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Science and the Growth of the American Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

I. Bernard Cohen
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Just a few years ago, it was estimated that 90 percent of all the scientists and engineers who had ever lived were still alive; and that more than half of them were resident in the United States. These numbers show the status of America as a major scientific nation, and the reason why this is a fact of critical importance for the historical analyst in 1976 is that only 40 years ago America could probably still be classed as an “undeveloped” (or “developing”) country on the highest scale of the international scientific community. Before addressing myself to the causes of this change and its consequences for American political and social thought and action, for the American conscience and for America's public image and self-image, let me indicate the kind of evidence that supports my assertion that America might be considered “underdeveloped” with respect to the sciences, prior to 1935. First of all, there was an almost wholly one-way direction of movement of graduate and postdoctoral students: eastward over the Atlantic to the great European centers of scientific teaching and research. Although there were some fields in which Americans had been making outstanding contributions, such as experimental and theoretical genetics, by and large the great overarching theories that either introduced order into one of the sciences, or brought diverse branches of science into an unexpected relationship, or revolutionized much of science, were produced by Europeans: Rutherford, the Curies, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac. In 1963, in an address on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of our National Academy of Sciences, John F. Kennedy observed that of the 670 members of the Academy, 163 (or one out of every four) had been born in foreign lands—a figure that differed in order of magnitude from the condition in any other country, and that showed the degree to which the high estate that American science had gained was owing to the infusion of scientists from abroad.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 359 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1976

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References

page no 359 note * This statement, that 90 percent of all the scientists who have ever lived are still alive, is usually attributed to Professor Edward Purcell of Harvard, but he stoutly denies ever having made it. It was given wide currency, coupled with the name of Purcell, by Oppenheimer, J. Robert, in an article entitled, “The Tree of Knowledge”, Published in Harper's magazine in 10, 1958Google Scholar. The added remark that of these scientists and engineers “nearly half of them live in the United States”, occurs on page 27 of the volume devoted to the United States, in the series “Reviews of National Science Policy”, published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The grounds for our being able to say that 80 or 90 percent of all the scientists who have ever lived are still living may be found in the opening pages of Derek J. DeSolla Price, Little Science, Big Science.

The estimate that half of these scientists and engineers are now residing in the United States must be something of an exaggeration. For instance, according to a report published in 1959 by OECD, the total number of scientists and engineers in the USA was somewhat greater than in all the other OECD countries taken together (that is, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia): 1,096,000 in the USA and 973,500 for the others. Since these figures do not include the Soviet Union, China, Japan, India, and other non-OECD countries, the “half” referred to is clearly wrong. Even so, the proportion of scientists and engineers in the United States to those of the other OECD countries cited above does at least validate the claim that by the early 1960's America had become one of the foremost nations in the world in science

page no 359 note † It must be remembered, as a qualifier, that the movement of graduate students and postdoctoral graduate students can never purely reflect the difference between the attractiveness of American centers of research and European ones, since there is always a factor of availability of funds to support such travel. An examination of the sources of support for Americans, for example, shows the good luck in having such funds made available through the Rockefeller Foundation (the Institute for International Education). Furthermore, there can be no doubt that there were some real attractions to Europeans in America, such as the existence of observatories with large telescopes.

page no 360 note * A somewhat different point of view might appear from an intensive study of the activity of Americans during the first three decades of the twentieth century, in agricultural, biomedical, and life sciences. For there can be no doubt that Americans were making more first-rate contributions in these areas than in the exact and physical sciences. Furthermore, there was no succession of overarching theories, of the sort exemplified by quantum theory or relativity or atomic structure, in these life and health sciences. Yet the general impression held by American and by European scientists is that America had not achieved an overall highest rank in these areas either, until the fourth decade of the twentieth century.

page no 360 note † Again, numbers by themselves do not provide conclusive evidence. For instance, it might have been the case that this large proportion of Europeans was due to the fact that America had become so great a scientific country that many European and Asian scientists had emigrated here — drawn to our great centers of research activity.

