. Navy Alters .course • Uncovering the Pentagon Connection \

FARM. RESEARCH ON TRIAL Science for the ~lein . · ACtion Guinea Pigs in Prison deserves to learn science, just as everyone deserves to learn to read. I Editor realize, however, that science skills Dear SftP, leslie Fraser without application are not very useful, t was with great interest that I read so I'd like to go beyond this cookbook Publisher Iyour article "Human Subjects: America's approach to: Gary Keenan Nuclear Guinea Pigs," by Lew • continue to include activities which Designer Gurman (September/October 1988). empower kids by helping them learn David Gerratt The most remarkable thing about the new science skills but which, in Production fact that prisoners were used in addition, require analysis of the dangerous, if not deadly, medical consequences of applied science. These Usa Greber experiments isn't so much the fact that activities would be suitable for children Cover Photo they occurred, but that they aroused ages five to thirteen. Ideally, they Ellen Shub little controversy both now and at that should be hands-on (lab, rather than Art& Photos time. When German scientists book-based), illustrate basic scientific James Perez/Greenpeace, Technology Review conducted similar experiments on principles, and demand analysis and U.S. Navy, Paul Valerry, John Vandermeer captive subjects, many were hanged at evaluation. Editorial Committee Nuremburg (or brought to the U.S. to •add activities, exercises, or essays for Tracey Cohen, Rich Cowan, Michael Filisky work in the fledgling Cold War teachers which would give them the l.esffe Fraser, Usa Greber, Dan Grossman industries). Yet American scientists confidence to learn new material and Jonathan Harrington, Sharon Moran, JosephRegna experiment on American prisoners and develop new and locally relevant Seth Shulman, Seth Tuler they receive government grants for activities for their classes. Magazine Planning their efforts. I guess it all depends on Any suggestions from SftP readers Joseph Alper. Jon Beckwith, Marilyn Frankenstein whose testicles are being irradiated. would be much appreciated. In David Himmelstein, Bob lange, Richard l.ewontin While there are many who will exchange for suggestions, articles, or Steffie Woolhand/er, Katherine Yih protest if this same type of experiment science activities, I offer free Editorial Advisory Board were conducted on animals, very few subscriptions to the newsletter. Write Joseph Alper, Rita Arditti. Jon Beckwith. appeared concerned when it was being to KidScience, 916 Marsh St., Philip l. Bereano, Edith Brickman. done on human prisoners. It seems that Mankato, MN 56001. Stephen Chorover, Fran Conrad, very few people are aware of how -Catherine Reed Eric Entemann, Roslyn Feldberg, Ross Feldberg, Marilyn Frankenstein, Douglas Futyama, vulnerable prisoners are to this kind of KidScience Edit01 Ted Goldfarb, Rae Goodell. exploitation. In the article, Mr. Mankato, Minnesota Stephen Jay Gqu/d, David Himmelstein, Gurman mentions how many prisoners Eric Holtzman, Ruth Hubbard, David Kahn, were led into the barbaric e"xperiments, Editorially Speaking Charles Koplik, Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Karen Messing, Frank Mirer, David Noble, but then were afraid to withdraw. Richard Novick, Connie Phillips, Prisoners as a class are almost totally ith the production of this issue, Alvin F. Poussaint, Stephen Risch. Richard Rosen, disenfranchised, with no voice and no W Lisa Greber joins the staff of Virginia Schaefer, Scott Schneider, Miriam Struck, power. A large percentage of the Science for the People. Lisa comes to Sue Tafler, Michael Tanzer, Scott Thacher, John Vandermeer, Gerry Waneck, prison population in this country is SftP from Massachusetts Citizens for Joseph Weizenbaum, Sandy Wiper, ,... either illiterate or mentally ill. When Safe Energy, the coalition that led an Steffie Woolhandler prison wages average $13 to $30 a unsuccessful referendum petition in the Material Requests month, it's no wonder that some November election to close the state's prisoners will volunteer for two nuclear power plants. Trained in Bany Roderick experiments of dubious safety. For physics, Lisa hopes that her tenure as Printing these reasons, all types of medical or editor will nudge SftP closer towards a Common Wealth Printing Company scientific experimentation on prisoners community base, making us more of a 47 East St., Hadley, MA 01035 should be outlawed. progressive science resource for the (413) 584-2536 -Paul Wright public. SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S. one year/six issues: SIS. Foreign rate: S21. U.S. libraries/institutions: 524. Foreign libraries: Washington State Prison After more than four years as editor, 530. Member subscriptions findudes !he magazine. our Monroe, Washington Leslie Fraser is leaving Boston and newsletter. and o!her communicationsj: S30. Foreign SUbscribers must remit in u.s. currency. with either an SftP for an editing position in International Money Order or a check drawn on a U.S. Brattleboro, Vermont. Speaking in the bank. unobjective third person, she would Kid Science SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE is available to bookstores on like to express her indebtedness to the cOflSignment from the publisher or through Carrier Pigeon readers, writers, and members who Distributors, Box 2783. Boston, MA 02208. The magazine Dear SftP, is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 traveled SftP's trail with her. But she N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Ml 48106. Science for the Pe6ple publish a newsletter for teachers won't stop giving editorial advice and is indexed In Alternative Press Index. Box 7229, Baltimore. I which contains science activities for contributions, and will always know a MD21218. elementary classes. Most of these home in these pages. SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE JISSN 0048-9662) is activities so far have emphasized simple Due to financial exigencies and staff published bimonthly by the SCience Resource Center. Inc., a nonprofit corporation at 897 Main St, Campridge, MA science skills for kids and basic science transitions, this issue of SftP is being 02139. telephOne 617/547-Q370. Edited and produced by information for teachers. I began this published later than we had anticipated. !he national organization of SCience for !he People. We offer a progressive view of science and technology. project because I sincerely believe that We plan to be on track again with the Articles, letters. reviews. newsnotes, phOtos. and art science skills and methods are January/February 1989 issue, a special work are welcome. Please send double-spaced, typed manuscripts, on Wordstar IBM-compatible disks if empowering ways of relating to the edition focusing on cancer and the possible. Unless o!herwise noted. all material is copyright environment, and that everyone environment. 1988 by Science tor !he People. November/December 1988 Volume 20, Number 5

CONTENTS

5 FARM RESEARCH ON TRIAL by John Saponara Last November. the Alameda County. California Superior Court handed down a landmark decision which found the University of California guilty of failing to consider how research projects would affect small family farmers. The lawsuit directly addressed questions about the social impacts of technological innovation.

6 SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE IN ACTION by Richard C. Lewontin When the attorneys for the California Agrarian Action Project constructed their case against the University of California. they enlisted the technical help of several research groups and advisors studying agricultural research and its impact on family farmers. farmworkers. rural residents. and consumers.

10 NAVY ALTERS COURSE AT BERKELEY by J.B. Neilands For 38 years. the University of California at Berkeley managed the Naval Biosciences Laboratory. For its first two decades. the mission of the NBL -although discreetly camouflaged-was biological warfare.

13 UNCOVERING THE PENTAGON CONNECTION by Rich Cowan Does your school work for the military? Here's a guide for investigating military ties to your local campus.

17 BITTERSWEET by Rif S. El-Mallakh and Daniel P. Potenza Aspartame. the artificial sweetener consumed as NutraSweet has been related to seizures. headaches. and other illnesses. But Monsanto has enjoyed its tasty profits.

DEPARTMENTS

2 Newsnotes 19 Reader Response: Science Education in the Third World 23 In Brief According to Michael Colby of Food ANOTHER and Water, Inc. this accident is particularly DON'T DRINK THE ominous because the cesium-13 7 IRRADIATION containers have been called "fool proof" WATER ACCIDENT by the DOE and irradiation industry risoners at the Marion, Illinois officials. In public hearings they have federal prison may be serving an addi­ nother in a series of accidents at emphasized the reliability of the metal Ptional sentence. Crab Orchard Lake, irradiation facilities occurred in casks and dismissed those skeptical oftheir the source of the prison's water supply, A Decatur, Georgia on 6June 1988. durability as "emotionalists" and "fear has been found to contain PCBs and other Although a "no threat to the public" mongers". Food and Water, Inc. is calling toxic contaminants. Local residents conclusion was reached by federal and on the FDA to rescind its approval of food stopped drinking the lake's water two state officials, pinpoint contamination to irradiation until safety and health concerns years ago. A nearby dump site, thought workers and property did occur. The are met. They have also just begun a to be the source of the contaminants, is technology used in this facility to sterilize campaign to put pressure on food stores to slated to receive Superfund money for medical products will also be used in the not carry irradiated products. Many food cleanup, but in the meantime, inmates are irradiation of food. The inability to retailers support such efforts. In addition, becoming ill. maintain safety is particularly worrisome in several states, Massachusetts included, This is not the first of the prisoners' given DOE and industry plans to develop legislation is pending to ban the sale of trials. According to Amnesty International, many new food irradiation facilities. irradiated food. For more information, conditions at the prison violate UN The accident occurred at the Radiation contact Food and Water, Inc. in New standard minimum rules for the treatment Sterilizers Inc. plant in Decatur. An York City. of prisoners. Eighty percent of Marion's Seth Tuler inmates have spent the last five years locked in their 6-by-1 0 foot cells for 2 3 hours a day. They are subjected to constant surveillance and frequent invasive body searches. Prison activists ABANDON SHIP have been unable to convince the courts to take action. Last July, the Seventh Circuit he Pelicano has finally ended its two Court ruled that conditions at Marion year ocean cruise, unloading its cargo were constitutional, albeit "sordid and Tof toxic ash in an undisclosed loca­ horrible." tion. Opponents of the lockdown arc The 19-ycar old freighter gained planning to organise their next campaign worldwide notoriety as it searched the around the issue of contaminated water, globe for a place to dump 2 8 million pounds hoping this newest tactic will strike a of ash generated by Philadelphia's chord with an increasingly cnvironmetnally municipal and industrial incinerators. conscious public. According to the Environmental For more information, contact the estimated four curies of cesium-13 7 were Protection Agency, the ash contained Committee to End the Marion Lockdown, released into the water storage pool aluminum, arsenic, chromium, copper, 343 South Dearborn, Ste. 1607, Chicago, sometime between a previous inspection lead, mercury, nickel, zinc and toxic IL 60604 on 29 April and 4 June when the leak was dioxins. discovered. After the plant was shut down, The ship is now anchored in international state and federal officials began the waters near Singapore, but the final fate of immediate recall of all products irradiated the wastes remains unclear. Greenpeace at the facility since April29: over 70,000 activists have claimed the ash was dumped medical supply boxes and empty milk in the Indian Ocean. Ship captain Arturo cartons that included surgical gloves, Fuentes told reporters the ash was unloaded medical towels, and saline solution. These in port, although he declined to spt';cify in products had been shipped throughout what country. Over the course of its two the country. As of September no official year journey at least 11 countries refused statement had been made on the success of to allow the ship into their ports, including a recall effort made by the Nuclear the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Guinea-Bissau, Regulatory Commission. and Honduras. In addition, ten employees were In an apparent effort to avoid publicity, exposed to the leaking cesium-13 7 the ship has changed names twice since containers. Further investigation showed leaving Philadelphia in 1986 as the Khian that two of the employees had transfered Sea. In spite of this, it has remained a the radiation to their homes and a third to public symbol of this nation's toxic waste Valeny his automobile. Substantial contamination crisis; in particular, it is a forceful reminder also occurcd to the RSI administrative that third world countries will not be willing offices. to serve as toxic dumping grounds forever.

