Science in the Cause of Man, Gerard Piel, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1961 On September 13, 2008, while on my way to a Chinese/English language exchange, I came upon a garage sale. There I found this book. One of the impressive data to input into the assembly of information, its analysis and, hopefully, beneficial use, is the very great extent to which previous generations have possessed essential knowledge. A basic question formulates itself: how can destructive patterns of thought that throughout human history have prevailed against the perception, insight, and awareness of the wisest people be cured in the ascent of humanity to species sentience? A supplementary one is: once healed, how can humans retain health, avoiding the re-emergence of attitudes and behaviour that into the Twenty First Century are savaging them? This book by a former publisher of Scientific American and one of the contributors to the Science of Science reviewed elsewhere in this Solarguard subsection, emerges from the context of the concepts under- lying the Cold War. The very men who had provided the tools for species suicide realized the imperative necessity of employing human knowledge for the benefit of, rather than for the harm of, humanity. This book offers the analyst some nineteen articles. I hope by the end of the year to summarize these, adding whatever personal understandings are the harvest of their stimulating influence. I.1 "Science and Secrecy" (3-20): US censors burned three thousand copies of the April 1950 issue of Scientific American insisting on a censored version. Censors prohibit prominent scientists from saying what is already in the public domain. "Science and secrecy are a pair of opposites." P. 6 The advances in the physical sciences which now make the hydrogen bomb possible contrast powerfully with our laggard understanding in the social sciences p. 15 One thing we do know for sure about this mysterious process is that its decisive catylist is the truth. Hence our abhorrence of secrecy and censorship. In the words of Lord Acton: "Everything secret degenerates, even in the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity." p. 15 In our dealings with other government agencies, we do not recognize a press handout as an ultimate reference for anything but the policy of the agency that issues it. And we are always mindful that a press handout is important for what it leaves out as well as for what it contains. p. 18 Excessive secrecy concerning nuclear energy is institutional and highly problematic. I.2 "How Do We Make Our Alumni Publications Appeal to the Intellects of Our Alumni" (21-40) delivered at John Hopkins July 1953: These could more effectively cover teaching and learning, reaching across divides separating scientific journals into specific fields. I.3 "Scientists and Other Citizens" (29-40): Prominent scientists hounded by McCarthy and the Un-American Activities Committee have been elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Spending on science, mostly for military purposes, has much increased producing projects, teams, loss of independence. Demagogues currently issue charges essentially of heresy and association. The appropriate response is not denial of the charges, but of the validity of issuing them. I.4 "The Planet Earth" (41-60): Earth accommodates humanity, as all life, upon it. Human transmission of knowledge advances succeeding generations. Science is global, contrary to current nationalist policies: resources diverted to weaponeering, scientists from universities to industrial and governmental labs, secrecy stifling publication, travel restrictions impeding personal contact. The International Geophysical Year suggest that men can increase their understanding of the earth only by investigation of the planet as a whole. Such investigation today requires intellectional collaboration of a high order. But the collaboration is international only because men have divided the earth into their separate and transitory worlds. The earth itself remains one planet and the only one the next few generations of men are likely to know. p. 50 A minority of humanity lives well, the majority badly; the planet has the resources to support all well. UN agencies: WHO, FAO, UNESCO, have significantly addressed the requirements of the deprived. Rather than curtailing its support for such agencies, the US ought to increase its committment to what will likely be a major endeavour of the last half of the century. The $4 billion public works budgets of the New Deal have been succeeded by the $40 billion arms budgets of the cold war. p. 59 We have, perhaps, an even more pressing question: whether war or the expectation of war provides a dependable foundation upon which to rest our economic prosperity. p. 59 II "Science in America" Intro (63-64): Here are the five lectures I delivered at the University of Chicago in 1955-56. Eisenhower warned against "the military-industrial complex" and a "scientific- technological elite." (p. 63) Open science at Pugwash inspired a nuclear arms control agreement; "intellectual condotierri" (p. 64) impede its implementation. Hopefully the new Science Advisory Committee and the new president (Kennedy) can realize arms control and allow humanity's peaceful advance. II.1 "The Social Compact" (65-79): America has scientific awareness, replacing superstition with technological experience. Nineteenth Century America applied scientific advances made in Europe. In the Twentieth Century, especially with the arrival of prominent scientists fleeing totalitarian regimes, American