page no 360 note ‡ The only country that came even reasonably close to an annual R&D budget of 3 percent of the GNP in these years was the United Kingdom. In the Soviet Union, however, matters are reckoned somewhat differently, and it has been estimated that the equivalent would now be at least 3 percent of the GNP.

page no 362 note * In 1967, federal R&D expenditures were allocated as follows: DOD 43 percent, NACA & NASA 32 percent, AEC 9.5 percent, HEW 7 percent, NSF 1.7 percent.

page no 362 note † Rabi relates that before he went on a pastdoctoral trip to Europe, he had never really come upon a first-rate mind in the sciences. “And there in Hamburg I was close to the greatest minds of the time. Yet I discovered that I knew a lot more physics than the Germans of my age and training — fresh Ph.D.'s. I knew a lot of physics, but I would describe my knowledge by saving I had the libretto without the score. In other words, I was not yet immersed in the living tradition of physics. A lot of what you really accomplish in physics depends upon your taste in what to work on and what to be interested in. You can work very hard on an unimportant problem and show tremendous skill and ingenuity. Before I went to Europe, I had never met real producers of physics. And such physics, and at such a time! It was the most formative experience I had”. It is not clear how typical Rabi's experience was, and there can be no doubt that American scientists who had gained their Ph.D.'s were well trained. But they had not yet been in the same continuous contact with the living traditions of research that characterized their fellow students at the same level in Europe. For further information see the “profile” of Rabi, by Bernstein, Jeremy, in the New Yorker, 13 10 1975, and 20 Oct. 1975Google Scholar.

page no 367 note * Scientifically trained readers will be, perhaps, even more impressed by Jefferson's remarks about. Lagrange's Mechanique analytique, which he had encountered in Paris. It is “a remarkable book”, Jefferson wrote, and its author “is allowed to be the greatest mathematician now living, and his personal worth is equal to his science”. As to the book itself, let me quote Jefferson's comments in full: “The object of his work is to reduce all the principles of mechanics to the single one of the equilibrium, and to give a simple formula applicable to them all. The subject is treated in the algebraic method, without diagrams to assist the conception”. Could any statesman of our own days give so admirable, accurate, and precise a description of an equally technical work? I doubt it.

page no 370 note * Harvard College was not exceptional in its devotion to science during the colonial period. The important place of science in the curriculum of all the colonial colleges has been amply demonstrated.

page no 371 note * A point of view at odds with mine has been developed by Nathan Reingold in a chapter on “American Indifference to Basic Research: A Reappraisal”, in Nineteenth-Century American Science: A Reappraisal, ed. George Daniels. The opening argument, that “of all Western nations the indifferent Americans devote a greater percentage of their gross national product to research and dievelopment in general and probably to basic research in particular”, has been somewhat weakened by subsequent events. But Reingold is correct in pointing out that it is easy to magnify the achievements of American colonial science out of context and out of all due proportion, so as to make it appear that there was a nadir in American science between two zeniths: in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. On the other hand, the general high place given to science (as an ideal for social and political thinking, as a source of intellectual values, as a main subject for education in schools and colleges, and as an area in which research was to be carried out) in the minds of the Founding Fathers and of most political and1 religious leaders of the late eighteenth century would seem to have opened up a real possibility that the future course of scientific development in our country might have been different from that in the usual developing country—and all the more so in the light of such genuine scientific achievement on the part of Americans.

page no 375 note * The new department at Yale called itself the School of Applied Chemistry; it combined with the School of Engineering in 1851 to become the Yale Scientific School, later (in 1861) renamed the Sheffield Scientific School in honor of a benefactor.