2 Science for the People envisioned the Buenos Aires Oath as part of a larger program encouraging scientists to disassociate from military­ related research. Two of the stated goals of the five-point "Project" were "the elimination of university courses that proposed destructive or harmful scientific techniques" and "limiting the access to the educational media by persons presently engaged in bellicose activities." These points were dropped, reflecting participants' concerns about wording in addition to their hope that the Project Technology Review would gain the support of a broad range of scientists. In accordance with this, the distinction accorded to certain of my Conference chose to adopt an oath that foundational works, I am convinced that was "ethical", not "scientific pacifist". the only decisive proof of the fertility of Although the tradition of professional an idea or of a new vision is that of time. oaths is much more deeply rooted in Fertility is recognized by progeny, not by Latin American than North American honors. culture, the practice is sparking interest on U.S. campuses. In 1987, many THE BUENOS AIRES students at Humboldt State University in OATH northern California signed a voluntary graduation pledge of social and environ­ mental responsibility (see SftP, Sept/Oct 1987). MIT students unofficially distributed a similar pledge at the 1988 commencement exercises; this year, they A ware that, in the absence of ethical will try to formalize the process. control, science and its products can damage society and its future, I pledge that my own scientific capabilities will never be employed merely for CRAFOORD PRIZE renumeration or prestige or on instruction of employers or political TURNED DOWN leaders only, but solely on my personal belief and social responsibility­ Editor's note: Alexandre Grothendiek, a based on my own knowledge and on professor of mathematics at Montepelier consideration of the circumstances University, was selected by the Royal and the possible consequences of my S'IJ)edish Academy of Sciences to receive this work-that the scientific or technical year's Crafoord prize for his work in algebraic 2) I note as well that the high level research I undertake is truly in the best geometry. He sent SftP a copy of his response researchers, to whom a prestigious prize interests of society and peace. to the Royal Academy. like the Crafoord prize is addressed, are all of a social status such that they already thank you for your letter of April 13, have both material well-being and which I received today, and for your tele­ scientific prestige, with all its associated I gram. I am aware of the honor the Royal powers and prerogatives, in abundance. An international conference on Scientists, Swedish Academy of Sciences does me in But it is not clear that the overabundance Disarmament and Peace adopted a deciding to award this year's Crafoord of some can only come at the expense of workable "Hippocratic Oath" for Prize, together with a substantial sum of others? scientists last April. Led by Guillermo money, jointly to Pierre Deligne (who 3) The work which has earned me the LeMarchand, an Argentinian astrophysicist, was my student) and myself. However, I benevolent attention of the Royal and activist-biologist Alberto Pedace, the fegret to inform you that I do not wish to Academy is 25 years old, from a period Argentinian conference succeeded in receive this prize (nor any other, for that when I was part of a scientific milieu, and passing what has become known as the matter), for the following reasons: for the most part shared its spirit and Buenos Aires oath. The adoption of the 1) My salary as a professor, and even values. I left that world in 1970 and, oath overturned a history of failed the retirement pension which I will without giving up my passion for attempts to pass similar proposals at receive as of next October, are much more scientific research, I have increasingly Pugwash and the International Physicians than enough for my material needs and for distanced myself internally from the Movement conferences. those for whom I am responsible, thus I milieu of scientists. But, during the past LeMarchand and his colleagues have no need of money. As for the two decades, the ethics of the scientific

November/December 1988 3 profession (at least among mathematicians) I have no doubt that, before the end of the Sowing on my life as a mathematician, and has declined to such a degree that pure and century, entirely unforeseen upheavals on creation (particularly scientific creation) simple plundering among colleagues will transform it from top to bottom the in general, which at the same time (especially at the expense of those who are very notion we have of "science," its great unexpectedly became a "moral tableau" not in a position to defend themselves) has work is carried out. Undoubtedly, the of the mathematical world between 19 50 almost become the rule, and in any case is Royal Academy will then be among the and today. A provisional printing tolerated by all, even in the most flagrant institutions and individuals which will (awaiting its appearance in book form), and iniquitous cases. Under these have a useful role to play in an produced in 200 copies by my university, conditions, to agree to enter into the game unprecedented renewal, after an equally has been almost entirely distributed of "prizes" and "rewards" would be to unprecedented end of civilization. among my mathematical colleagues, give my support to a spirit and an I am sorry for the annoyance which my especially among algebraic geometers evolution in the scientific world, which I refusal of the Crafoord Prize may (who have now done me the honor of recognize as profoundly unhealthy, and represent for you and for the Royal remembering me). moreover doomed to disappear in short Academy, as it seems that a certain Thanking you for your attention, and in order, as they are so spiritually and even amount of publicity has already been repeating to you and to the Royal intellectually and materially suicidal. given to this award before obtaining the Swedish Academy of Sciences my thanks It is this third reason which is for me by agreement of the designated laureates. and my apologies for this involuntary far the most serious. If I bring it up, it is in Nevertheless, I have not failed to do complication, I am, sincerely, no way with the purpose of criticizing the everything possible to make it known in Alexandre Grothendiek intentions of the Royal Academy in its scientific circles, especially among my old administration of the funds entrusted to it. a long reflection entitled Reaping and translated by Michael Harris PALESTINIAN VISIT NICARAGUA! UPRISING IS NOT OVER NEITHER IS OUR COVERAGE Nuevo lnstituto de Subscribe now to~~~ CentroAmerica ~ &1st R..,.,for tbe very low price of$1S.95 Study Spanish with Nicara­ an4 get oae i&SR guan teachers • Live with a FllEE• Ask about oar special offer on back iSIIUeS about the family and shore community Palesdae.-lsnd coaftict. too. life in Esteli • Meet local leaders • Work alongside Nicaraguans f_YES____ ' fwant to subs:::-~;~~:~;~:-1 1 • Enclosed is $15.95. (Add $5 postage outside the US.) l ~ I NICA 's five-week programs 1 Please send me FREE (check one) 0 The Uprising 0 The Next Phase 1 ore offered throughout the I t 1 0 I don't want to subscribe now, but send me a copy of t year. NICA offers scholgrshics. I I giving prority to VIetnam vets. : 0 The Uprising 0 The Next Phase ( $5.50 each, postpaid.) : labor activists. formers and I t people of color. Piscoynts I s.- I 1 • ovoiloble Sept. through May I ... I I ...... res l for solidarity activists. senior 1 r citizens and fluent speakers. I~ ~ ~ I Coli or write for more informa­ I l 1 Send your check or money order in US dollars only to: MERIP, a tion: ': P.O. Box 43445, Washington DC 20010. : NICA ·P.O. Box 1409- L-~ ...... ~ ...... __ .... ~-----·~-... ~ ...... ------.l GP · Cambridge, M.A 02238. <61n 497-7142

4 Science for the People FARM RESEARCH ON TRIAL

Addressing the Social Costs of Agricultural Mechanization

BY JOHN SAPONARA Act's centennial year, the Alemeda But to fully understand the ruling requires County California Superior Court upheld a presentation of the specific context for ore than a century ago, Amer­ the act's original goals. The court handed this case. ican agriculture was influ­ down a landmark decision which found the enced by an influx of German University of California's Agricultural TOMATO HARVESTER TAKES scientists, who brought a new Experiment Station guilty of failing to OVER svstem of research and educa­ consider how university research projects Mtion to the United States. Changes in would affect small family farmers. Lack of In the first week of the 1976 tomato agricultural research combined with the consideration for small farmers, the court harvest, nearly 3,000 farmworkcrs industrial influence of farm implement held, violated the intent of the Hatch Act, migrated from Texas to the Anderson manufacturers on farming methods. These which had created the Agricultural farm, a 3 7 ,000-acrc tomato farm ncar were the major forces that produced the Experiment Station in the first place. Davis, California. That year, however, dominant agricultural system in the U.S., The ruling clearly had an immediate they were in for a shock. When the known as the land grant complex. To effect on the research conducted at rhc workers arrived, they found the entire promote agricultural research for family University of California. But the court's farm mechanized with the tomato harvester farmers, the passage of the Hatch Act of decision also has ramifications far beyond technology developed by the University 1887 created and funded agricultural the university department involved in the of California (UC). Not only were the experiment stations in every state and lawsuit. Because there are agricultural workers displaced by a new tool of incorporated the stations into the nation's experiment stations in many states, the industrial agriculture, but by machines that land grant colleges. University of California decision has were developed using taxpayers' money at On November 17, 1987, in the Hatch nationwide implications. Nor arc the issues a state um verslty. involved restricted to agriculture: the Protests at the UC Davis campus and in john Saponara studies ecology at Cornell lawsuit directly addressed the question of Sacramento soon followed, which stirred University in Ithaca, New York. the social costs of technological innovation. up popular discontent with university

November/December 1988 5 prionttes. In 1978, the California Action funding an agricultural college. The Hatch Network (then called CAAP, the California Act of 1887 created an agricultural Agrarian Action Project) and fifteen experiment station in each state, and the farmworkers filed suit against the UC Smith-Lever Act of 1914 established the Regents (the university's governing body) Cooperative Extension Service. Each of on ten accusations, including violation of these three acts gave distinct functions to the Hatch Act. All of the farmworker the land grant complex: agricultural plaintiffs either had been displaced by education at the state colleges, agricultural mechanical devices or were currently research in the experiment stations, and working with crops targeted by ongoing communication of research results and UC mechanization research. With this farmer needs through the cooperative lawsuit, a decade-long trial over agricultural extension program. priorities had begun. The Hatch Act defined the mission of the state agricultural experiment stations. THE lAND GRANT COMPLEX The plaintiffs in the UC farm mechanization lawsuit argued that the congressional Central to the trial was the establishment intent of the Hatch Act and its amendments by Congress of the "land grant complex" was for the experiment stations to do (which includes the University of research which primarily benefits small California). Desperate to encourage family farmers, rural residents, farm agricultural development vital to the laborers, and consumers. · nation, Congress instituted the land grant Some have argued that the goals of the complex through three separate acts. Hatch Act are outdated, but are they? This The Morrill Act of 1862 granted land to question addresses central issues of our each state for the purpose of building and nation's agricultural system: How arc the

BY RICHARD C. LEWONTIN for the California Agrarian Action Project, SCIENCE constructed their case against the uch of the work of the criti­ University of California, they enlisted the cal science movement in gener­ technical help of several of these research al (and of Science for the groups. A small committee of advisors was FOR THE People in particular) is de­ formed from people at the University of voted ro educating people California, Cornell, the University of M to Kentucky, and Harvard to serve as the about science and society. Our goal is counteract ideology and politics technical resource for the plaintiffs' case. I PEOPLE IN masquerading as "objective" science. As a was a member of this advisory committee. result, we sometimes feel frustrated at the The work of the committee and its lack of clear-cut and visible evidence that separate members was in three phases. ACTION we are accomplishing something. For that First, the case had to be prepareq. This reason, the success of the suit against the involved the study and evaluation of vast University of California is particularly numbers of documents produced by the heartening. The victory of the plaintiffs in University of California, its College of that case and the remedies demanded by the Agriculture, Agricultural Experiment court were a direct result of close Station, and Extension Division. These cooperation between public interest documents included policy statements, lawyers and people in the critical science detailed proposals for particular research, movement, particularly Science for the and progress reports on research already People and the New World Agriculture carried out. From these documents there Group. emerged a general picture of how the For a number of years, several groups University of California went about the have been engaged in studying agricultural business of research and extension. research. They have investigated how Second, committee members testified at An Expert agricultural priorities are set, who controls great length as "expert witnesses" at the the research, and the effect of this research trial itself, and advised the attorneys for the Witness on agriculture and farming. They have also plaintiffs on the testimony of the been concerned about its impact on family university's "experts." Finally, when the farmers, farmworkers, consumers, and university decided not to contest the case Makes His Case rural residents. These studies have further, and the court held in the plaintiffs' included economic, historical, sociological, favor, the committtee was enlisted in the and biological questions. difficult task of deciding upon what legal When Public Advocates, the attorneys remedies would be requested of the judge. Each . phase had its own problems and Biologist Richard C. Lewontin is a professor at surpnses. Harvard University and coauthor of The All of us had extensive experience in Dialectical Biologist. A veteran member of interviewing agricultural research and SftP's Sociobiology Study Group, he serves on extension workers, reading the public our editorial advisory board. record produced by agricultural

6 Science for the People social and cultural traditions of small farm stations serving interests :o!ntithetical to communities affected by large agribusiness those intended by Congress. 3 Mechanization farming concerns? 1 How valid is the research projects, for example, routinely current justification for research into produce machines which displace farm industrial agriculture, which seeks to labor, including farmers and farmworkers, increase the comparative advantage of the thus retreating from maximum employment. U.S. and thereby improve export earnings? Many research projects adopt agribusiness How does this affect third-world development product criteria of cosmetics or compatibility efforts, and is this a sustainable strategy for with mechanical harvesters over consumer the U.S? 2 food criteria such as nutrition. All of these Judging from the goals of the land grant issues were raised during the UC hearings complex, by almost any measure, it has and trial. failed in its mission. Farms have dropped in number from seven million in 1935 to two BACK TO THE PLOW million in 1980. The mass urbanization of the U.S. population and increase in Although UC Vice President for absentee land ownership have contributed Agriculture James Kendrick charged that to a decline in the quality of rural life. the plaintiffs favored a return to plowing Beyond merely failing to reverse these with mules, in court the university tried to trends, some accuse the land grant complex persuade the judge to dismiss the case on of contributing to the decline of the small more subtle procedural grounds. UC family farm and the deterioration of rural lawyers claimed that individuals lack the life. Jim Hightower, in his book Hard right to enforce the Hatch Act because it Tomatoes, Hard Times, provides numerous provides no right of "private action," but examples of agricultural experiment can be enforced only by the U.S.

