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CHAPTER
14
Science, Technology, and the Public
Peter Spotts
The focus of this chapter is science one of the two significant
trends that is shaping the future of agriculture. Robert Goodman
explained this trend earlier in this volume. I begin with a high-tech
tale of two cities: Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco,
California.
In July 1976, controversy erupted in Cambridge over recombi-
nant DNA research at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (M1T). This research was in its infancy then. In fact, on
the day that public hearings were held during a Cambridge City
Council meeting, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released its
safety guidelines for recombinant DNA research.
Some people including Nobel Prize-winning physiologist George
Wald of Harvard argued that the two universities lacked sufficient
safeguards to be allowed to conduct such research in the city itself.
Nor did these opponents think much of the N1H guidelines. Both
Wald and his wife, Harvard biologist Ruth Hubbard, argued that the
NIH guidelines were self-serving and dangerously inadequate.
In contrast, other scientists argued that the research could be
conducted safely under those NIH guidelines and that fears among
the public and some of their colleagues about what could happen if
genetically~tweaked" microbes managed to escape into the envi-
ronment were overblown.
Clearly, something had to give. Recombinant DNA research held
out the promise of significant advances in agriculture and medicine.
Other industrialized countries were poised to compete with the United
States in this field. Still, many people were concerned about the
safety, if not the wisdom, of rearranging the fundamental building
blocks of living organisms. The last thing Cambridge residents
wanted was a strain of Teenage Mutant Ninja microbes running
rampant up and down the sewers of Massachussetts Avenue.
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AGRICULTURE AND THE UNDERGRADUATE
The Cambridge City Council voted to establish a 6-month Good
faith" moratorium on recombinant DNA research in Cambridge; Har-
vard and MIT halted their research. The city established the Cam-
bridge Experimental Review Board, which was assigned the task of
determining whether recombinant DNA work was too dangerous to
be allowed within the city limits.
After 75 hours of hearings with testimony from all sides, 25 hours
of discussions within the board itself, and still more hours spent
wading through stacks of related documents, the eight-member board
unanimously agreed that the research should continue, but only
under a set of guidelines more strict than those of N1H. in addition,
the city council was to set up a Cambridge Biohazards Committee,
which would oversee all recombinant DNA research and report safe-
ty violations. it should be noted that not one of the eight members
of the board that made these recommendations was a scientist.
How has the regime worked? I recently put that question to
Robert Alberty, a chemistry professor at MIT who was dean of
sciences during the period when the recombinant DNA debates in
Cambridge threatened to split the city and the research community.
He says that the regime is functioning very smoothly. The universi-
ties and the Cambridge Biohazards Committee are working very
closely together.
Despite concerns that strict regulations might force researchers
to move their work elsewhere, that has not been the case. In fact,
he says, not only is the basic research progressing, but so is growth
in the city~s commercial biotechnology industry. At least a dozen
firms now call Cambridge home. Why? Clearly, the presence of
two prestigious universities both leaders in the field of biotechnol-
ogy is a magnet. But ironically, says Alberty, so is the city's regu-
Jatory regime. Companies, he says, look at the tough regulations,
see that they are workable, and set up their firms in Cambridge. It
is better to locate where the battles have already been fought, they
say, than to set up their firms somewhere that has yet to go through
the same process.
Next, take the situation in San Francisco. in 1985, the University
of California at San Francisco (UCSF) bought an office building in
Laurel Heights, a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood.
According to the residents, the university told them the building
would be used for "academic" purposes, without being more spe-
cific. initial opposition centered around issues of traffic and noise.
Opposition stiffened, however, when residents found out that the
building would be used as a laboratory for 150 researchers from
the school of pharmacy. Work would include research into parasi-
tology, toxicology, and drug development. Community members
worried about recombinant organisms, virulent germs, the venting
of chemicals without treatment, and the use of commercial carriers
for transporting radioactive isotopes to the facility.
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE PUBUC
Earlier in this volume, Frank Press mentioned the anecdote about
the college-educated woman who stood up and said, "We know
you're releasing DNA into the atmosphere, and we oppose it." The res-
idents of that neighborhood were frightened. Fear is a very concrete
emotion to those who experience it, even if it is based on a lack of
knowledge.
