluable in providing an improved scientific basis for future mixed decisions of the Congress. Thank you.

Senator HARRIS. Thank you very much.

Dr. KANTROWITZ. I would like to append two short statements, if I may.

First, I would like to repeat the endorsements that have been made. of the National Institutes of Health. Although I come into this Institute something of a foreigner, I have found a very sophisticated reception for the contributions that my discipline can make and I think that we all have in the National Institutes of Health an institution

of which this country can be very proud. I think that it is important that this is very well recognized. The achievements of people like Dr. Shannon, I think, are beyond our ability to reward, in my mind.

Now, I'd like to make one remark also about the proposals for an Academy of Medicine that have been advanced here. I find the creation of an Academy of Engineering to be somewhat unfortunate, and I find it unfortunate because I am reminded of the difficulties we got into, particularly in World War II, in the separation of engineering and science. There was an important gap created which had to be filled in by people from mostly basic science. I think, that in view of the fact that the Academy of Science does have an engineering branch, which I think has more members than the Academy of Engineers, at least it did the last time I looked at the figures, that the incorporation of engineering with science is a good and strong thing. I would think that we would not be favoring interdisciplinary approach which you have so strongly stressed, Senator Harris, if we separate medicine from the rest of science. I think that it's separate now and we are talking about the gains that can be made by bringing medicine closer to the other scientific disciplines. Now, I find that there are too few members from medicine in the Academy. And it is my intention to try and do something about that. Yet, I don't understand why there are so few members. But the creation of a separate academy, I think, would be an unfortunate kind of division.

Senator HARRIS. What would you think about a National Institute of Bioengineering within the National Institutes of Health?

Dr. KANTROWITZ. I think that that might well be a useful thing to have. I have enjoyed my communications with the people in the heart of the institution. I have worked very well with Dr. Frank Hastings and I have the utmost respect for these people. They approach their tasks with a sincerity which seems wonderful to me and I have learned to depend upon them for scientific advice and I have found that not only the sort of help you get from the contracting officer in many cases, but they are holding my hand in a scientific sense and I think it is wonderful. I have nothing but great praise for it.

Senator HARRIS. Well, I share with you that feeling. It may be a feeling which expresses a problem to which there is no solution; namely, that there ought to be some better way to set priorities and goals in the whole science field insofar as the Federal Government is involved. I don't know about an Institute of Scientific Judgment. First, how would you select impartial judges who would not also be advocates and would not also be products of their own background and experi ence and, therefore, biased?

Secondly, Dr. Weisner and Dr. Kistiakowsky both have said in seminars we held last year that they feel one of the real strengths of the American system is (unlike the Soviet Union's to which they compared it) our diversity, a pluralistic system of diverse judgment. Setting up a kind of institution you suggest might get us into the position of having a science czar. Apparently the Soviet scientific community is now attempting to get away from that and become more diverse as our own system is. Wouldn't you run the risk that the institution would tend to formalize the conventional wisdom in certain fields and wouldn't allow for new and individual ideas?

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Dr. KANTROWITZ. I agree with you completely and I think I did make the point that this is real, and I think you have expressed it better than I did that there is such a problem. Nevertheless, I do think that just as it is necessary for our courts to decide between shades of gray and call them black or white, you in the Congress are faced with the necessity for such decisions also. It seems to me that when we must make a decision, then you should ask for a statement of scientific fact which is the best you can get at the time. Now, when you have a decision to make at that stage, and only at that stage would I recommend that you go into a formalized procedure. It is related only to what I would call major acts of Congress.

