Feb 22 1977
From The Space Library
Pressures from inside and outside the scientific community might result in restricting the freedom of inquiry that had enabled science to flourish since the Renaissance, the annual meeting of the Am. Assn. for the Advancement of Science heard. Walter Sullivan reported in the NY Times that a session on the role of science as the key to man's political future had as discussion leaders George W. Ball, senior director of Lehman Bros. investment bankers; Lord Zuckerman, former chief science adviser to the British government; and Charles J. Hitch, president of Resources for the Future, Inc., of Washington, D.C. The panel cited controversies in the Cambridge, Mass., city council over regulating use of genetic material in that city's research laboratories; the Calif. legislature's proposal to regulate research on genetic hybrids; and other attempts to control the directions of research.
The panel expressed the feeling that checks and balances within the scientific community should be able to deal with such problems, and said that misgivings about "too much knowledge" harked back to prehistoric and classical times when mankind feared probing into nature's secrets. Although restraints on export of equipment and knowledge might delay the spread of nuclear weapons, Ball noted that the only real control would be "to create a climate where nations don't find it [nuclear weaponry] useful." (NYT, Feb 23/77, B-4)
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