The Laurel Heights Improvement Association sued the university,
arguing that the environmental impact statement associated with the
facility was inadequate. The association won, and the decision was
upheld by an appellate court. The court accused the university of
carrying out its activities in Laurel Heights "in a cavalier fashion."
After the court shut down the laboratory, the university appealed to
the state supreme court. In addition, the university announced that
it would spend $1.6 million on environmental monitoring.
The state supreme court also held that the initial environmental
impact statement was inadequate and sent it back to the university
to be done again, although it also allowed work at the laboratory to
continue. The Laurel Heights improvement Association challenged
the second environmental impact statement as well. In January
1991, a superior court judge tossed out the challenge.
The university is now proceeding with work at its laboratory, but
at what cost? Apart from the cost of legal fees and two environ-
mental impact statements, what can be said about relations with
the community? Moreover, the original protests spilled over into
other Bay Area universities, such as Stanford and the University of
California at Berkeley. One Stanford media relations specialist called
the UCSF experience "a public relations disaster."
What accounted for the difference in outcomes in these two ex-
amples? ~ suggest that the difference, in its broadest sense, can be
summed up in four words: a sense of community. To my mind,
when two universities openly discussed concerns about the nature
and safety of scientific research and agreed to work with their host
city in order to allay public fears, those universities displayed a
sense of community that extended beyond that of a single disci-
pline, category of disciplines, or institution. Although officials at
UCSF may have thought that they were meeting community con-
cerns, the results suggest that they were not. Remember, "cavalier"
was the adjective the appellate court applied to the university in its
initial handling of the laboratory issue.
When 1 peel back ale the layers of the issues examined in this
volume, I come away with a sense that, at its core, undergraduate
education in science-be it agriculture or any other field must help
students know that they are part of a larger community, one that
extends beyond the bounds of a particular discipline or even of the
sciences as a whole.
1 once spoke with a physics professor from MIT who marveled at
the intelligence of his students. "They are absolutely brilliant," he
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AGRICULTURE AND THE UNDERGRADUATE
exclaimed. "Social misfits, but brilliant." He may have been exag-
gerating for effect; but to me, his comment serves as a not-so-
subtle reminder of the need to be sure that students even in such
specialized disciplines as are found in the sciences emerge from
their universities well-rounded and able to function in a society that
looks upon "experts" with a mix of admiration and suspicion.
This is no mean feat. Often, it requires a way of thinking that in
some ways differs from the scientific method. When starting a
research project, a scientist may ask a What if', question. Or he or
she may be trying to test a hypothesis through experimentation. in
either case, the approach is to conduct the experiment and see
where the results lead. One may anticipate a result, or even a
series of possible results. Ultimately, however, a scientist will await
the outcome of the experiment before shaping his or her next move.
Broadening the sense of and working with the larger community,
however, requires anticipating and preparing for contingencies pegged
to a range of possible outcomes.
It is becoming especially important to train the coming genera-
tion of scientists to consider the ethical, economic, environmental,
and social effects of their work- to see that they have a broad, as
well as deep, education.
The need for these skills in those who conduct and direct re-
search is growing daily. if you need a reason, start with money.
According to the National Science Foundation (1990), nearly half of
the money spent for research and development (R&D) in the United
States in 1991 came from the taxpayers. Their concerns, and those
of the lawmakers whom they elect to represent them, are broader
than how to pay for the next experiment or grant. It is to them, in
magazine and newspaper articles, in television programs, and in
testimony before legislative committees, that scientists must build
a case for spending federal money on projects or defend current
levels of federal R&D support. To millions of Americans, the need
to spend several billion dollars on a high-energy physics facility
buried deep in the heart of Texas is not self-evident.
Nor is it just the federal government that is signing the checks.
The recession of the early 1980S put the fear of economic collapse
into many so-called Rust Belt states. They began to invest in R&D
efforts to help keep their economies going. Ohiots Edison program
is one of the most frequently cited examples.
E3y 1988, according to a survey conducted by the state of Minne-
sota, 44 states spent a combined S550 million that year on pro-
grams to encourage R&D, foster innovation, and help boost the
competitiveness of their industries. Programs range from Texast
support for high-temperature superconductor research and the su-
perconducting supercollider to Utahts investment of S4 million for
cold-fusion research. (That particular project is discussed in greater
detail below.)