experiment stations, and proposmg and "professional witnesses" (we had not done research funds should be expended on the evaluating questionnaires on agricultural this sort of thing before and were not being interests of each group? Who should research and extension services. But I, at paid a fee) was important. determine the numerical quotas to divide least, was not prepared for the overt The credibility of "experts" in the case up the research pie among small farmers, politics and ideology revealed in many of depended not on the cogency of their farm labor, rural residents, and consumers? the documents. In particular, the very arguments, but on their status and How can one determine whether a strong antilabor bias of research and therefore the credibility of their opinions. particular proposal addresses the issues of extension scientists was clear. They At one point, under cross-examination, the these groups or not? Such questions identified with farm owners as employers university's attorney asked me if a approach the heart of this social of labor and saw their task as intervening particularly outrageous economic contradiction: without political on the side of the employers through assertion of mine was shared by any organization, how can local reforms be technological change and education. professional economist. When I cited a introduced into a system whose basic As described in the university's former member of our research group, he structure remains unchanged? ~ documents, dwarf fruit tree varieties were asked whether the person was a professor In the end, the chief benefit obtained developed in order to "make use of a at Harvard. When I replied, "No, the from this lawsuit is not in the remedy different work force" (women and University of South Carolina," the imposed by the judge, which ruled that the children). Extension schools on insecticide attorney was triumphant. university be accountable to the court in spraying were reorganized because, when Politically, the deepest issues arose in the future years and that it demonstrate attended by workers, they complained third stage of our work, when we engaged positive actions which guarantee that the about the dangers of pesticides, "whether in long and frustrating attempts to design interests of its constituencies are real or imaginary," and used the meetings legal remedies that the judge could apply. considered in funding agricultural research as opportunities to organize. What was The university had conceded that its proposals. Rather, its value lies in the most revealing was not the direction of the research did not take into account the precedent set by the trial and in its effect on biases, a direction that we could expect interests of its various legitimate other states. from our knowledge of the background constituencies. How could the court All over the United States and Canada, and training of agricultural research and enforce a consideration of those interests? state and provincial agricultural extension workers, but the unself­ If the various constituencies-farm labor, experiment stations are worried about the conscious way in which those biases were small farmers, consumers, and rural implications of the University of revealed in research proposals and reports. residents-were given some sort of veto California lawsuit and are beginning to The process of giving testimony at the power over the funding of particular look for ways to avoid being sued. Until trial was especially revealing. We each gave research proposals, the issue of academic this case, the agricultural research many hours of direct testimony and freedom would be raised. establishment has done as it pleased, response to cross-examination based on When nonexperts from traditionally serving only the interest of the narrow our past research and our analysis of the powerless constituencies join policy constituency it so consciously represents. documents. To validate our testimony, our boards filled with powerful experts, their Yet the positive result of the trial provides a academic status had to be demonstrated. influence is usually coopted by the experts. legal platform for continued challenges to Our testimonies began with recitals of our This process raises a myriad of questions the specific direction of agricultural degrees, honors, academic accomplishments, concerning the problems of empowering research. and reasons why our own research the unorganized and disenfranchised: Who qualified us as experts on the subject at should choose the representatives of these hand. The fact that none of us were constituencies? What proportion of

November/December 1988 7 Department of Agriculture. Another UC tactic was to argue that the lawsuit threatened academic freedom and the university's right to decide which research projects to pursue. Finally, the university argued, the dispute is a social issue to be settled in the legislature, not a legal issue for the court. But in 1980, Judge Spurgeon Avakian dismissed the university's objections. While he noted that it was not a matter for the court to decide "whether agricultural mechanization is good or bad for society," he ruled that the court could address "whether legislative and constitutional mandates are being followed in the allocation of public funds to particular research projects." The judge interpreted the Hatch Act to require plaintiffs to demonstrate that the act's intended constituencies are not being served in specific research projects. During the ensuing four years of formal investigation, plaintiffs selected 69 mechanization projects for this purpose and proceeded to obtain tens of thousands of pages of depositions (interview transcripts) and documents. At the nonjury trial, which began in March 1984, several eminent scientists, including a UC professor, testified against the university. Five weeks into the trial, however, the judge became seriously ill and a mistrial was declared. A new judge, Raymond Marsh, upheld the plaintiffs' right of private action in the case but differed from his predecessor. Marsh interpreted the law to require evaluation of the UC experiment station's entire research program of approximately 1400 research projects. The plaintiffs' strategy then shifted accordingly, and they attempted to show that UC lacked decision-making mechanisms to ensure that its projects addressed the interests of the Hatch Act constituencies.

MECHANIZATION SHOUlD stations and the extension service to November 17, 1987, the court finally BENEFIT EVERYONE recognize that fact. The committee handed down its ruling. The Alameda concluded that "the mission of the land­ County Superior Court ruled that the grant university includes a responsibility Hatch Act requires the University of By this time, the case had already begun not only to increase agricultural productivity California, in approving agricultural to attract public attention---much of it but also to the social and economic well­ research projects and allocating Hatch favorable to the plaintiffs' cause. Many being of the entire rural community." funds to them, to consider the extent to who had originally scoffed at the notion of The Council on Agricultural Science which all congressionally intended suing the university came to acknowledge and Technology, known for whitewashing beneficiaries will be affected by these the legitimacy of the lawsuit. The case controversies to favor the status quo, projects. The ruling also states that the even captured the popular imagination appointed a panel to study the court case. university must give primary consideration through bumpers stickers that read: Surprisingly, the panel deadlocked, and in this process to the interests of the small "Mechanization Should Benefit Everyone." then finally issued a report which family farmer. The Experiment Station Committee on acknowledged an unequal distribution of The university admitted that it has no Organization and Policy, a panel of land the benefits of technologies introduced such process, and the court subsequently grant social scientists, produced the into a society with a skewed distribution of found UC to be violating the Hatch Act. monograph "Research and the Family wealth. 5 Changes should be made in the This decision applies not only to the three Farm."4 This document claimed that while current system, the report argued, by percent of the California Agricultural most land grant research is "scale which the public guides the adoption and Experiment Station budget provided by neutral" -rather than primarily benefiting monitors the effects of mechanization. the federal government under the Hatch farms in a certain size class-in practice, the Act, but also to the state matching funds land grant complex serves groups whose FINAL RULING required under the act. Thus the decision interests conflict. The study therefore applies to six percent of the experiment called on the agricultural experiment Eight years after the case was filed, on station's budget. These percentages differ

8 Science for the People among states, but the largest agricultural cropland ownership which occurred of farmer action that's more difficult to states usually spend far more than enough during the eight years of its adoption was achieve in a region of small farms than to match their federal funds. due to increasing demand for tomatoes and amidst large farms. The university is appealing the ruling, how much was due to the harvester. The flip side of this warning is to choose and UC attorneys have made it clear that F urthermorc, the tomato harvester is often research which is easier for the small farmer appeals will continue, if necessary, up to studied because of its association with to adopt. However, the scale bias of the Supreme Court. During appeal, the drastic changes in tomato growing in research is often influenced by the political ruling that UC must report on its plans and California. Most mechanization technologies context into which the resulting methods progress in implementing a research have a less extreme apparent effect, and are introduced, which is hard to predict project evaluation process within 90 days most land grant research is not on beforehand. Surer ways to channel the of the court decision and then annually for mechanization. However, technologies benefits of one's research might be through five years has been stayed. The university on-farm research or through research asked for two extensions on its appeal brief which, though off the farm, uses crops or deadline, and is expected to issue its first conditions unique to the farms of one's brief by the end of 1988. constituents. A third approach is to get The court handed down several other involved in the dissemination of research interesting rulings: it acknowledged that results to your constituent group. the interests of the various Hatch An alternative to the view that constituencies may conflict, so that each technology is the main cause of social project need not serve all groups. The change is that technology allows or court also held that judicially ordered accelerates social change. For example, it is compliance does not violate academic hard to see how such dramatic concentration freedom because academic institutions are could have occurred in California tomato bound by law. farms without the harvester. This view is lhe farmworkcr plaintiffs were disappointed compatible with the correlation observed that the ruling did not mention farm labor. between research output and the growing The plaintiffs' position had been that the concentration of farmland owncrship.6 But Hatch Act designated four constituencies: correlation docs not imply causation - small family farmers, rural residents, farm perhaps the long-term decline in the price labor, and consumers. The court mentioned of farm capital relative to labor created an maximum employment in its decision only economic trend to which mechanization as it benefited small family farmers, not seemed, to land grant researchers and farm labor. This could change on appeal. farmers, a logical response. Rather than adopt the atomistic goals of the individual farm, whose ownership is RESEARCH AND THE SOCIAL becoming more concentrated in the hands EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY of large farm industries, the land grant PHOTO/Shields Ubrary. UC Davis complex might have recognized that the economic environment (as modified by have probably contributed to the concentration It seems ironic that although the suit was government policies) is intrinsically biased of wealth and control of the food system. A motivated by substantive political issues against small family farmers. In order to study by UC economists concluded that regarding the social effects of technology, carry out its mission, the land grant the benefits of the tomato harvester were procedural issues were paramount throughout complex must go beyond scalc-nootral the case. From UC's initial motion for primarily captured by the four largest tomato processors. research to actively promote small family dismissal of the case on the grounds of the farms. private right of action to the final decision that UC lacked a mechanism for evaluating SMALL·SCALE FARMS 8r lARGE· the distribution of benefits of its research, SCALE TECHNOLOGY the emphasis was on legal and administrative NOTES process rather than on the sociopolitical Many scientists and administrators I. Walter Goldschmidt, As You Sow. 1978. effects of UC research. believe that most research is "scale 2. David Moberg, "Should We Save the Even in the consideration of 69 separate neutral." While it is difficult to determine Family Farm?" Dissent, Spring 1988, pp. 201- mechanization projects under the lawsuit's the net effect of many technologies (even in 211. first judge, the question was whether UC retrospect) on the complex socioeconomic 3. Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard considered the impacts of past research fabric in which these machines and Times: The Failure of the Land Gram College projects in planning future projects, not techniques are implemented, many researchers Complex. Washington, DC: Preliminary Report whether the impacts were positive for do not recognize the potential for even of the Task Force on the Land Grant College small farmers, farmworkcrs, rural populations, Complex, Agribusiness Accountability Project, hypothetically neutral research to become 1973. and consumers. Thus content motivated biased in its dissemination. Cooperative 4. H.O. Carter, W.W. Cochrane, L.M. Day, the suit and process decided it. Extension Service agents have an incentive R.C. Powers, L. Tweeten, "Research and the Perhaps this is just as well. The plaintiffs to affect as many acres as they can, so large Family Farm." Ithaca, !\:Y: Experiment Station might have lost on the basis of the actual farms means less overhead. Committee on Organization and Policy, 1981. effects of agricultural research, because Some land grant scientists do recognize 5. Council on Agricultural Science and there is no indisputable evidence that that the benefits of technology are not Technology, Agricultural .11 echanizat ion: technologies have been primarily responsible evenly distributed, and they attempt to do Physical and .Social f.jfects, and Implications for for the urbanization of the U.S. population research with primary application to small Policy Development. Ames, Iowa: Report ;-.;o. and the concentration of farmland 96, 1983. family farms. These scientists should be 6. L. Busch, J.L. Silver, W.B. Lacy, C.S. ownership by large farm businesses. aware that even information-intensive Perry, M. Lancelles, S. Deo, The Relationship of Even in an extreme case such as the techniques can be biased to farms of a Public Agricultural Research and Developmet/1 to tomato harvester, it is not clear how much certain size class. For example, integrated Selected Changes in the Farm Sector. Boulder, CO: of the dramatic concentration of tomato pest management may require the coordination Westview Press, 1984.