universities added significant research to their teaching focus. Current military preoccupations neglect basic science. Public support is logical, but average comprehension of science is decreasing. Society alters; farmers become factory and office workers. Democratic control of our modern, monolithic economy is an essential challenge. II.2 "Founding Fathers as Social Scientists" (80-96): American founding fathers, including Benjamin Franklin, anticipated scientific advances. Their view of American democracy was scientific. They established American freedom, which demands the determined attention of succeeding generations. America's early colleges focused on teaching, not research. Charles Eliot at Harvard began the transition. Initially expected to teach what was confortable, schlars began to seek truth. The demonstrable and accumulative success of science showed that the test of truth could no longer be whether it was agreeable or orthodox, but whether it was supported by evidence. The test of the scholar was to be his competence, not his opinions or associations. p. 86 Growing conformity accepting erosion of freedom, including presumption of innocence, marks current reality. Tolerance of the expression of erroneous ideas is an essential aspect of the realization of truth. II.3 "Our Industrial Culture" (97-112): America's advantage is the scale of its industrial activity. In 1940 some seventy per cent (240 million dollars) of research funding came from industry, twenty per cent (70 million) from government and only about ten per cent (35 million) from endowments, etc. Now, the numbers are industry a billion, government two billion and ninety million other. Money has strings. The focus of industrial and government spending tends to be projects, not individuals, applied science and engineering, not pure scientific research. II.4 "Security and Heresy" (113-133): The atom bomb was developed with the help of some people considered security risks. Groves, the guy in charge, took the risk of hiring them. The 1947 loyalty decree restricts such hiring. Oppenheimer's situation is examined in some detail, including the point that holding strong opinions, including against the bomb, is not un-American. It is important that government have access to such opinions. II.5 "The New Paradise" (134-151): Developing nuclear weapons is not science. The military secrecy enveloping the decision to use the atomic bomb and to pursue the hydrogen bomb is not in the national interest. Meanwhile, we are just at the beginning of the dehumanization and decerebration of our society... p. 143 Einstein said that scientists have developed the tools allowing unscrupulous politicians to chain scientific freedom, though scientists can choose even destruction over slavery. Bertrand Russell addresses the issue of national loyalty. Bertrand Russell writes: "This matter of loyalty is the crux. Hitherto, in the East and West alike, most scientists, like most other people, have felt that loyalty to their own state is paramount. They no longer have a right to feel this. Loyalty to the human race must take its place... I do not wish to be thought to suggest treachery, since that is only a transference of loyalty to another national state. I am suggesting a very different thing: that scientists the world over should join in enlightening mankind as to the perils of a great war and in devising methods for its prevention." pp. 146-7 The Einstein Russell Manifesto is discussed and in part quoted: We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent or creed, but as human beings, members of the species man, whose continued existence is in doubt... There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: remember your humanity and forget the rest. An aspect of current reality is humanity's present ability to provide for all humans. As slavery only recently has become intolerable, so continued deprivation exists only until humanity's ethics matches its present technological level. III.1 "Secrets of Nature" presented to the Moss Committee March 1956 (pp. 155-167): Semantics erroneously suggest security equals secrecy, supporting what is "repugnant to our traditions." p. 156 Nature's secrets open, and cannot be concealed from, competent science. Simultaneity is the stuff of science's history. Examples are provided of this. of cross fertilization and of delays caused by commercial secrecy. It is an old experience in the administration of our country that secrecy can be a shield for incompetence and corruption. p. 166 Under our Constitution, Congress is not empowered to abridge communication; it is forbidden to abridge communication. But there is nothing in the Constitution that says Congress cannot promote communication. p. 166 He recommends funding translations of foreign language journals. III.2 "Science, Censorship, and the Public Interest" presented to the 1956 convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science" (168-177): Scientific communication, facilitated internally by technical writers and to the public by science writers, is threatened by a current culture of secrecy, inimical to our way of life. The First Ammendment ordered disclosure of information. Government has increasingly done the opposite. The first Congressional investigation into such secrecy is the Moss Commission. Science especially is impacted by enthusiastic censors lacking competence to de-classify what they stamp. III.3 "Sputniks in the Sky" to the Women's City Club New York City Dec 1957 (178-192): Sputnik was a human achievement heralding a lunar observatory, interplanetary and even interstellar