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE PUBLIC
The $550 million is small compared with the amounts that the
federal government and industry are spending. But given the amount
of responsibility that the federal government has passed back to
the states without giving them the wherewithal to follow through,
that represents a noteworthy and politically vulnerable contribu-
tion to the country~s R&D efforts.
All the more reason, then, to instill a clear sense of ethics and
accountability in the future scientists and university administrators
coming up through our institutions.
Unfortunately, the Bay Area and Boston more recently have illus-
trated what could turn out to be the less responsible side of han-
dling federal R8`D money. Recently, a congressional subcommittee
called Stanford University to account for allegedly overcharging the
federal government S200 million in indirect research costs. After a
5-month investigation, the General Accounting Office pointed to Use-
rious deficiencies in Stanford~s cost allocation and charging prac-
tices," as well as "inadequate oversight" by the Office of Naval Re-
search, as the root cause of the alleged overcharges. Meanwhile,
the General Accounting Office is looking into the Harvard Medical
Schoolts indirect research costs as well.
As for ethics in research itself, return to the example of cold
fusion. The commercial use of fusion, by which two hydrogen
nuclei are combined to release vast amounts of energy, has been
pursued for decades. Unfortunately, the progress has been very
slow, owing to the vast amounts of energy needed to fuse the
nuclei and to uncertainties about the best way to confine the reac-
tion. Indeed, one of my colleagues suggests that physicists have
discovered a new physical constant: No matter what date you
choose as a base, commercial fusion is always 20 years down the
road.
Then, along came two chemists, one from the University of Utah
and the other from Southampton University in Britain, who claimed
that they had seen evidence of fusion at room temperature in a
tabletop device. Researchers worldwide sought to replicate the
results, with little, if any, luck. Subsequent analyses of their 1989
work appears to have uncovered a shift in a critical set of data that
somehow occurred between the time the experiments were con-
ducted and the time the two published their work- with no explana-
tion for the change.
One physicist, Frank Close of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
and the Rutherford Laboratory in Britain claim that the two chemists
violated scientific ethics. Another, Richard Petrasso of MIT, says
that he has downgraded his criticism from outright fraud to a viola-
tion of how science should be done. The researchers themselves
stand by the validity of their work.
Where is the harm in this? Apart from the hopes that were raised
and then dashed, there is the issue of 84 million that the state
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AGRICULTURE AND THE UNDERG~UATE
decided to contribute to cold-fusion research. Four million dollars
may not sound like much, but it is money that the state might have
spent on its public schools, for example, where not long ago teach-
ers were complaining of poor salaries and overcrowded classes.
Representative Ray Thornton warned earlier in this volume that
scientific illiteracy may result in misguided public policy and misdi-
rected public money; so, too, can badly or fraudulently conducted
research.
Aside from the ethical questions related to the conduct of re-
search or the oversight of research funds, there is the issue of the
ethics involved in pursuing a particular line of research and the
ability to communicate them to a wider group. I recall an interview
had with Thomas Wagner, who, at the time, was the director of
the Edison Center for the Study of Animal Biotechnology at the
University of Ohio. The discussion was broadly centered on a U.S.
Patent Office ruling that genetically engineered animals-except Homo
sapiens-could be patented. The ruling sent activist Jeremy Rifkin
and others through the roof. They were dismayed at what they
termed the mind-boggling moral and ethical issues raised by the
Patent Offices ruling.
The ethical question was succinctly posed by Philip Bereano, an
associate professor at the University of Washington who taught
courses in technology and public policy. Where do we draw the
line?," he asked. "Do humans exist in and with nature, or is nature
for mants exclusive use7" (Spotts, 198~b: l).
When I turned the questions to him, Thomas Wagner replied, "1
put animal life forms into three categories philosophically and mor-
ally. The first is wild animals who live in a natural ecosystem; the
second is agricultural animals living in a synthetic ecosystem; and
the third is human beings. 1 think the patent decision speaks to the
second category. Since we have created an artificial ecosystem,
we almost have a moral requirement to alter farm animals to fit
that ecosystem." He added that there's "no way that man can make
a deer better able to survive in the wild than nature" (Spotts,
1 987b: 1 ).