page no 379 note * He was offered a post at Bowdoin in 1873, and later at Johns Hopkins in 1879; so that it cannot be said that Gibbs was wholly without reputation in America. J. J. Thomson later recalled the visit of a newly elected president of an American university who wanted to find a professor of molecular physics. Thomson recommended Willard Gibbs, only to be told that he probably had intended to mention Wolcott Gibbs, who was a chemist at Harvard (a very able man, though not in the same category as Willard). “No”, replied J. J. Thomson, “I mean Willard Gibbs”. The visitor asked for another name, saying: “Willard Gibbs can't be a man of much personal magnetism or I should have heard of him”.

page no 381 note * In 1883, in Science, an editorial on “National Traits in Science” ended with this paragraph: “America's contributions to pure sciences are by no means very extensive, or often very important: compared with the great volume of German production they seem almost insignificant. We have never duly fostered research, for we have bestowed upon it neither the proper esteem nor office. There are, we suppose, at least six thousand ‘professors’ in the United States: are one hundred and fifty of them active investigators? The time seems remote when every American professor will be expected to be also anv investigator; but among us is a little band of men who have before them the model of Germany, and who are working earnestly for the intellectual elevation of their country. Their first object is necessarily to render research more important in public estimation, and so to smooth the way for a corps of professional investigators. Every thoughtful person must wish success to the attempt”.

page no 382 note * America's attitude toward research may be illustrated by the case of Ira Remsen, the inaugural professor of chemistry at the first institution to be established in America for postgraduate work: the Johns Hopkins University. Remsen had been trained in Europe, receiving his Ph.D. at Göttingen in 1870. He became professor at Williams College in 1872. There he found no laboratory. When he requested one, the reply of the president was: “You will please keep in mind that this is a college and not a technical school. The students who come here are not to be trained as chemists or geologists or physicists. They are to be taught the great fundamental truths of all sciences. The object aimed at is culture, not practical knowledge”. Remsen later recalled a faculty meeting held in the college library. One of his articles had just been published in the American Journal of Science. Someone picked up the number and tried without success to read the title aloud; then followed some “good-natured fun”. Said Remsen, “I felt that in the eyes of my colleagues I was rather a ridiculous subject”. This story, typical of the period, indicates that scientific research and knowledge were clearly not considered to be very important in American higher education.

page no 385 note * In the U.K. and W. Germany, this figure was about 2 percent, and in Japan and France 1.8 percent.

The decline may be seen in other ways, as follows: our “national expenditures for R&D—expressed in constant 1958 dollars—declined 6 percent between 1968 and 1971. Total R&D expenditures as a proportion of the GNP declined to 2.5 percent in 1972 from a high of 3 percent in 1964. The number of scientists and engineers engaged in R&D reached a peak of almost 560,000 in 1969 and declined each year thereafter for a total reduction of 35,000 by 1972. Federal funds for industrial R&D declined in current dollars after 1969. And the fraction of Federal outlays devoted to R&D fell from 12 to 7 percent between 1965 and 1972. As of 1972, 73 percent of all Federal R&D expenditures went for national defense and space and only 27 percent for civilian needs.

“The impact of these indicators can best be seen in the slow rate of growth in U.S. productivity. Thus U.S. productivity gained1 only 39 percent over the last decade compared to 210 percent for Japan, 86 percent for West Germany, 81 percent for France, and 50 percent for the United Kingdom. And from 1966 to 1971, productivity gains in the United States were outpaced by increasing labor costs”. (Quoted from a statement on national science policy and priorities, U.S. Senate, 11 Oct. 1974, by Senator Edward M. Kennedy.)

page no 386 note * Some corresponding numbers are 25 Japan (same as U.S.), 15 West Germany, 12 France.

page no 386 note † An independent study in 1974 by Pierre Aigrain, former delegate for scientific and technical development in France (a post equivalent to that of our presidential science adviser plus certain power in allocating funds which we vest in the Office of Management and Budget), showed a marked decline over 10 years in U.S. commitment to scientific research and development, especially in comparison with the Western European countries and Japan. But, he noted, the U.S. was still ahead of these countries in “percentage of its gross national product allocated to research and development and percentage of manpower working” in pure and applied science and development.