exploration. Russia has a long scientific tradition and deep respect for the scientist. The author praises an asserted individualistic American approach to science over Soviet team work. The Soviet Union now has free decent universal education. American education can be improved not only with more science learning, but learning more broadly. III.4 "Science, Disarmament, and Peace" (pp. 193-200): Science is in the public domain and belongs to all of the people in the world. It is only in our troubled times that we have learned to speak of American science, or German or Russian science. Whatever these jingoistic phrases are intended to suggest, they are a contradiction in terms. p. 195 But now let us settle this anxiety about science. I venture to declare that the further advance of science can add little to mankind's already well-secured capacity to destroy itself. It is difficult to see how we can improve on the ultimate. p. 195 Technological improvements may remain. More concern arises from the extent of the militarization of our society. Science now permits global peace and freedom. III.5 "The Revolution in Man's Labor" April 1959 Annapolis, Maryland: (201-216): We stand on the verge of species suicide. To assert humanity's violent nature ignores humanity's adaptability. Forceful acquisition of scarce resources loses meaning in an age of science providing abundance. Long ago the agricultural revolution enabled four families to support four plus one. The four were enslaved. Over the past four centuries inductive reasoning increasingly accelerated scientific understanding, providing the means to eliminate planetary want. To prevent starvation, the industrialized segment of humanity can invest in developing lands. III.6 "In defense of Education" (217-229): St. Louis, Missouri October 1959 (217-229): In response to Sputnik, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act allocating three hundred million dollars to what previously had been a local responsibility. The purpose of such funding is highly problematic: Not so long ago, it was universally agreed that the aim of education is the perfection of the individual, the evocation and realization of his humanity. Under the terms of the act, education--and the individual as well--becomes a means to an end, subordinated to the demands of national defense. The essence of what the defense measures are supposed to defend has been forgotten. p. 223 It is better to teach people, not subjects, to enliven, not deaden, normal, enthusiastic curiosity. III.7 "The Economics of Disarmament" Cleveland, Ohio November, 1959 (230-252): Public pressure produced present suspension of nuclear arms testing. Disarmament prospects challenge America's highly militaristic economy. Business leaders keep secret readied alternate peacetime activities. Scientists have the intelligence and personal interest (at present overwhelmingly employed by military funds) to consider peaceful economics. Classical and Keynesian economic thought are outlined. Public works could make good the function of the military sector: There is reproach to every citizen in a mere listing of the areas of neglect: education, hospitals and health services, housing, urban renewal, public transportation, soil conservation, reclamation, afforestation, air and water pollution, navigation and flood control. p. 248 Sentiment that making armaments destined for the dump is valid and public works a waste of taxes is a psychological, rather than an economic, matter. III.8 "The Economics of Underdevelopment" Swarthmore College December 1960 (253-271): The Industrial Revolution acquired capital through imposed deprivation. Current technologically provided capital surpluses enable developed countries to invest in the industrialization of the poorest. Creating more markets could also be in our economic interest. American expenditures in the Third World are heavily militarily oriented. Investment in agriculture sustains a relatively small proportion on single (largely export destined) crop plantations, making "beneficiary" nations of such investment import food for their own needs. Mineral, including petroleum, resources largely advantage foreign companies, unlikely to favour altering existing arrangements. III.9 "The Economics of Abundance" Santa Barbara, California April 1961 (272-291): Technological advancement permits greater production with less labour. Land is replaced as the basis of wealth. Automation rises even to central nervous system functions actually exceeding human capacity and eliminating white collar jobs. The gap separating needed makers/distributors of goods and employable people has been made up by a militaristic economy. Increasing automation can have another result: The liberation of people from tasks unworthy of human capacity should free that capacity for a host of activities now neglected in our civilization: teaching and learning, fundamental scientific investigation, the performing arts and the graphic arts, letters, the crafts, politics and social service. Characteristically these activities involve the interaction of people with people rather than with things. p. 289 III.10 "The Wilderness and the American Dream" to the Sierra Club San Francisco April 1961 (292-298): Early American ideals were fairly egalitarian; many late Nineteenth Century Americans were tenant farmers and urban labourers. Today one third of Americans are at or below subsistence living, others' well-being coming from suicidal militarism. The wilderness remains awaiting humanity's awakening. Michael McKenny, September 14-21 2008 C.E. Solarguard UN and USA