While one may or may not agree with his line of reasoning,
found myself appreciating the fact that he had clearly thought through
the ethical or moral component of his work and could clearly state
it to someone who is outside the field.
This brings up another point; that is, as educators consider ways
to train the next generations of researchers, they must pay equal
attention to instilling in the rest of their students a level of scientific
literacy that helps them to respond intelligently when public policy
issues affecting science and research arise. It is interesting to note
that when Stanford University was feeling the ripple effects of the
donnybrook over UCSFs Laurel Heights research laboratory, Stan-
ford president Donald Kennedy argued that scientists and educa
1 18
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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE PUBLIC
tors were partly to blame for a "disappoin tiny level of scientific
literacy" that he felt underlay the dispute.
The late Roger Nichols, a microbiologist who left Harvard Medi-
cal School after a productive career in research and teaching to
become head of the Boston Museum of Science, put it to me this
way by drawing an analogy to the Middle Ages:
{A)rguably the preeminent cultural trait was religion and the preemi-
nent cultural institution was the church. Yet unless we spoke Latin,
or read or wrote Latin . . . we would have had to sit there nodding
our heads when the priests said this is good for you, because we
could not participate in the theological discussion.
Teats where we are today. The preeminent cultural traits of our
time are science and technology. And yet most of our people are
disenfranchised from participating in the preeminent cultural traits
of our time.... The echoes of the Reformation which was really
people saying, awe no longer want our major preeminent cultural
trait to be conducted in a language we can't understand'-are still
with us (Spotts, 1987a:3).
As educators consider training the priests, they also should con-
sider training the laity giving them enough of the language to al-
low them to ask basic questions.
How might one do this? Instead of teaching introductory biology
straight from a textbook, why not base the course on an issue,
such as the open-air testing of genetically altered microbes. One
still would have to deal with the basic science. But for someone
not going into research, it becomes increasingly clear that this is a
subject he or she should pay attention to, because it is an issue
that is taken up at the most fundamental levels of government, the
city or town. Remember that one of the key battlefields over the
open-air testing of frost-retarding bacteria in 1987 was the hearing
room of the Monterey County (California) Board of Supervisors.
For the student who intends to go on to a career in research,
such an approach to teaching would communicate clearly from the
outset that ethical, economic, and environmental issues and the
ability to discuss them are as crucial to the progress of his or her
career as a grasp of the basic science involved is.
The role of educators, however, does not stop at the classroom
door. Whether educators are comfortable with the prospect or not,
the fact remains that they also educate by their responses to ques-
tions posed by members of the media. They not only educate the
reporter, but if they are doing their Job right, they are helping to
educate the public as well. I am not speaking of public relations
here, at least in the narrow sense. To me, public relations is what
someone engages in after the reactor has melted down.
Taken in a broader context, however, maybe the phrase fits.
Many reporters may come to scientists with little background on the
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AGRICULTURE AND THE UNDERGRADUATE
subject they want to pursue. They should be treated the same way
a freshman student would be treated. The most gratifying experi-
ences I had as a science writer were those spent with researchers
who were willing to stick with me until it was clear 1 understood
what they were talking about. Each story was the fruit of min~seminars
whether on some discovery in a particular field or on some public
policy question.
1 close with a plea. Our oldest child is in the first grade. He
obtained an honorable mention in his elementary schools science
fair. Will he sustain his interest in science? 1 hope so. Will he
pursue a career in science? Perhaps, but that is his choice, not
mine. Whatever the answers to those questions, 1 hope that scien-
tists and researchers and those they train will include in their sense
of community my children and millions of others and their par-
ents. Through whatever outlet available and with all the patience
that can be mustered, help them learn the language of the priest-
hood.
References
National Science Foundation. 1990. National Patterns of R&D Resources
logo. NSF Report 9316. Washington, D.C.: National Science Founda-
tion.
Spotts, P. 1987a. Science does not have to be 'all Latin' to adults, says
museum director. Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 1987, p. 3.
Spotts, P. 1987b. U.S. stands at cross-road on genetic alteration. Chris-
tian Science Monitor, April 27, 1987, p. 1.
120
Representative terms from entire chapter:
dna research