page no 387 note * All common field corn is hybrid. The difference is that the new corn was the result of a double-cross (A × B) × (B × C) of four of the pure inbred lines that are the ancestors of ordinary corn.

page no 390 note * It should be noted that there were many factors involved. The life sciences, with their apparent immediate applicability to health, are far more glamorous than ordinary chemistry, physics, or geology. Then, too, the NIH had extraordinary spokesmen in the Congress in the persons of Senator Hill and Congressman Fogarty, aided and abetted by a powerful lobby led by Mary Lasker and others. As may be expected, the NSF drew back in its support of the life sciences (leaving this area largely to NIH) and concentrated on mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and the earth sciences.

page no 391 note * On 15 October 1957, eleven days after the launching of Sputnik, Professor I. I. Rabi, then chairman of the Science Advisory Committee to the Office of Defense Mobilization, “remarked spontaneously that from the committee's point of view, most matters of policy coming before the president have a very strong scientific component. Not only a technical but a scientific point of view plays a role. He did not see around the president any person who would help keep the president aware of the scientific considerations, as in the economic field. He did not see the scientific point of view put forward in a way to give daily opportunities to influence attitudes. He observed that science was, in a sense, being called in after the fact. There was no continuous involvement. The president said that he agreed with this, and that more than once he had felt this need. But the lines of organization were frozen. The office of the president was crammed and inadequate. Congress has traditionally been jealous with respect to this office. However, something could probably be worked out. It is not the entire answer, but it would help to have someone who could see the scientific problems and bring in more specific ideas—a special assistant trained as a scientist. Dr. Rabi felt the president should have a person with whom he could live easily. The president asked General Goodpaster to mull this over. Dr. Killian pointed out that a committee such as the science advisory committee could provide proper backup for such an individual. The committee could be given recognition and status so the individual would not be isolated from the scientific community. The president said that he had felt a need for such assistance time and again…” (Quoted from the informal notes made on that occasion by David Z. Beckler).

page no 392 note * Among the reasons for the decline and fall of the presidential scientific advisory apparatus, there must be included the general disaffection of the intellectual community (including the scientists as a potent force) during the Nixon administration. On questions such as the ABM and the SST, the members of PSAC would have appeared to have taken on an adversary role to the president, and a public one at that, rather than serving as his confidential friendly advisers. It can also be argued that this confidentiality had been doomed by the Freedom of Information Act.

page no 392 note † A remark attributed to “a former special assistant to President Kennedy”. In fact, the decisions and opinions of PSAC were apparently used by the president only when it was to his political advantage to do so.

page no 392 note ‡ In January, 1973, Dr. H. Guyford Steever, the Director of NSF, was designated as the president's scientific adviser, but plainly this role is not comparable to that of the special assistant—especially with regard to direct and intimate and regular contact with the president. The Congress, in the meanwhile, has established an Office of Technology Assessment, directed by former Congressman Emilio Q. Daddario, who had won the respect of the scientific community for his general knowledge and understanding of scientific Amerimatters during his chairmanship of the Sub-Committee for Science, Research and Development of the House Committee for Science and Astronautics. At present writing there are several plans or proposals to establish more effective science advising to the Congress and to reestablish a post of science adviser within the White House. But the fact will always remain that the advising link between the president and the scientific community was so weak and tenuous that, under the Nixon administration, it could be terminated with the ease of switching off the electric light in a White House office. In the concluding volume of the OECD review of The Research System (Canada, United States, General Conclusions, vol. 3, 1974)Google Scholar, the change that occurred in the Nixon administration is aptly entitled “The Honeymoon Is Over”.

page no 395 note * This comes from a report in the New York Times, 13 06 1973 (quoted by Price, Don K.)Google Scholar, of an address made by the “recently reelected head of the Southern Baptist Church, himself the retiring president of a chemical corporation”.

page no 396 note * These are the “monsters” referred to in a recent article by Theodore Roszak.

The middle portion of this article is to some degree based on an earlier publication, Science and American Society in the First Century of the Republic.