November/December 1988 9 PHOTO/U.S. Navy

BY J.B. NEILANDS The University of California, to this Military Biological day, continues to manage the laboratories, with faculty opinion about evenly divided on whether the university should continue Research Moves military research at the Los Alamos and t is well known in. academic circles Livermore labs. Thus far, only one that, through management of the Los chancellor, Robert Sinsheimer of the Santa Alamos and Livermore National Labora­ Off Campus Cruz campus, has suggested publicly that tories, the University of California the relationships should be severed. has placed its imprimatur on the design The Department of Energy (DOE), Iof every nuclear weapons system, from the which owns the facilities and pays the bills, relatively primitive device exploded at Robert Oppenheimer, a professor of including the management fee, renews the Hiroshima up to and including Star Wars. physics, proved to be the single individual contracts every five years. Having the The initial liaison between the university with the combination of scientific skills, operation directed, if only nominally, by a and the military was natural enough, given personality, and administrative ability to university supplies a patina of academic the exigencies of the times. The scientific bring the Manhattan Project to a successful respectability and facilitates recruitment of community believed that Western democracy conclusion. Always considered something staff. From the university's perspective, was in a struggle for survival during World of a security risk because of his early the management fee looms large in their War II, and physicists and chemists were contacts with leftists, . he subsequently calculations. But the public rationalization anxious to contribute to the war effort. became an outright liability to the for accepting DOE funds is that university weaponeers when he failed to back involvement prevents the government ].B. Neilands is a professor of biochemistry at construction of ever more powerful from doing really crazy things (like the University of California, Berkeley. versions of the bomb. developing the neutron bomb?). However,

10 Science for the People faculty and others who have taken the formative stage. At this time, however, the of which grow as brightly colored colonies trouble to look into the matter believe that Office of Naval Research (ONR) had a on solid media, were collected in air the university exerts zero control over the well established system for awarding samples taken at testing stations deployed direction of the work in the laboratories. 1 grants in support of basic research. The throughout the region. The cultures were early work from this laboratory on described as nonpathogenic. B. globigii was NAVAL RESEARCH ON CAMPUS microbial iron metabolism was supported selected on the basis of its resistance to virtually in its entirety by ONR grant physical and chemical damage, and S. Less well known is the fact that for the number 222 (39).4 marcescens was chosen for its susceptibility past 38 years, the Berkeley campus of the However, in the mid-1960s, when I to such damage. University of California has managed became hyperactive in the antiwar In its January 22, 1951 report on the another military facility, the Naval movement and traveled to Hanoi as an experiment, initially stamped "Secret" and Biological (now Biosciences) Laboratory investigator for the Bertrand Russell War later labelled "Unclassified," the Army (NBL). Not to be outdone by their Crimes Tribunal, word came from the concluded that a successful biological colleagues in the physical sciences, ONR that the research was "no longer attack could be launched in the same microbiologists at Berkeley, chief among pertinent to Naval needs." While campus manner as its San Francisco aerosol them Professor Albert P. Krueger, unrest over the war in Vietnam and experiment and could affect an area up to persuaded the Navy to underwrite the accompanying congressional strictures 20 miles inland, depending on meteorological NBL, which first appeared in 1944 on the resulted in a general cutback in military conditions.6 In an unusual display of fifth floor of the Life Sciences Building as grants in this period, this episode illustrates interservice harmony, the Army paid the Naval Medical Research Unit No. 1. the potential chilling effect such contracts effusive tribute to the "boys in blue" and Six years later, the Secretary of the Navy may have on the freedom of political included a salute to the scientists: "The commissioned the NBL, which was then expression of the recipients. Officer in charge of the Naval Biological located off-campus at the Oakland Supply A study of DOD support for university Laboratory, Oakland, California, cooperated Depot on the island of Alameda in San research and development over the thirty­ to the maximum extent in every manner Francisco Bay. The university assumed year period from 1956 to 1986 shows that and provided the greater portion of the management of the facility and also the sum reached 1.1 billion dollars by 1964 required logistic support insofar as supplied its director who, by tradition, and then declined sharply to a low of 0.4 laboratory facilities and equipment are held a professorial appointment. Initially concerned. In additon, personnel furnished drawn from the Bacteriology Department, by the Naval Biological Laboratory directors have subsequently come from the manned approximately half of the School of Public Health. sampling stations used in each trial." On the record, the stated purpose of the A full quarter of a century after this test, laboratory has been basic research in the scientific community was to learn of a microbiology, environmental health most unusual outbreak of infections due to sciences, and epidemiology. In fact, S. marcescens which immediately followed research at the NBL has focused on the the experiment and resulted in the death of dissemination and survival of microbes in one individual. At the time of the spraying, aerosols. It has been alleged that for its first Edward Nevin, a retired pipefitter, was two decades, the mission of the NBL­ resting in the old Stanford Hospital in San although discreetly camouflaged-was Francisco, following routine surgery for biological warfare. 2 Furthermore, the urinary retention. During his recuperation NBL may have been involved in biological at the home his daughter, Mr. Nevin warfare research at least as recent! y as suddenly developed fever and chills. A 1980, when it was known to be working urinary culture detected S. marcescens. on CoccidioideJ immitiJ, an organism On November 1, 1950, Nevin succumbed acknowledged to be a potential biological to a heart infection attributed to the warfare agent by a U.S. Senate subcommittee. 3 bacterium. This case, in conjunction with The Navy has always denied this the mini-epidemic of other Serratia allegation and claims that its interest in infections that occurred at that time, was infectious agents stems from a need to regarded as high! y significant and protect the health of military personnel prompted a research paper on the topic in a stationed around the world. billion dollars in 1 9 7 5. 5 The curve is again medical journal devoted to infectious Dating from the November 25, 1969 moving sharply upward, and funding is diseases. 7 policy statement of President Richard essentially equal to the benchmark year of Edward Nevin III, a San Francisco Nixon, the U.S. has officially renounced 1964. lawyer and grandson of the victim, while biological weapons. At that time, the waiting for a train in 1976, noticed a Department of Defense (DOD) was asked NIL AnACKS THE newspaper account of the 1950 experiment. to dispose of existing stocks ofbiowarfare SAN F~CISCO BAY AREA He concluded, "The Department of the agents. The right to continue research was Army completely disregarded the dignity retained, however, and the "offensive" At about the time of the formal of the individual. There is no justification versus "defensive" purposes for bioweapons establishment of the NBL, an incident in our society to act in reckless disregard of research has now been reduced to a largely occurred which, when revealed, irreparably the very people it is supposed to protect."8 semantic argument. (See Jonathan King's tainted the reputation of the laboratory. In 19 81, Edward Nevin III brought suit article, "Biology Goes to War," in SftP's During the week of September 20 to 27, against the Army in Federal District January /February 1988 special issue on 1950, the Army performed a large-scale Court. The suit was unsuccessful, military funding of sCientific research.) simulated biological warfare experiment in however, because the original isolate was In 1950, the National Science Foundation the San Francisco Bay area. not retained, so it could not be proven had not yet been created and the Water suspensions of the spore forms of beyond all reasonable doubt that the strain extramural grants program of the National Bacillus globigii and vegetative cells of which killed the elder Nevin was identical Institutes of Health, now the major source Serratia marcescens were sprayed from a to UK 8, the bacterium deployed by the of the university's largesse, was in its ship cruising offshore. The bacteria, both Army in collaboration with the NBL.

November/December 1988 Jl It seems that more than the dignity of the as a scientist and believed him not qualified the university.10 The recommendation was individual had been disregarded. It is now to assume the rank of full professor in the based on provision of free space, special well accepted that S. marcescens can infect department.9 containment facilities not available on the humans who may have diminished natural Stanier appealed the case to Chancellor campus, and a contribution of "approximately resistance to this particular species, Clark Kerr, who appointed an ad hoc one-quarter million dollars in overhead per although, in fairness to the Army, this was committee to advise him on the matter. year." not widely known in 1950. The military After consideration of the matter, the Access by academic researchers to can nonetheless be faulted for failure to committee recommended a separation of special facilities at both the Los Alamos clear the experiment with public health the directorship and the professorial and Livermore Laboratories and at NBL authorities and for its general arrogance in appointment. This imbroglio became has been used as a perennial argument for performing a trial of this type. known to many in the campus's scientific retention of this questionable relationship. community and deeply tarnished the image Regarding specialized facilities, the 1978 ALTERCATION IN THE of the NBL. NBL review committee sought the BACTERIOLOGY DEPARTMENT Stanier's colleague in the Bacteriology opinion of Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., Department, the late Michael Doudoroff, chairman of the Biochemistry Department. Although the S. marcescens incident also had an unpleasant experience with the Professor Koshland, now editor of Science remained a tightly held secret until 19 7 6, military. One night at the Alameda Naval magazine, assured the committee that his two decades earlier a dispute had erupted in Air Officer's Club, Doudoroff was department had "maintained cordial the Bacteriology Department over the overheard to utter certain remarks which cooperative arrangements" with the unit appointment of a new director at NBL. were deemed to be disloyal. As a result, he and asserted that "it is encouraging to all Opposition to the appointment was was permanently barred from membership members of our department that there is a organized by the late Professor Roger Y. on panels which dispensed funds from U.S. facility off the campus which has been Stanier, who regarded bacteriological government agencies under extramural willing to cooperate with us if the need 11 warfare as a "dirty business" and who, in programs. Doudoroffhad an exceptionally arises." any case, held the candidate in low esteem sharp mind and an extraordinary breadth of knowledge in experimental biology. THE FUTURE OF NAVAL U.S. science is the poorer for having been RESEARCH denied his advice and judgement. A few years ago, Director David FACULTY ELITE CIRCLE THE Kingsbury moved on to an administrative WAGONS post at the National Science Foundation, and the Naval Biosciences Laboratory All units of the university are subject to recruited Dr. Nina Agabian from the periodic review, the NBL not excepted. University of Washington, who had The review commissioned in 1977 by then established a distinguished research record vice chancellor, now chancellor, Ira M. in molecular parasitology. Dr. Agabian Heyman, posed some key questions to the obtained appointments in a number of comittee of five professors and one departments, including public health and graduate student. They asked whether biochemistry. But the relationship didn't "the applied nature of some of the work out. Word soon came from the Office Laboratory's research" was "appropriate of Naval Research that the NBL unit for the University to sponsor." They also would be phased out. All appeals to reverse asked, "Has the Laboratory come to the the decision were turned aside, and the point where its contribution to the facility was scheduled to close in 1987. University ... is no longer adequate to Curiously, the reason given by the sustain its continuation? Would a dignified Office of Naval Research for closing the termination be more appropriate?" NBL-cost effectiveness-may be at least In early 1978, the committee reported a partially truthful. The facility at Alameda unanimous opinion that the NBL should was aging and not all of the projects may be retained as an organized research unit of have had the highest priority with the Navy. Certainly the ONR is not going out of the biological research business. A list of DOD contracts issued by the Berkeley Sponsored Projects Office for the year

Greenpeace diver tries to turn the ending June 30, 1986 shows that the ONR provided half of all grants and I 00 percent U.S.S. Texas away from the San of those in the biological sciences. Francisco Bay. Inspection of an employment notice issued by the Office of Naval Research in 1987 shows that, at the time of the NBL's dosing, the Chief of Naval Research was actively seeking a microbiologist and a molecular geneticist to manage contract research programs at universities, government and industrial laboratories where "leading scientists" may be performing work worthy of support by the ONR.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

12 Science for the People UNCOVERING THE PENTAGON CONNECTION

Does Your School Work for the Military?

