Science in transition: searching for a role in the post-cold war era

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 1998 by Daniel J. Kevles

With Congress seeking to slash Federal support of scientific research, an examination of the past reemphasizes the need to fund advanced technology if America is to retain its world leadership in the next century.

The end of the Cold War opened a new--and, so far, much-troubled---era of transition in Federal patronage of science. This differs sharply from the defense-driven transformation in the relationship of science and government that followed World War II. Federal investment in research and development grew steadily until the late 1960s, turned flat for a decade, then burgeoned in the 1980s to levels higher in constant dollars than the munificent post-war heights. The end of the Cold War dramatically diminished the nuclear danger, but, in tandem, the American technical community, facing stiff competition from abroad, no longer can take for granted the Federal resources for science on which it has counted during the last half-century.

In 1993, Congress killed the project to build the Superconducting Super Collider, the estimated cost of which had reached $11,000,000,000. Sen. Dave Durenberger (R.-Minn.) explained: "If we were engaged in a scientific competition with a global superpower like the former Soviet Union, and if this project would lead to an enhancement of our national security, then I would be willing to continue funding the project. But ... we face no such threat." In constant dollars, Federal expenditures for research and development (R&D) turned downward in 1989, were driven lower by the recession of the early 1990s, and in the Fiscal Year 1995 budget were about 80% of what they had been in 1987. By then, the Federal share of R&D spending had fallen from slightly less than half the total to a little more than onethird of it. In pursuit of budget balancing, Democrats and Republicans now are talking about cuts of 15-20% in Federal support of scientific research.

Simultaneously, the value of Federal investment in basic research was questioned even by a number of its most sympathetic friends in Congress. They charged that the social returns from science had been inadequate, having done little to overcome a failing education system, decaying cities, environmental degradation, unaffordable health care, and history's largest national debt. In accord with those views, the Congress of both the Bush and Clinton Administrations pressed for research programs that are targeted to achieve generally practical ends, such as building the information superhighway.

The advent of a new era in Federal science policy has prompted a search for navigational bearings. Many have invoked what is taken to be the charter document of the relationship between science and the American government since 1945, electrical engineer Vannevar Bush's influential report, Science--the Endless Frontier. Yet, in 1947, in the middle of the post-World War II transformation, chemist James B. Conant, then the president of Harvard University and a key figure in science policymaking, had remarked, "You have to get the past straight before you do much to prepare people for the future." The current uncertainty about science and government invites a look at history.

The post-World War II transformation rewards scrutiny, if only because it achieved the status of a creation myth. Bush said let there be Federal support of basic research and training, and the postwar system of Federal research and development was born. In truth, the creation of the system was embattled, and a good deal of contemporary relevance is to be gleaned from revisiting some of the key issues that were fought and the way they were contested.

The 1890s to World War II

General understanding has it that Federal support of science before World War II was insignificant and that, prior to the 1930s, little if any science of consequence was done in the U.S. That view is mistaken. Beginning in the post-Civil War years, branches of the life sciences were pursued with considerable distinction.

The expansion in Federal patronage bespoke a willingness to support research in disciplines relevant to one of the major national missions of the era: the exploration, settlement, and economic development of land, especially in the Far West. Federal research was strengthened greatly or marked by new departures in the earth sciences, including geodesy (applied mathematics to determine the size and shape of the Earth) and weather predictions. The most dramatic initiative was the U.S. Geological Survey. Created in 1879, the USGS led all other Federal scientific agencies in the scope and prominence of its work, thanks to the energy, imagination, and political skills of the director after 1881, John Wesley Powell. Its work in pure and applied geology rapidly achieved world-class distinction. Between 1881 and 1884, Powell's budget jumped fivefold, reaching $500,000 a year. The sum was by no means inconsiderable, since it took up a sixfold greater fraction of the Federal budget than the Geological Survey commands today, and was enough to make a significant difference in the science of the time.