4 UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20545 No. S-16-70 FOR RELEASE AT 8 P.M. EDT Tel. 973-3446 (Info.) FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1970 973-5371 (Copies) Remarks by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman U. S. Atomic Energy Commission and President, Science Service at the International Science Fair Awards Banquet Baltimore, Maryland May 15, 1970 SCIENCE SERVICE - A HISTORY AND TRIBUTE We are approaching the 50th Anniversary of Science Service, a remarkable organization which has had an impact on the lives of millions of Americans. An educational activity in the broadest sense of the term, it has led the development first of efforts to improve the public under- standing of science, and, later, in the organization and encouragement of extracurricular science activities on a wide basis in secondary and elementary schools throughout the country. Science Service was the brainchild of the late E. W. Scripps, one of the founders of the Scripps -Howard news- paper chain, who for years had been concerned about the chasm between actual scientific achievement and the public knowledge and understanding of such achievement. As he saw it, the most important articles on science were printed in specialized publications of limited circulation, and in terms not within the comprehension of the average reader. Much psuedo-science was published, but the scientific news of real importance never reached the public. To translate scientific developments into popular terms, and to give them a wider circulation, was what Mr. Scripps hoped to bring about. (more) 2 Looking at the popular communication of science today, this may seem like not much of a problem. But fifty years is a long time, and we tend to forget how things have changed both in the communication of science and in science itself. If we go back to 1921, the year that Science Service was founded, we will see it was the year that a German scien- tist named Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was six years before Heisenberg proposed his uncertainty principle, nine years before Whittle developed the first jet engine, ten years before Lawrence and Living- ston constructed the first cyclotron, eighteen years before the first use of DDT, twenty-four years before the first atomic bomb, and forty-eight years before man first set foot on the moon. It was also a time when a scientist was pictured in the mass media as a funny little old man with a beard, crouching over a Bunsen burner and fuming test tubes and retorts. It was a time when the way to report a scientific meeting was to pick out the longest and most complicated title on the program and write a humorous story about it. In those days, many editors thought of science (when they thought of it at all) in terms of perpetual motion machines, death rays, sea serpents "missing links," Atlantis, and telepathy. And even when there was an editor who was willing to run a real science story, there were pitfalls in reporting, well-meaning but ignorant copywriters who changed the story, and headline writers who did even worse. It was Mr. Scripps' idea to form a nonprofit corporation aimed at increasing the amount of science information made available to the newspapers, and to encourage more inter- esting and accurate reporting of science. Knowing that there was a problem within the scientific community itself, which was quite belligerent about the manner in which science was generally handled, the new organization was set up with nine of its fifteen Board of Trustees appointed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Acad- emy of Sciences, and the National Research Council. Three others were appointed by the E. W. Scripps Trust, and three by the journalistic profession. This original arrangement still persists today. It should be emphasized that Mr. Scripps did not envisage the organization as being one which would be a public relations agency for science. In fact, he said, "The first aim of this institution should be just the reverse of what is called propa- ganda. Its objects should never be to furnish arguments or facts for the purpose of producing partisans for any particular cause. (more) - 3 Its sole object should be to present facts in a readable and interesting form - facts on which the reader could and prob- ably would base his opinion on a subject..." On April 2, 1921, Science Service, then six weeks old, distributed its first "bulletin" in a new press service - aimed at providing specialized and expertly written science news for the use of the country's newspapers. This was a bold and innovative step to try to bring more and better science news to the country through what was the most impor- tant means of communication available. Many newspapers were enthusiastic, and the Buffalo Evening News, in an ad describing the new service, proclaimed "When the flapperceases flapping and the bootleg still runs dry - when all the passing frivol is forgotten, the achieve- ments of our scientists will be remembered. Startling dis- coveries are being made and new phenomena are being unfolded, but relatively few people understand. Now all this is being changed - through 'Science Service'." By the second year, the service was well on its way with thirty-one clients whose total circulation was over 3,000,000. This was later to get up to over 100 clients, with a total circulation of over 30,000,000. The service also developed many features, later copied extensively, including "Why the Weather," "Test Yourself," "Nature's Notebook," "Map of the Stars," and "Today's Health." But more important was the regular coverage of science as news, feeding well-written, accurate, and interesting stories to the newspapers every day. Of course there was some good science at that time, but it tended to be on Sunday, with occasional stories during the week, off and on. It was the impact of good stories on a regular basis that made the difference. The next development was reported in 1922 to the Science Service Board. "A new and promising development has arisen out of the increasing demand from individuals for the Science News Bulletin. We began to get many requests from libraries, research establishments and school teachers. Since we had the matter already mimeographed, additional copies could be struck off and mailed with little expense." Thus, the Science News Letter, consisting of news bulletins stapled together, was founded, to become a printed magazine in 1926. (more) 4 From this developed the present Science News, the only weekly news magazine on science and the applications of science. It has a circulation of about 115,000, and covers physics, astronomy, chemistry, earth sciences, environmental sciences, engineering, life sciences, medicine, the behavorial sciences, and science policy. Written by experienced science journalists, the magazine treats science as news, to be re- ported accurately and in perspective. Science News became one of the major activities of Science Service, and is a logical extension of the thinking which went into the original development of the organization. Perhaps its purpose could be described as "current awareness" to keep people aware of and informed of new developments at a time when the body of scientific knowledge is increasing at a rate which will make it double in a ten-year period, and when the interval between discovery and application is dramatically decreasing. It is first aimed at the citizen - in particular the college-educated "mental worker" stratum of the population, which is made up of people who are interested and active in community, state, and national affairs. These persons influ- ence decisions in that they are the audience to which the leaders speak most often, because they feed information to the leaders, and because they also communicate to other portions of the general public. A second important group is the teachers, especially at the high school and college level. Science is moving so rapidly today that the teacher's general background knowledge from his college education is not enough. He needs some means of keeping up with new developments, of surveying across a broad spectrum of developments, together with some means for interpretation as to their possible impact on society. A third group is the students, whom we reach not only through the teacher, but directly through the magazine it- self. Science News does not have an enormous number of student subscribers, but the so-called "passalong readership" is large, and we estimate that we are read by something of the order of 800,000 young people each week. (more) 5 The fourth group includes the scientist himself. In recent years, we have come to realize that even the special- ist is often little more than a layman in every scientific discipline but his own, and that he too needs some means of keeping in close contact with new ideas and discoveries in other disciplines. Given the pressures of keeping up in his own field, our magazine fills a very useful role in providing him with a concise yet broad survey of new developments. In addition, today's scientist is increasingly being called upon to be a very special kind of citizen, to have a concern not only for the production of new knowledge, but also for the uses to which it is put. Again, the magazine provides him with an opportunity to keep up with developments in a broad perspective, and to be better qualified to act his new role. An important area of effort for Science Service, almost from the beginning, has also been the publication of books, usually in collaboration with a commercial publisher.