BY RICH COWAN A new student movement is developing In one student protest, the pillars at MIT's in the northeastern U.S. which recognizes main entrance were chained to a "Defense the importance of local action. In a series of Dollar." In another action, a memorial to conferences held since the National Student World War III was created by taping all the he nuclear arms race and U.S. inter­ Convention at Rutgers University in pages of the student directory to one of vention may seem distant and over­ February 1988, students have formed the MIT's granite walls. whelming to students who are pre­ Northeast Student Action Network A prerequisite to such actions is the occupied with their classes and (NSAN). investigation of your local university's ties. social lives. When these issues are Some of the students in the network have This process involves asking questions. Trecast into campus issues, they no longer acted against the militarization of academia. Because military influence permeates seem so far removed. Students see definite At the University of Massachusetts in American culture and institutions, including possibilities for change, both on the Amherst, students organized a wedding universities, research for antiwar organizing institutional and personal level. Local action ceremony (with fancy invitations) to may seem somewhat more complicated than leads to empowerment. symbolize the marriage of the university to that for a divestment campaign. In addition the Department of Defense. At SUNY /Buf­ to investment portfolios, you must pay at­ falo, progressive students took over the tention to the content of courses, military Rich Cowan received a master's degree in campus orientation guide and printed scholarships and recruiting, faculty research computer science from MIT in 1987. He is sections on the Strategic Defense Initiative and consulting, political lobbying by working as a community organizer in and military research on campus. administration members, and trustee Cambridge, Massachusetts and writing the At MIT, students published a Disorientation connections to military companies. University-Military Action Guide, from Manual, with descriptions of military After a little searching, you can usually which this article was adapted. contracts, and held several creative protests. figure out which connections are most

November/December 1988 13 Tips on Using especially cooperative. They often send • Stare your noncommercial status. The out copies of hundred-page reports and FOIA was intended for journalists and The Freedom of hearing transcripts for free to anyone nonprofit, educational organizations, not who asks. companies who need information for If the information requires extensive commercial reasons. Therefore, stating Information searching, compiling, or "security your affiliation with a newspaper, review" before it can be released, then university, or nonprofit group greatly Act you will be better off using FOIA. But enhances the chances that the information keep in mind the following when you will be released. As a nonprofit o file a Freedom of Information Act write your request: organization, you can request a fee (FOIA) request, all you have to waiver. Even if you do, it is possible that do is ask for the information in a • Be aware that it may take time. you will be told you have to pay fees, letter to the agency that is most likely to Although the government is required to which can easily run into hundreds of have However, there are several acknowledge receiving your request it. dollars at Pentagon rates. bureaucratic and legalistic caveats. that within ten days, processing often takes you must also be aware of. months. • Be specific about what you want. If First of all, if you can find the office you don't use the precise name for the which puts out the information, and if it's • Send the request to the proper information you are requesting, you will easily accessible, why not rry requesting agency, office, or military base. If you likely get a letter asking for a clarification the information without the use of send a request to the Office of the or you will get the wrong information. FOIA? Hundreds of Pentagon offices are Secretary of Defense, for example, you The best way to find the correct narr:e for staffed by friendly and cooperative civil will probably get a note indicating that the information is to make a few phone service employees who will be glad to there is a backlog of 900 cases, and your calls before you start. There area number provide information to students studying request won't even be examined for of laws, such as the Administrative campus research policy. The best way to months. The Office of the Secretary of Procedures Act and the Federal Advisory make this type of request is with a phone Defense can send you a list of current Committee Act (FACA), that define what calL Congressional committee staff are FOIA contacts for Defense Agencies. information must be kept by law.

important for your campus, and then 5. Over the past ten years, has the amount 14. Are most of the people appointed to narrow your search. To get you started, and percentage of research conducted by the high positions in your university white here are 21 questions to ask: DOD at your campus gone up? men? (The "old boy" networks that influence such decisions often consist of men 6. How much of the research on your 21 QUESTIONS ON MILITARY bound by their military tics.) campus is conducted by professors, TIES TO YOUR CAMPUS graduate students, research staff, and 15. Is CIA recruiting allowed on campus? undergraduates? I. Does your campus have an ROTC 16. Are there any internal reports from the program? If so, what percentage of 7. Is classified research permitted on your late 1960s or early 1970s that were undergraduates enroll? (This information campus? Are prepublication restrictions published by your campus in response to should be available from the Financial Aid, acceptable? movements for progressive change -in the university's policies during the Vietnam ROTC, Admissions, and Registrar's Offices.) 8. Are any professors from your university War? (The president's office would know.) 2. What are the largest employers of listed in the Who's Who in America or graduates (especially in engineering, American Men and Women of Science as 17. Are there any sympathetic veteran sciences, political sciences, and business)? corporate directors or national committee faculty mc11,1bcrs or former activists whom Are any of these companies military members? you can contact to get some leads? contractors located nearby? (The career /job 9. What annual reports are published by 18. Do any campus newspapers or placement office can provide this information. different offices and laboratories in your university archives exist so that you can Large military contractors will be listed in the university? Are copies freely available? Are examine controversies related to the DOD's annual list of the top >00 Defense they displayed in the library? military in the past (especially during the Contractors; 1 smaller contractors can be late 1960s and early 1970s)? identified through the Million-Dollar 10. Does your university supervise any Directory.) external laboratories or manage committees 19. Does the university (or faculty) have a for the military (or did it used to)? How 3. How large are the science and research oversight committee which much money does the university receive reviews research proposals to make sure engineering programs compared to liberal every year for its services? arts? Has the balance been shifting in the they comply with university regulations? 11. Does your university hold any last decade? (The president's or provost's 20. Do any of the professors at your campus conferences or conduct training programs office should have this data.) consult for or own nearby companies which for military personnel or engineers? perform military work? (Check the university Questions 4-7 apply only to schools that have (Individual departments may make their own policy on consulting work.) externally funded research. Answers should be arrangements here.) available from the Sponsored Research or 12. Are there courses for scientists and 21. Does your university participate in equivalent office: lobbying? Does it belong to AA U engineers dealing with issues of social responsibility, and are they required? (American Association of Universities), 4. How much sponsored research does your ACE (American Council on Education), or campus perform, and what is the breakdown 13. Does your university have a Peace the NALGCU (National Association of by sponsoring agencies? Studies program? Land Grant Colleges and Universities)?

14 Science for the People GAINING ACCESS TO USING NONADMINISTRATIVE In the face of huge economic incentives to INFORMATION THROUGH THE SOURCES do otherwise, universities cannot be trusted UNIVERSITY to enforce their own research policies. We must enforce them. When university offices are tight-lipped, The first step is to obtain a list of all the Most of the questions above can be the best resource by far is people who are research going on at your university. Some answered by consulting the appropriate concerned with similar issues. Sympathetic schools, such as MIT, print an annual list of office at your college or university. At faculty and staff members, former campus all the sponsored research by department, first, it may seem strange walking into all activists, journalists, and members of local sponsor, principal investigator, and dollar these offices and asking questions. peace and community organizations are amount. Sometimes you will be able to state your most likely to be of help. They can often If you can't get a list of contracts from the true purpose, and staff people will be glad show you relevant newspaper clippings contracting office, perhaps you need official to give you new leads. In other cases, you and refer you to other people who are legitimacy. Try other channels, such as will be confronted by cautious administrators interested. Former faculty members may faculty committees or the Provost. Most who arc afraid to divulge information that have interesting stories to tell, and they administrators and faculty, defending the will anger their bosses and lead to a need not worry about retribution. See the openness of the university, will defend your reprimand. (This is the hierarchical system resources at the end of this article for right to gain access to information, and they in action.) organizations that may aid your research. will help you justify your request. At state . Use your judgement. When asked, "Can Some key publications to keep in mind universities, it may be possible to get the I help you?" don't say, "Yes, I'm looking are the Chronicle of Higher Education (for contracts released under the state's Sunshine for some information on the university's dates of meetings and statistics), Commerce or Freedom oflnformation Act, if it has one. complicity in imperialist weapons research." Business Daily (for research contract Once you get a list of the contracts and Simply say you are studying "how the awards), the various Who's Who directories their titles, you can then select a portion of university contributes to Department of (to find out the connections of professors), the list and ask for a copy of the Statement Defense needs" or "the effect of federal and federal government reports (including of Work which is included in each contract. funding shifts on academia" or, even better, annual reports) which give the names of If you are especially interested, you may "the social contexts of science and members of committees and boards. request the rest of the contract and the technology." It may help to get a professor research proposal. 2 as a sponsor, and you may be able to earn INVESTIGATING MILITARY credit. CONTRACTS There is a tendency of many activists today to take over a building first and ask Of course, not every campus performs REQUESTING INFORMATION questions later. Although this may "work" military research, so this section may not FROM THE GOVERNMENT in placing short-term pressure on the be relevant to you. But at the 200-plus administration, it may be hard to justify universities that do, investigating military All the information you need is neatly such action to the students and lead to a contracts is one of the most effective tactics recorded in unclassified government files backlash effect. Direct action will be that activists can use. and federal databases. So it makes sense to effective only if you can later convince Although most universities have policies file a Freed om of Information Act request people that other methods have been regarding classified work, enforcement of immediately if you encounter any exhausted. For this reason, it is a good idea those policies is often slipshod. Administrators resistance by the administration. All you to put your requests in writing, publish will tell you that you're wasting your time have to do is understand a little bit about them widely, notify the press, and involve and that you won't find anything of interest. what a research contract contains and how as many students as possible, through But more like! y, they are wary that you will the government keeps track of its resejirch. petition drives, rallies, and other public discover politically controversial research, Research projects evolve over a fairly events. and perhaps violations of university policy. long time period, starting with the

NARMIC Pentagon AudH Project, 1501 Cherry National Coalition for Dl$01mament and Street. Philadelphia. PA 19102; telephone Resoti.rces Economic ConYEII"$IOn, PO Box 15025. 215/241-7175 Washington, DC 20003; telephone 202/544- 5059, contact Robert Krinsky Fund for Open Information and You Can Accountability, 145 W. 4th St.. New York, NY Cammlltee to Bridge the Gap, 1637 Butler 10012; telephone 212/4n-3188. They Offer an Ave.. Room 203. los Angeles, CA 90025; eight-page booklet on how to file a Freedom Use telephone 213/478-0829. contact Steve of lnformotion Act request. Aftergood JQ$fifute tor Peace and International security, War Resl.rs League, 339 Lafayette St.. New 91 Harvey St.• Cambridge. MA 02140: York NY 10012 telephone 617/547-3338 United Campuses Agolnst Nucteor War, 309 Committee tor Responstbte Genetics. 186 Pennsylvania Ave., SE. Washington DC 20003: MIT Science Action Coordinating Committee, South St., Fourth Floor. Boston. MA 02111; telephone 202/543-1505, contact VIvian Mills MIT Room W20-401. Cambridge MA 02139; telephone 617/423-0650 telephone 617/738-5624, contact Steve Farber National Student Action Center, PO Box 15599, Alliance to Slop First Slrlke, 1265-B Guerrero St .. Washington. DC 20003: telephone 202/547- San Francisco. CA 94110; telephone 415/285- Unlver$iiY·Milllary Action Guide Project, c/o 2300 Rich Cowan,117 Rindge Ave.• Cambridge. MA 8372 02140; or Matt Nicodemus. 968 F Arcoda. Computer Professionals tor Social St.. FEDERAL AGENCIE$: CA 95521 707/826-7033 Responstblllly, PO Box 717. PolO Alto, CA 94301; telephone 415/322-3778 Department of Delense, 202/545-6700 Northeast Student Action Network, P.O. Box 1050. u.s. Cambridge. MA 02142. A sprtng conference is Center for Economic CORYEII"$Ion, 222-c VIew Defense Science toord. 202/695-0192 scheduled at Simons Rock Callege in Western St.. Mountain VIew. CA 94041; telephone Director of DefeMe, Research a Engineering, Massachusetts. 415/968-8798. contact Randy Schutt 202/69P...3042

November/December 1988 15 appropriation of money for projects on a budget is approved, a heavily censored Compaction," obtained by MIT student nationwide scale, and ending with the version of the near-final R, D, T&E and researchers, states that "The proposed publication of technical papers and procurement budgets is published in research is directly relevant to Army needs research reports. Defense Electronics magazine. The Defense for more reliable high energy product First, the Pentagon proposes a research £/ectronics version is especially useful magnetic alloys for missile guidance budget in January or February. Then because it contains one-line descriptions of systems." Congress approves the DOD's Research, each of the projects, in addition to the often If you try to obtain research contracts, Development, Testing and Evaluation cryptic titles. you will have to specify the research (RDT&E) R-1 budget for the fiscal year Then the universities apply for the contract number, which looks something beginning in Ocrober.3 In the Department funds. Sometimes, the proposals are like "N00013-87-K-0121" for a Navy of Defense, the budget is broken down into submitted in response to a notice contract. If you try to obtain work unit Program Elements. These are listed in the advertised in Commerce Business Daily. To summaries, you can actually send a request final budget document as brief titles and get a jump on competing universities, a to the Defense Technical Information five-digit numbers, followed by a letter school may use as contacts former Center (OTIC) and ask for a print-out of all representing the DOD branch or defense professors who arc now work at the DOD the work unit summaries for university. agency. and former Pentagon administrators who If you do obtain a copy of both the In November, just before the final now work on campus. The DOD gets professor's proposal and the work unit more proposals than it can fund, and summary, try comparing the two. In 1972, simply selects the proposals which best suit students at Stanford discovered that the its technical and political objectives: professor's description of research was often This letter was received In response to a Next, a research contract is prepared, quite different from the application that the request from the MIT Science Action and sent back to the university for approval DOD intended. The work unit summaries Coordinating Committee to the Freedom of by the campus administration. At the are rare! y shown to the professors Information Act Focal Point, Defense Department of Defense, a description of conducting the research. Because of the Technical Information Center, Building 5, the technical objective and military pervasive notion of the "neutrality" of Cameron Station, Alexandria, VA 22304. relevance of the work is entered into a science, professors and students seldom care one forwarded the request to various Defense agencies Who had the authority to central database, called the "Research and to ask what their work is used for. You can release work unit summary Information. The Technology Work Unit Information challenge that myth! original request pointed out that all the System." Good luck with your research. If you get research was unclassified (MIT policy Finally, the professor prepares annual any interesting results, don't hesitate to requires this), and requested that "the progress reports and asks for "extensions" submit an article describing your findings to Information be released and that a fee of the contract. Any final reports arc Science for the People. See if the university waiver be granted under the Freedom of returned to the sponsoring agency, and are will keep a copy of your findings on file for lnformotlon Act." usually catalogued in the database of the public access. After all, if your university is To justify the request according to FOIA N a tiona! Technical Information Service. serious about its plans to promote the guidelines, the leHer continued, "The consideration of social responsibility, Release ol doCuments on publicly sponsored Directed military research may be reported research Is In the public Interest and the secretly, without the benefit of a public students must be able to see the intended usc Information is to be used for scholarly, non­ report. of their work by the DOD (as well as other commercial purposes. We are a non-profit, Using the Freedom of Information Act government or private agencies). MIT-recognized student organization and (FOIA), you can request a copy of the are studying how the scientific community proposal, the contract, and the Research NOTES assists the Department of Defense. The work and Technology Work Unit Summary. unit summaries are to be used to determine The work unit summaries are most useful I. U.S. Department of Defense, Assistant how closely university research meets because they pack a lot of information into Secretary of Defense, Directorate for Information Deportment of Defense Indicate needs...we Operations, "500 Contractors Receiving the willingness to pay fees for duPlication costs. one or two pages. Compiled by DOD program managers, they give the name of Largest Dollar \' olume of Military Prime but we request prior notification If the tees Contract Awards for RDT&E," available from are to exceed $75.00." the project, the date of expected completion, ..... and the principal investigator. They also list Defense Technical Information Service. 2. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the the program element that the research is Secretary of Defense, "Department of Defense attached to along with a description of its Program for Research and Development" (R-1 •• ,~."!~!:.' .. ~:.:::~~~~~~!... . technical objective. A sample work unit Summary, annual) ...... •• , ...... •••, .:., llt.UA"C" If';~~ . ... .,,.._lilt summary for "Rapid Solidification Technology 3. Roger Kerson, "Investigating the Investigators," with Emphasis on Liquid Dynamic Radical Teacher, june 1984, p.9.