Senator HARRIS. Well, I might say this. Some people have asked me frequently how the Congress can make a mixed scientific judgment. Well, I say it is no more difficult than it is to make mixed judgments on economic affairs or those that have to do with some expertise in Chinese affairs. Not many of us in the Senate, if any, are experts on China, yet we make decisions often on the basis of conflicting recommendations. Not many of us are real experts in economics although all of us ought to realize that our decisions pertaining to national economic affairs alter or influence economic policy. But we must make our decisions based upon, most times, conflicting advice from experts in the field of economics. So, I don't believe judgments on science policy are any more difficult in that regard than are the others. I think our great deficiency is that we do not realize that we are making science policy and setting goals and priorities in the Congress right now. We don't, however, get any sense of overall priorities and national goals. Our decisions are the result of a lot of things. One, because of the committee structure we are fragmented. For example, the Armed Services Committee and the Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Armed Services both make decisions that have to do with national defense, independently of each other, and many times without regard to what's being done by, say, AEC in the field of atomic energy or NASA in aeronautics. So, I think that's our greatest need, to become conscious of the priorities that we now set unconsciously as a result of our fragmented decisions.

The other thing is, and I don't know exactly how that may be done, but I wonder if it might be in line with the concern you and I have expressed and should be brought up, as I did with your brother, the possibility that various agencies involved with science policy might set some kind of 5-year goals and 1-year subgoals that not only would perhaps excite some attention from prospective investigators, but it might do two other things: first, it might make those involved in planning realize that they are making judgments. I am talking about the executive departments. For example, Mike Gorman testified here that he found when he went on the Advisory Council for the National Institute for Mental Health, that he was bogged down in making individual decisions on specific project proposals without any overall plan or view from which to look at a proposal and decide in context, whether it should be funded or not. That's the way Congress makes decisions also.

The thought was that if those running the National Institutes of Mental Health had stated some overall goals and made some statements of needs the council could make more sense out of individual proposals, and out of what they were doing in reviewing individual project pro

posals and recommending funding them or not; second, it might give Congress some idea of what sort of goals we are establishing. And, here's another thing, it might give a little more sex appeal to some of the less romatic things such as medical research. You see we're being asked to appropriate this year around 73 billion for defense plus about a 12-billion supplemental for Vietnam, 5 billion for space, and about 800 million in medical research. Some say that's because we're not able to state our goals in terms that have wide public appeal. It's not like going to the moon. We spend about 5 billion a year to do that because we've a state goal that has public appeal. However there is a danger in oversetting or overstating the case. I think that's happened with the poverty program and the Alliance for Progress.

Disappointment has set in because progress has been slower than promised. There is that caution to be regarded. There might also be a side affect from some statement of goals in the scientific field. Would you care to comment on that?

Dr. KANTROWITZ. I think that the statement of goals for scientific research is the most difficult problem. I would think it much easierSenator HARRIS. Isn't that though what wer're saying?

Dr. KANTROWITZ. You will have to ask this Institute such questions no doubt about it-I think in making your decision. But I would say that the record of predictions by scientists of what can be done, of what will be done, of what is most attractive to do has been a miserably bad record. Adlai Stevenson once was dedicating a scientific laboratory in Rochester and he made the statement that he looked up, in trying to predict what this laboratory might accomplish, he looked up a committee that President Roosevelt got together in 1937 to predict what was going to happen and he noticed that they failed to predict electronic computers, rocketry, the atom bomb, radar, and so on and he concluded by saying that he found himself on a par with the great scientific minds of the time because he didn't predict those things either. I would say that the prediction of where we ought to go is the most difficult thing that really distinguishes the great scientist from the competent one. The man who has the vision to see something when it is not yet visible to people who are merely competent. And this, of course, is the great problem in doing these things.

I would like to make a remark though on a very serious, interesting question you have raised about how you must make decisions about China policy as well as economic policy, in which there is a vast body of expertise. The difference between those kinds of decisions and the mixed scientific, political decisions which you must make lies precisely in the fact that the rules of scientific evidence are a tremendous source of strength. In this respect science is unique among human endeavors. This is an area where people in time can reach absolute agreement where the absolute power of reference to nature through experiment is telling in the long run. I would claim that these great decisions that you must make involving science will be easier to make than the similar great decisions you must make involving China, if you take great pains to get the best that you can out of scientific communities. At the time, we are still divided.

Senator HARRIS. Very well, Dr. Kantrowitz. Thanks again for your statement here and your responses to my questions. We appreciate it very much.

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