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The National Academy of Sciences at 150

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The National Academy of Sciences at 150 FROM THE ACADEMY: SACKLER COLLOQUIA SACKLER COLLOQUIA The National Academy of Sciences at 150 Steve Olson1 Seattle, WA 98121 On March 3, 1863, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts rose in the Senate chamber to, as he told his colleagues, “take up a bill...to incorporate the National Academy of Sciences.” He read two short paragraphs concerning membership and the obligation of the Academy to “whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art.” The Senate passed the bill by voice vote, and a few hours later, the House passed it without comment. Later that evening, President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. In the century and a half since 1863, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has grown from a small band of 50 charter members—each of whom was specified in the founding legislation—to an organization of more than 2,500 national members and foreign associates. In 1916, the Academy created the National Research Council, which today recruits thousands of specialists each year from the scientific and technological communities to participate in the Academy’s advisory work. The establishment of the National Academy of Engineering in 1964 and the Institute of Medicine in 1970 resulted in a multifaceted institution that investigates issues ranging widely across the sciences, technology, and health. The charter members of the Academy, who met for the first time on April 22, 1863, in the chapel at New York University, scarcely could have envisioned what their fledgling organization would become. To celebrate the Academy’s sesquicentennial, the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences, with additional support from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, held a meeting in Washington, DC, on October 16–18, 2013, entitled “The National Academy of Sciences at 150: Celebrating Service to the Nation.” The meeting began the evening of October 16 with the 2013 Annual Sackler Lecture by Daniel J. Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History, History of Medicine, and American Studies at Yale University, who reviewed the first century of the Academy’s history in the context of its dual mission to advance science and serve the government. Over the next 2 days, eight groups of speakers examined topics where the Academy’s advice has been especially consequential. On the first day, which was focused on science, politics, and policy, the speakers discussed national security and international relations, the International Geophysical Year and the space sciences, climate change, and biology in public policy. On the second day, which examined the nation’s infrastructure in health, information, and education, the topics addressed were radiation hazards, bio- demography and vital statistics, computing and information, and K-12 science education. This supplement to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains the edited spoken remarks of the presenters along with short introductions to each of the eight areas discussed. Free downloads of many of the reports mentioned by the speakers are available at www.nap. edu, and Webcasts of the colloquium are available on YouTube.* The National Academy in making in an increasingly technical age from Henry was at first far from pleased, but he charlatans and pretenders. accepted membership in the Academy and, the American Democracy Like the French Academy of Sciences, upon Bache’s death, its presidency. He kept the 1863–1963 which provided the model for the two men, Academy scrupulously out of politics, estab- theUSNationalAcademywouldchooseits lishing the tradition that the Academy would Daniel Kevles, Yale University own membership and be limited to 50 mem- not volunteer its services to the government. bers. Agassiz, elected as the first foreign sec- Perhaps this explains why during the 10 years ’ In 1863, Congress created the National retary, was thrilled, holding that the nation s of his term, the government made only two “ Academy of Sciences, a private agency with men of science now had a standard for sci- requests for advice. the public role of advising the government entific excellence.” Bache was elected as the on policy-related technical issues. The prime first president. During the 5 years of his ad- The First Half Century movers behind the action were Harvard’s ministration, which ended with his death, in ToputtheAcademymoreinlinewith Louis Agassiz, a native of Switzerland and a 1867, the Academy received 13 requests from American democratic institutions, Henry brilliant student of rocks and fossils, and the the federal government for advice on topics obtained a removal of the membership ceil- geophysicist Alexander Dallas Bache, Ben- ranging from assessments of weights, mea- ing so that five new scientists could be elected ’ jamin Franklin’s great-grandson, the head of sures, and coinage to the insulation of ships each year. Henry had come to think that an compasses from the influence of iron cladding the Coast Survey, and an authority on ter- “intelligent democracy” could properly bestow and to tests for the purity of whiskey. restrial magnetism. Agassiz, the academic, Agassiz and Bache had gone behind the saw in a national academy an institution back of their friend, the physicist Joseph This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the that would raise the quality of science in the Henry, to achieve their goal. A world-class National Academy of Sciences, “The National Academy of Sciences ” – United States by granting the imprimatur of authority on magnetism and the Secretary of at 150: Celebrating Service to the Nation, held October 16 18, membership not to men of mere learning but 2013, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. the Smithsonian, Henry had opposed the The complete program and audio files of most presentations are only to men of original scientific achieve- creation of such an academy, suspecting that it available on the NAS website at www.nasonline.org/NAS-150. ment.Bache,thelongtimefederalscientist, might be considered “at variance with our 1E-mail: [email protected]. ” felt the need for an institution of authoritative democratic institutions and might become *Free downloads are available on YouTube at http://www.youtube. scientists who would safeguard public policy- “perverted...to the support of partisan politics.” com/playlist?list=PLGJm1x3XQeK29zj2uOvOByCgQlcUU3tYh. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1406109111 PNAS Early Edition | 1of38 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 honors for achievement, and the creation of happily bypassed the Academy, some de- Mount Wilson Observatory. His entrepre- theAcademyhadopenedinAmericaanother liberately. For example, the American Physical neurial vision increasingly extended beyond “avenue for the aspirations of a laudable Society was founded in 1899 at the initiative astrophysics to turning the National Acad- ambition.” of a physicist at Clark University named Arthur emy, of which he was foreign secretary, into For most of its first half century, however, Gordon Webster. He resented the Academy, to a vital agency in the affairs of national science. a variety of circumstances militated against the which “few of us can hope to belong, and which Hale endorsed increasing the limit on annual Academy’s fulfilling its twin goals of stimulat- wemightnotenjoyifwedid.” For Webster, elections to 15, and he called for the Academy ing the development of American science and as for scientists in other disciplines, their pro- to cooperate with local and national societies, providing reliable scientific advice to the gov- fessional societies provided nonexclusive a venture that would mitigate the exclusionist ernment. Although it was common for Euro- forums where scientists could hear papers objection. He also urged that the Academy pean academies to receive subsidies from their by the leading members in their fields. enlarge its influence by dispensing money for governments, the US National Academy, in These developments undercut the Aca- research, particularly to promising young men, its determination to avoid political corruption, demy’s twin purposes. Unlike the Academy, publishing a proceedings, and acquiring a sought and received none. Its financial resour- most of the specialized societies published building, a permanent meeting home with ces were severely limited, insufficient to publish journals, spun off local sections, and estab- lectures and exhibits open to the public. more than an occasional proceedings and lished systems of awards and recognitions, all All this would of course take money. To obituaries of its members. The Academy met ofwhichmadethemaforceinthedisciplines that end, American science in general and the in the Smithsonian, having no headquarters of they represented. Their members were en- Academy in particular needed to promote itsown,andthemeetingswerepoorlyatten- listed by federal and state agencies to provide greater public appreciation and financial sup- ded. Could an honorific body without resour- expert assessments on the multiplying issues port of research, especially from industry and ces have an impact on the life of American of high-technology society, including, for industrialists. However, both his failed attempts science?No,saidLeoLesquereux,apaleobota- example, conservation, the purity of food and at fundraising and his study of science in nistwhohadmovedfromEuropetothe drugs, and the regulation of the
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