Top 25 Non-Profit DOD R&D Contractors, 1987

(flgur•s In millions} Riverside Research Institute ...... $20.31 MIT...... $407.64 University of Washington ...... $19.62 Johns Hopkins Unlv ...... $354.92 MITRE Corporation ...... $347.53 Universny of Dayton ...... $18.98 Aerospace Corporation ...... $338.92 University of Illinois ...... $10.01 Draper Laboratory ...... $164.67 Utah State University ...... $14.83 Logistics Management Ins!...... $14.41 SRI lnteriJ.atlonal ...... $67.69 Unlvarsity of Maryland ...... $13.65 liT Research Institute ...... $65.65 lnstnute for Defense Analyses ..... $57.37 Woods Hola Oceanographic Ins!... $13.23 Rand Corporation ...... $43.42 New Mexico Stale Unlversny ...... $13.22 Carnegie Mellon Unlvershy ...... $41.51 Southwest Research Institute ...... $11.88 Univarsity of New Mexico ...... $11.35 Univershy of Texas System ...... $39.04 Cornall University ...... $11.19 Pennsylvania State Univershy ...... $38.99 National Academy of Sciences ..... $10.56 Stanford University ...... $37.02 Unlvershy of Massachusetts ...... $9.93 BaHella Memorial Institute ...... $34.67 Hudson Jnstltuta ...... $9.46 Georgia Tach ...... $33.29 Research Triangle Institute ...... $8.95 Univershy of California ...... $33.08 Purdue University ...... $8.62 University of Southern Cal ...... $32.81 Analytic Services. Inc ...... $22.7 4 (Souroo: auorido of Hlphot EcAJcallon, 411:1'1181

16 Science for the People BITTERSWEET

name is aspartame, and it is composed of traSweet Company was split off as a two naturally occurring amino acids: wholly owned subsidiary. But this is not aspartate and phenylalanine, and a the sweet story of success imolied bv BY RIF S. EL-MALLAKH methanol group. Orr the surface, aspartame NutraSweet's profit margin. AND DANIEL P. POTENZA is an ideal artificial sweetener. It is made of In the late 1970s and early 1980s, animal natural substances, it is very low in calories studies on the effect of aspartame on brain loppiness pays off. At least it did (one one-hundred-eightieth the calories of chemistry were first being published. By for Dr. James Schallter of Searle sugar for the same sweetness), and it can be 1985, the first reports of aspartame-related Laboratories. Back in 1965, when he manufactured relatively inexpensively. seizures, headaches, and psychiatric illness was involved in research on stomach Logically, C.D. Searle and Company began appearing in the medical literature. ulcers and peptides, he spilled a spent nearly $100 million to develop this In July 1986, the Washington-based Sbit of a solution of a dipeptide on his new product. Despite this, aspartame's Community Nutrition Institute (CNI) felt notebook. Later, while flipping through its approval by the Food and Drug Administration that there was sufficient evidence to pages, he licked his finger in an automatic (FDA) was difficult, complicated, and petition the FDA to repeal its approval of movement. The unexpected sweet taste expensive. When finally approved in 1981, aspartame, calling it an "imminent quickly caught his attention. To the credit aspartame had been the subject of the most hazard." The group cited some 80 cases of of the company's administration, the issue prolonged FDA approval process. aspartame-related seizures compiled by was pursued. Now, over 20 years later, For G.D. Searle, it was certainly a Dr. Richard Wurtman of the Massachusetts that peptide is grossing over one billion worthwhile . process. From a humble Institute of Technology. dollars annually. beginning of $13 million in profits in 1981, By October of 1986, CNI returned with The dipeptide is commonly known, and earnings quickly soared to $74 million in another petition to the FDA, this time consumed, as NutraSweet. The generic 1982, $3 36 million in 1983, $585 million supported by the newly formed Florida­ in 1984, $700 million in 1985, and over based Aspartame Victims and Their Rif S. El-Mallakh and Daniel P. Potenza are one billion dollars in 1986. The growth of Friends, Inc., citing some 60 cases of physicians in the Department of Psychiatry at NutraSweet sales has been so staggering aspartame-related "eye damage." These the University of Connecticut Health Center that soon after Monsanto bought G.D. cases were compiled by Florida doctors in Farmington. Searle in 1985, the newly formed N u- Orion A yer and Morgan S. Rail ford.

November/December 1988 17 Company hopes to bypass the Food and FAKE FOODS& Drug Administration's regulatory process, since its product is made from foods that THE FUTURE are already approved by the FDA. Simplesse can't be cooked like olesrra, While aspartame may be one of the but it can be added to foods after the most invasive and commercially consumed heating stage. Although it probably manufactured food products to come won't turn up in your cooking oil, along the beverage and diet food trail in NutraSweet is eyeing the processed food recent years, there's a long line of future industry for its market. NutraSweet fake foods on the horizon. In the Company researchers are hard at work September/October 1987 issue of Science developing new foods with their new fat for the PeQp/e, Tracey Cohen reponed on olestra, a sucrose polyester compound created by Proctor & Gamble. This fake fat has no calories, but it also has no food value, since our digestive systems can't break down the compound. Proctor & market, the NutraSweet Company has Gamble hopes to market the fake fat in come up with its own cholesterol-free shortenings, oils, and snack foods. If it product, Simplesse, and may beat wins the Food and Drug Administration's Proctor & Gamble to the grocery store approval, olestra may soon appear in ice shelves. Simplesse is a protein made from cream, salad dressings, mayonnaise, egg whites or milk that has been heated, lunch meats, butter, and margerine as congealed, and then formed into bead­ that may reach consumers before they welt like molecules. Like olestra, it has the finish reading rhe fine print on the label of Not to be shrunk out of the fake fat taste and feel of real fat. TheNutraSweet their frozen pizza.

Suspiciously, their impressive medical soda turns into something else. Ten and the growing medical reports of series has yet to be published. The FDA percent would change to methanol, and aspartame-related illness has been appropriate has responded conservatively to claims of about twelve percent would be diketopiper­ and balanced. It has called for a new round adverse health outcomes related to azine, both of which may be toxic to of animal-based testing. The U.S. Senate aspartame consumption, supporting humans. has also responded by setting up public aspartame's manufacturers. These figures moved the Arizona hearings on the safety of aspartame. Worries are not new regarding aspartame. Dietetic Association and the Central Headed by Ohio Democrat Howard In 1974, initial approval by the FDA was Arizona District Dietetic Association to Metzenbaum of the Senate Committee on bogged down when concerns over amino file a petition with the Arizona Department Labor and Human Resources, and chaired acid toxicity reached a peak. It appears that of Health Services in 1984 to forbid the by Massachusetts Democratic Edward glutamic acid-a common amino acid that sale of aspartame-containing beverages in Kennedy, sixteen senators began the is often ingested as monosodium glutamate Arizona. (The mean high daily temperature hearings last November. (MSG)-and aspartate cause brain lesions in Phoenix is 85.1 degrees Fahrenheit.) The NutraSweet Company has also in experimental animals in high doses. The appeal was turned do"Yn because the responded by setting up a toll-free number Likewise, excessive phenylalanine intake health department felt that the amounts (1-800-321-7254) to report any problems can produce brain damage and mental consumed of these breakdown products that might be related to aspartame, and retardation, as it does in the genetic were not a danger to health. It was further continues to spend nearly $25-30 million disorder phenylkentonuria (PKU). noted that fruits and vegetables are natural annually in both clinical and basic research. By 1981 the evidence brought forth and sources of methanol, and that aspartame Certainly, research is where the long-term reviewed by the FDA showed that it doses of 200 mg/kg (approximately 24 solution lies. In the meantime, increased would take approximately 14 grams of liters of aspartame-sweetened beverage) do awareness and increased consumer choice aspartame, or about 400 Equal sweetener not increase the blood levels of the would seem to be in order. packets consumed over a few hours, for the methanol metabolite, formic acid. amino acid levels to reach the toxic range. The FDA is now in an unenviable The NutraSweet Company believed that position. Memories of saccharin studies are people would not consume more than 3.5 still fresh. In 1977, when the FDA RESOURCES grams of aspartame a day. Consequently, attempted to ban saccharin, there was a the FDA approved aspartame as a food tremendous uproar that ultimately required Aspartame Vlcfl1111 and Their FriendS. P.O. Box additive. Congress to intervene and delay the 61&4. Ocala, FL 32678; telephone (904) 351- In July 1983, the FDA approved use of FDA's action against saccharin. Aspartame 2086 aspartame in soft drinks. This decision was now serves the essential role that saccharin Aspartame Consumer safety Nelwork, P.O. Box delayed because of further investigations served in the 1970s. Aside from the 19224, WQshlngton, DC 20036 into aspartame's qualities. Aspartame tends obvious benefits of a nonsugar sweetener Consumer Nutritlon lltllltute.2001 S St., N.W., to decompose in liquid and/or acidic to people with diabetes, there is a larger SUite 530. Woshlngton, DC 20009; telephone (202) 462-4700 environments. If your typical diet soft population of weight-conscious Americans drink sits in a warehouse (or your pantry) who do not want to give up their sweet Th4J Nutrosweet Company, Skokie, Jlllnols; telephone 1·800-321-7254 at a hot 86 degrees for eight weeks or so, tooth. Consumers want aspartame. about 38 percent of the aspartame in the The FDA's response to CNI's petitions

18 Science for the People Reader Response: Science Education in the Third World INDIGENOUS SCIENCE IN AN INDUSTRIAL WORLD

natural resources and industrial development." To those who identify themselves as In other words, it is "only through that environmentalists, industrialization is a community [of science and technology] definite blunder. BY JOSEPH REGNA that it will be possible to intensify and diversify our economy, so as to satisfy our ENVIRONMENTALISM lr ertainly no one can disagree national demands and eventually to INDUSTRIALIZATION with the common theme of the compete effectively in international three articles on science edu­ markets," the Nicaraguan scientists write. Marxist theory, which motivates many cation in the third world in The government, the scientific-technical fighting for social justice throughout the C the July I August 1988 issue of infrastructure, and the productive structure world, endorses the control and development Science for the People, that the creation of of the economy serve as the vertices of the knowledge about the world needs to be an social triangle which will influence the active process in which we are all engaged development of an independent economy. as subjects, not a passive process in which A modern economy is seen as a desirable we are merely objects receiving a flow of goal, and science and technology are laws and facts to learn. Whether in vehicles for getting there. Nicaragua, Tanzania, Brazil, or elsewhere, such a process of trusting in yourself to WESTERN DEVELOPMENT lr observe and think critically is an important ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE component of empowerment, the development of one's full potential as a human being and, If these statements have a recognizable ultimately, of real democracy. ring to them, they should, for they could The Nicaraguan authors of the article have come from the mouths of people like "Creating a Culture of Science" want the editor of Science magazine, the head of independence for the citizens of their the National Science Foundation, or the country. As Emilio Perez and his science advisor to the U.S. president. They coauthors point out, "the development of should also sound familiar becauses they of the "forces of production" -meaning, science and technology is fundamental and add up to a justification for the type of in part, industry. Industrialization is a'fact indispensable" to gaining that independence. society we in the so-called developed of life and social policy in most socialist Although they do advocate a science by world are accustomed to. It is a society countries. With third world revolutionary and for the people, the authors seem to characterized by a money economy, societies pursuing, to varying degrees, have already decided which direction that industrialization, mass pro.duction of economic industrialization, it is not indigenously created science should take. consumer goods, and mass consumption of difficult to understand why many But I cannot agree with their underlying those goods. It is an apt description of the environmentalists see capitalism and assumption that achieving independence Western development model. What I socialism as two sides of the same coin. means creating a society based on the question is whether such a society is the Some Native American thinkers, such as Western economic model of progress and correct road to independence and whether Russell Means, have even suggested that development, and using their indigenously an indigenously developed science must this affinity should not be surprising. Both created science to get there. inevitably lead to the economy envisioned ways of organizing society have emerged The authors' argument is based on these by these Nicaraguan scientists. out of the same European context, premises: independence for the people of Many characteristics of such a society emphasizing rationality, abstraction of all Nicaragua is equated with "the development are troubling. For example, spiritually reality into equations and numbers, of an economy that is multiple, dynamic, deadening employment, such as factory objectivity, and dominance over nature. and independent." They write, "Modern work, is spiritually deadening whether (See Marxism and Native Americans, edited economic theory now recognizes that performed in the U.S. or Nicaragua. I also by Ward Churchill, South End Press.) technological innovation plays a central question the quality of human relations By not critically examining the ideologically role in production." Therefore, "any that are influenced by an economy based loaded concepts of progress and devdopment, developing independent economy must on buying and selling material goods. the authors of "Creating a Culture of have a basis in science and technology," for As an environmentalist, I hate capitalism Science" ultimately accept the logic of the "only science and technology will permit as much as any person struggling for social Western development model, which is the the rational and efficient apportionment of justice. But when one looks to societies basis for both capitalism and socialism. By which seek a break with capitalism and call accepting one facet of that model, joseph Regna is a physician active in the peace themselves socialist, the phenomenon of industrialization, these scientists avoid and environmental movements. He is a industrialization and its devastating effect member of SftP's editorial committee. on the environment must be considered. CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

November/December 1988 19 Reader Response: Science Education in the Third World

THIRD WORLD WOMEN AND WESTERN WORLD SCIENCE

undeveloped countries. It can be misused, above. However, Lange still speaks of BY RUTH BERMAN added to, or even "corrected." But because sharing "all of science" with, presumably, science is "objective," it does not have an the people of Tanzania, as if science were 'vc just finished reading the section ideology; it can only be "good" or "bad." some objective entity, a separate thing, a I on Science Education in the Third World This science is created primarily by the "possession." in the July I August 1988 issue of SftP and thinking of "great men," with technicians Both sides of this sharing bridge, was impressed with the concern and and disciples back in the laboratory ready unfortunately, seem to be anchored in very involvement of the authors. However, in to carry out their ideas. If there arc no shaky ground. The science being offered is the articles on Nicaragua and Tanzania, recognizable "great men" around, we not a solid, defined body of knowledge, their understanding of the relation between annoint them as such with the Nobel Prize; but is an intricate aspect of the society science and society seemed to be unclear, we can then always identify them by their within which it develops, incorporating all and the perspective from which the title, "Nobel Prize Winner." its conflicts and contradictions. In our introduction of science into the third world The articles by Emelio Perez and his current capitalist society, for example, was approached omitted what I think has associates in Nicaragua, "Creating a science is not on! y inherent in its become a key aspect of the situation. This Culture of Science," and by Robert Lange, exploitative processes and "abused" to key development is the the dependence of "Teaching Physics in Tanzania," express enforce the domination of its ruling group, global, capitalist high-technology on the many of these accepted generalizations. but the way of thinking of the practitioners supcrexploitation of impoverished, primarily Both of these articles are about earnest of its science reflects the nature, relationships, third world women. This is not just a young men in a umversity setting who and especially the ideology of capitalism. "woman's issue," but is the central want to acquire this body of objective This does not mean that there is no economic struggle in the world today. knowledge. reality in the old science and that we .have These women, and their point of view, The enthusiasm of the young men from to throw it all out and begin anew if we are were invisible in the discussions of third Nicaragua was especially moving, and the to have a new world! After all, capitalism world science education. Therefore, their vision of technological power which they itself developed from a real, material need analyses of the role of science in the see up north must be overwhelming. But for increased productivity. It does mean, development of the third world led to they have accepted the view that there however, that the ideas, as well as the "good-guy," peace-corps type solutions, exists a "basic science" which is "the search practices, of science are not neutral; they with the dissemination of "good" Western for the truth" in a "systematic... objective cannot be sexless in a sexist society, nor science as their primary goal. form." They also propose that the even-handed in a hierarchical one. A Science, a product of human social scientists at the top-at the universities - developing society docs require science, activity, is presented as being above social who would be carrying out this research and has to begin by turning to the conflict, a thing-in-itself. It is popularly should be recognized as the creative leaders orthodox science of the past. But science defined as a body of absolute facts and of the scientific-technical infrastructure of must become the knowledge of all peoples, immutable laws which is independent of the society (albeit in "dialectical relationships" especially women who have been so the milieu of specific human relationships with other "vertices" of technological rigorously excluded from its control and and conditions from which it has emerged. innovation.) And, as they believe that thinking in the past. Then, in transforming It is the "objective truth" of present-day "there are only two classes of scientific their society, they will also transform its Western civilization, to be venerated and research: good and bad," therefore "we SCience. passed on to future generations and should strive to make research of a very The philosophical pillars supporting high quality." western capitalist science are primarily Ruth Berman writes, "My frnmal qualifications In the article on physics teaching in Cartesian and positivist. These view include the standard ivy-league university Tanzania, Lange shows an impressive natural processes as mechanisms (like degrees in genetics, biochemistry and awareness of feminist critiques. His computers) with linear cause and effect neurochemistry. My socialist orientation and recognition of the similarity between the relationships, statistically smoothed out studies in dialectics go way back-to the days of power relations expressed within established curves, repetitive unitary structures, and the depression and World War II -but were science and by "the religious state of mind" fixed laws. A machine, however, requires greatly reinforced by the feminist/women's is also perceptive; they both operate by an outside operator to control it, giving rise movements of the past decades." handing down the word and the truth from to a system consisting of two separate

20 Science for the People Reader Response: Science Education in the Third World parts, the controller and the controlled. one from the other factor for experimental "objective" body of knowledge which we Dualist thinking actually goes back to purposes may be useful, but it is can share with our third world friends, nor Plato and Aristotle, bit it is this Cartesian recognized as artificial.) can it be evaluated as just "good" or "bad" form which is most clearly expressed in the The most pervasive form of biological work, carried out in university basic science of our day. determinism today is the search for "the research .laboratories, separated and gene for:" Alzheimer's disease, mental isolated from the practical, "applied" depression, schizophrenia, cancer, and world below. The science of a society, its anything else you can think of. These are theory and its practice together, is rather an viewed as switches to turn the disease on. inseparable organic function of that Even the continuous flow of contradictory society, which does not arise de novo, but is evidence published in Science itself (see the historically derived. In a society in the report on the absence of the highly process of transformation from hierarchical advertised Alzheimer gene in many cases to egalitarian, science cannot belong just to in the September 16, 1988 issue) does not a privileged few, to be handed down from slow the enthusiastic hype. In addition to the top. the ideological conformity shown by this Sloppy, careless technique and thinking disease-causing gene research, there is also always leads to "bad science." "Good a very real financial incentive for it. science," however, is not only good Prominent molecular biologists are now technique. It must first of all be perfused associated with companies marketing kits with the perspective and needs of those for gene diagnosis, including fetal whose body, hands, and head are most diagnostic kits for tests requiring penetration exploited by high-tech global capitalism, of the mother's body. but have been completely excluded from A simple listing of widely accepted dichotomies indicates how the division of reality into sepcrrate dominant and subordinate aspects reinforces the idea of the naturalness of hierarchy in our society: nature/nurture, heredity I environment, head/hand, basic This is not the place for an extended science/ applied science, theory I practice, discussion of Cartesian and dualist white/black, male/female. In each case, ideology in science. However, a short the first member of the pair is seen as discussion of one of its most persistent and dominant over the other. virulent forms, biological determinism, The structure of the receiving side of this could illustrate the role that ideology plays science to be shared with the third world in determining the nature of the science also does not seem to be well defined. It is which is practiced today. There have been tempting to think of these receivers as the many excellent well-researched books people of Tanzania. But what part of the written to combat the sociobiological people do they represent? The pictures of thesis that those who are on top belong those friendly young faces suggest that there because of their inherent superiority. they are all bright young men, eager to Yet these ideas keep resurfacing at an succeed at the university. (There are, of increasing rate. course, no young women there, but then, Biological determinism is based on there are precious few in the U.S. physics assuming an oppositional dichotomy establishment.) But what are they trying to between heredity and environment. These succeed at, with their memorization of two aspects of development are separated long lists of formulae, "facts," and from each other and treated as isolated and "immutable laws"? What will this kind of isolatable components which can, however, success mean for the less successful people be mixed in various fractions. In this of Tanzania, for those without any system, heredity is the fixed component, education, and without any chance of received from the past; environment is the getting it? any power within it. These women have, changing and changeable element. There is no reason, of course, why some up till now, heen the victims, the object of In Lysenkoism, which was also predicated black young men should not have the the research of the privileged scientists. But on this dichotomy, the changing environment chance to "make it" like white young men science plays too important a role in the was considered the all-controlling factor; do. However, this would seem to make it world today for them to be left out of it. in our form of Lysenkoism, the obverse of an affirmative action program for a favored They must be among those who direct the this dualist coin, the fundamentally fixed few, rather than sharing a body of science of their society, plan it, and do the heredity is considered to be dominant. The knowledge which the people of Tanzania research, for it is they who have the fullest concordance here between social ideology can use to transform their society. And it understanding of the needs of a society in and biological theory is readily seen. (In has the pitfalls of all affirmative action which everyone's needs are to be served. the nondualist, dialectical approach, these programs: it is self-limiting and a form of The perspective of the natural and social aspects are in inseparable interaction, tokenism, which can be used to perpetuate world that they, and others who think like mutually influencing each other in and establish new forms of domination. them, will bring to science will transform it development at all times. The isolation of Science, therefore, is not just an into a truly great science. 9

November/December 1988 21 Reader Response: Science Education in the Third World

structures while simultaneously building Our monopolization of that process will on them. We do no one a service by only lead us to the illusion of being above SHARING idealizing this task into one of destruction value. leading to a revelation of a pure non­ Let me say one thing, though, that is a European culture waiting to bloom. little more personal. It is just not fair to Cultures are intertwined in very complex project onto the Tanzanian physics SCIENCE ways. And we are not the only ones who students, mostly men to be sure, the image must define the implications of the fact that of black men "making it" just like their Europe is very much in the culture and life white counterparts in the first world. of the Africans already. Of course there are These guys have a hard life, one not ROBERT V. LANGE RESPONDS different values in the world, and that is leading to an easy road, with no first world why the Tanzanians (themselves not way to cash in on having studied. Most of homogeneous and in struggle) will make them will be back in the countryside n response to my article on teaching phy­ what they can and want to out of the teaching in a primary or secondary school sics in Tanzania, Joseph Regna and Ruth specific things that have invaded their in difficult situations by the time we arc I Berman have presented interesting posi­ world. But we do not assist that as debating this. tions and criticisms. We are entering into comrades if we use our values to decide for I was in a meeting with a Kenyan who what is, for me, a very important them what they should want from us. It is was establishing radio programs about the controversy for the left. I wrote my article precisely because ours and all science is environment. On the programs, they generally aware of the positions and value laden and culturally generated that interview both "scientists" and "elders arguments put forward by Regna and we should show them the whole thing, as from the village." The elder may say, "If Berman. So, this is not an instance of my deeply and generously as we can, and see you kill the tree, it weeps." The scientist ignorance; it is more like real disagreement what they do with it. may say, "The root system of that tree about the history and meaning of the I think, further, that the idea that we helps stabilize the soil that maintains the relationship between the first and third should withold our science so that we don't ground water in this sort of terrain." worlds. mess up some new way of looking at the Usually they agree about the value of the The fact that something is not neutral world that we want to receive from particular trees in particular contexts. does not mean it should not be shared, unspoiled cultures is a little self-indulgent. Sometimes they don't, and the program communicated or taught. When I support If we want a progressive science, we have • uses these disagreements to generate teaching our science, I am not claiming it is to work to transform our science so that it interest. When the scientist speaks in value free. Everything we might share, expresses the progressive possibilities jargon, he or she is asked to explain in including our political positions, is coming within it. Let us not be static and better terms. But so is the elder. "What do out of our culture, our values, and our deterministic in our theorizing. Our job is you mean, the tree weeps?" Surely that is history. We certainly do not claim that our to transform our own culture, to recreate jargon too. How are people supposed to political ideas are neutral, and yet, of our own science, in interaction and learn to solve problems for themselves if course, we teach and share them (viz. this alongside the developments from all over wisdom is in such a code? That too can be magazine). So deciding whether something as people win self-determination. And I authoritarianism and elitism, and not should be taught or shared must depend on would argue that part of doing that is to science for the people. So the elder, too, what values are in it, and whether it may share it all. Without idealizing the cultures must be clear to help others be creative in have a positive role to play for the of the third world, we must trust the people their responsibilities. It's a complicated participants in the process. to do the analysis of value alongside us. world we live in. 9 When I say we should share all our science I do not mean that all our science is all of science. There are reasons for sharing all of what we have, regardless of there being a science that we cannot invent beacause of who we are. Ever since the European invasion of Africa, Africans have been dealing with the European culture and its values. Walter Rodney, in his famous book, How Europe Underdevel­ oped Africa,overcomes the vision of an mdigenous culture waiting to be itself again if we only let up on it. Too late. The people in the post-colonial world have a difficult task: to destroy the colonial

Robert V. Lange teaches physics at Brandeis University and develops multicultural educational programs for science teaching. A longtime member of SftP, he is active in our Science for Nicaragua program.

22 Science for the People Exploding the crop prices due to surplus production. both the root cause and the potential Moreover, many countries with large solution to hunger." Tracey Cohen Hunger Myths numbers of malnourished or starving A High School Curriculum people are actually net agricultural Nuclear Weapons and by Sonja Williams exporters. Brazil, for example, is the Scientific Responsibility second largest exporter of food in the Institute for Food and Development Policy. by C. G. Weeramantry world, yet more than half of its 134 Ninth St., San Francisco. CA 94103, 1987 population is underfed. In the northeastern Longwood Academic, Wolfeboro. NH. rue or False? Hunger is the result of regions of the country, 22 percent of 181 pp , 1987, S25 cloth Toverpopulation. If birthrates were de­ rural children suffer from long-term he premise of Professor Weeramatry's creased, hunger would decrease. If you malnutrition. Tbook is that the legal principles of were an average high school student Having learned that scarcity is not the individual responsibility established at learning from a standard textbook (world problem, students go on to explore the :"Juremburg and in similar cases will one geography or biology) proffered by any question of distribution: Where does the day be used to convict researchers whose one of the major educational publishers food that is produced actually go? A work promotes the development of today, you would answer True. According series of handouts describing real-life nuclear weaponry. While this vision of to the mainstream teaching materials that incidences helps students make the justice might gladden one's heart, it is are in widespread use, there are too many connections between land ownership, impossible to envision any possibility of people and not enough food. The land usc, poverty, and hunger. In "Cows its happening. His presumption that problem is exacerbated by drought, for Fast Food," for example, students scientists are legally culpable for creating floods, and other caprices of nature. read about a family of poor tenant the possibility of dire global effects is In fact, as Sonja Williams ably farmers in Honduras who arc rented land unsubstantiated by the treaties cited. On demonstrates, there is ample food on which to grow food in exchange for the other hand, waiting for the war to produced to feed all 5 billion people on clearing forest to plant pasture grass. happen so that there will be a prosecutable earth a healthy diet containing 3,600 Once the land is cleared, however, the offense is also useless, since the calories a day. The causal relationship family is forced off and the land is given presumable effects of nuclear war would between population size and scarcity is over . to raising beef cattle. The poor include the demise of the International but one of many pernicious myths about move on and repeat the cycle of forest Court of Justice. world hunger that Williams lays bare in destruction, while the meat made possible The other rope by which to hang her new book for high school teachers by their labor is exported to the United scientists-knowledge of the fact that and students. Among other myths she States for the fast-food industry. their work helped impoverish the planet­ tackles are: technology, notably biotech­ The complex interrelationships governing is consistent with Weeramantry's view ot nology, will eliminate scarcity by hunger and poverty cannot be learned the world, but is not mentioned in this improving agricultural productivity; from mainstream textbooks because they book. Could there be a class-action suit more foreign aid will buy more food; are barely acknowledged, much less by residents of inner-city slums against hunger and poverty are problems only in discussed. Thus while students learn that scientists who help funnel money away developing nations; and the actions of Central America is an important region from them? We simply can't tell from thiS' individuals are irrelevant. for the production of sugar, rubber, book. Williams, herself a high school biology bananas, coffee, and beef for export, they Weeramantry spends the bulk of his teacher, has designed a curriculum to take do not learn that production of these cash book explaining the nuclear war and the teachers and students beyond the vapid, crops comes at the expense of local food changes its possibility has brought to the and often insidious, characterizations of production. previous concept of war. He drags in a Third World agricultural economies Williams takes on the myths, distortions, summary of the TTAPS ("nuclear presented in most high school textbooks. and ommissions found in most "objective" winter") study and a chapter describing The exercises in Exploding the Hunger and "authoritative" sources of information: the make-up of the superpowers arsenal, lf1yths challenge teachers and students to textbooks, newspapers, magazines, and as though anyone likely to be reading this examine their own assumptions and to television broadcasts. But her tone is book would not already have an look critically at causes and possible never hostile or confrontational. She understanding of this information. solutions to the problem of world invites students to think, learn, and react. Suprisingly, the author's past as a Justice hunger. Methods for stimulating students She helps them to see human beings of the Sri Lankan Supreme Court and to think vary. Some exercises require beyond statistics, thus making the current employment as a law professor at students to apply statistics to their own information relevant and moving. And Monash University in Australia has not lives (e.g., if this class represented the perhaps most importantly, she teaches given him a factual writing style. world) to concretize mathematical students that they have both the right and Particularly annoying is his tendency abstractions. Other times students role the responsibility to take action. From toward literary anccdotage. play or take part in simulation games. consumer boycotts to letter-writing I wanted very much to like this book, In the second lesson, Williams canpaigns, Exposing the Hunger Jfyths because it dis~usses ideas which have challenges a central tenet of hunger gives students solid action ideas. "This been so neglected of late-personal mythology-the myth of scarcity. She curriculum," writes Williams in her responsibility, international sanctions provides ample evidence (as she does for introduction, "emphasizes activism and and force strong enough to bring all the topics) that world food supplies are hope-not guilt, apathy, or despair.. .. It belligerent countries into line-but this abundant. Students learn that farmers introduces students to the idea that still isn't the treatment these ideas around the world are facing declining human activities, not acts of nature, are deserve. Ellen Weinstock

November/December 1988 23 engage in it--it's gratifying to feel as if you "know" something about the world. Yet NAVY INDIGENOUS SCIENCE there is nothing sacrosanct about this CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 scientific method, for this process is only one way of interacting with the world, of coming to know it. what may be the ultimate issue: the I am not saying: stop doing Western relationship of humanity to the rest of the science. I am saying that we who practice planet. Thus they fail to deal with the Western science should recognize that question of whether social justice­ there may be-and indeed are-other ways assuming that this means a socialist of trying to understand the world. For society-is sufficient to guarantee protection example, Western medicine, allopathy, is of the environment. As one torn by the not the only way to understand the human unrelenting destruction of the environment, body, as medical anthropologists have I suspect that it is not. discovered. Likewise, a truly Tanzanian Because of its revolution, :'\Jicaragua has physics, if allowed to grow, may not even a great opportunity to explore alternative use the same constructs that we do--such ways of organizing society and relating to as mass, charge, and force-to make sense nature. It would be a shame for Nicaragua out of the world. Unless it has the to waste such a unique historical moment opportunity to germinate, we'll never and evolve into a small-scale version of the know. Once you've become used to society which has dominated it for so long. Ohm's law, amperage, voltmeters, and "We feel that we are now in a position to diodes, it's doubtful you'll ever think grow to a seedling and finally bear fruit, about electricity in a new and different due to the special conditions created by the way. In other words, the very way you Sandinista revolution," the :\Ticaraguan conceptualize phenomena has already been scientists write. Bur what kind of fruit will given t'b you, in prepackaged constructs. The new modus operandi would appear their revolution bear? So Isaac Newton "is theirs," the to cast the Chief of Naval Research as a With numerous examples of indigenous Tanzanians', in the sense that anything any spider at the center of the web, farming out people living autonomously, happily, and human being has ever done is part of the the unclassified, fundamental work to harmoniously with nature, without the so­ common heritage of our human family. public institutions while reserving the called benefits of modern society, can we Bur in another sense, he's really not theirs, final, sensitive, applied pieces of the jigsaw really be so sure that living independent his physics does not "already belong to puzzle for his central office. For example, and fulfilling lives must depend on the them." For Isaac's way is culturally the U.S. militarv has in recent times Western development model and its 'bound, and thus is only one way of supported the wo~k of colleagues in Israel attendant mass production and industrialization? practicing physics. Those who are living in who are cloning the gene for acetylcholine Are these indigenous people rca II y different cultures may try to answer the esterase, which happens to be the target underdeveloped, or with all our scholarly same questions Isaac faced, but their enzyme for nerve gas. And of course in and technological sophistication, arc we? answers and their methods for answering military R&D, there should always be the them might look quite different. And the inevitable civilian spin-off. In this case, it INDIGENOUS SCIENCE Be very questions themselves may differ from seems to be the prospect of undermining WESTERN LEGACIES Isaac's. the academic independence of legions of I cannot agree that by teaching Western science _(Jrofessors in our major research I cannot agree with Robert Lange as he science, "you are distributing something umvcrsltles. asserts in his inspiring and well-written already belonging to the culture which you article, "Teaching Physics in Tanzania," are visiting," as Lange states. You are NOTES that Western physics is the common distributing something belonging to your heritage of all people and therefore will be a own culture; and that's O.K., as long as 1. D. Archer, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42, 41, 1986. natural component of the active process of you recognize it as such. It is this 2. R.Y. Stanier, Annum Review of Microbiology knowing and creating an indigenous recognition which "releases you to be a 34, I, 1980. science. From my own experience in the person of your own culture." 3. A. Conadera, Science for the People, Vol. 13, natural sciences (when you become a Indeed, the Tanzanians may "want No. 4, July I August 198! ;E. Geissler, Biological physician, you get a taste of literally physics to be a part of what they learn and and Toxic Weapons Today, Oxford University everything), I believe that the feminist work on." But this begs the question of Press, 1986, page 2 3. critique is right on the mark: Western whether they want Western physics and, if 4. J.B. Neilands, Bacteriological Reviews 21, science is a distorted, masculinist way of so, whether this desire is a truly informed 101, 1957. viewing and conceptualizing the world consent or whether it is based on 5. journal of the Federation of American Scientists 39, No. 7, 1986, page 12. that emphasizes rationality and control. conditioning which, as Lange described it, 6. U.S. Department of Defense, Special Report The intellectual motivation of scientists teaches them that Western science is "the ,Vumber 142, Chemical Corps Biological is to "understand" the world, to come up WORD.'' I do not know the answer to this Laboratories, Camp Detrick, Maryland, with some deep "laws of nature," to be the question. I do know that if we teach the January 22, 1951. holder (one of the few) of nature's European way of understanding the world 7. R.P. Wheat, A. Zuckerman, and L. Rantz, "secrets." In other words, the goal is to as the only way, as Science with a capital Annals of Internal Medicine 90, 79, 1952. construct, albeit piece by piece, a mental "S," we may be extinguishing the embers 8. R.Y. Stanier, op. cit. 9. Ibid. abstraction of reality, called "truth," of a potentially different and indigenously 10. Report of the 1978 Committee to Review the which teases us into thinking that we created science with a small "s," one which 1VBL, Chancellor's Office, University of understand or know the reality of might help improve not only the lives of California at Berkeley, 1978. experience. Granted, this process does give the people who create it, but the rest of the 11. Ibid. psychological comfort to those who world as well. 9

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