Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page R1
The
Li e
~ .
~1` 11
Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs
The World of Biological Research
Requirements for the Future
Committee on Research in the Life Sciences
of the Committee on Science and Public Policy
National Academy of Sciences
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Washington, D.C. 1970
OCR for page R2
Copyright ~ by Cations Academy of Sciences, except as follows: Biology and the
Future of man/' from B/~/~ ~d laze F~e a/ Add. Copyright ~ 1970 by Oxford
University Press Inc. No part of 1h~ book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any means, Reboot permission in Urging from the publisher, except for
the purpose of o~cia1 use by the United States Government.
ISLE 0-309-01770-X
Available from
Priming slid F~lkhing Own
Nshonal Academy of Sciences
2 101 Consthudon
Washington, D.C. 20418
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-606918
Printed in the United Stales of America
OCR for page R3
September 9, 1970
Dear Dr. Handler:
I take special pleasure in transmitting this report of the Committee on
Research in the Life Sciences, since that committee undertook the study
reported here under your chairmanship, prior to your election as President
of the Academy. On behalf of the Committee on Science and Public Policy,
I should like to express our profound appreciation for the prodigious work
invested by you and your committee and its panels in the preparation of this
report, as well as in the preparation of the book Biology and the Future of
Man, recently published by the Oxford University Press.
The Committee on Science and Public Policy recognizes that many of the
problems of support now facing the life sciences and described in the fol-
lowing report are common to all the natural and social sciences at the pres-
ent time. In large part, our present difficulties stem from the fact that in a
period of increasingly tight budgets, the research activities of each of the
mission-oriented agencies are being restricted by their increasingly severe
operational responsibilities. Thus, in the health field, as the report so
graphically indicates, the $2 billion being spent on research is gradually
being displaced by the $60 billion being spent on health care, even though
in fact the savings in research expenditures are insufficient to make signifi-
cant improvement in the delivery or quality of health care, and will prob-
ably result in increased costs of health care and unwise investments in the
future. Savings in basic research are not resulting in any real transfer of
resources to applications or to health care, but on the contrary are resulting
in idle resources and unused highly trained talent.
The report is a lively and fascinating description of the accomplishments
and future potential of the life sciences. It documents vividly the degree to
which past progress and future developments in the control and prevention
of disease are dependent on basic knowledge of life processes. There are
few other areas of science in which the link between basic science and
applications is closer. The committee is to be congratulated also on the
. . .
OCR for page R4
excellent statistical characterization of the life science research enterprise.
This pioneering effort will be a fruitful data base for future policy studies
not only in the life sciences but also, by extrapolation, in other areas of
science as well. The report is particularly valuable in documenting the in-
terdependence of the various parts of the life sciences, and the strong links
between the life sciences and the physical sciences, particularly in the use of
physical instrumentation and in the pervasiveness of biochemical concepts
and techniques throughout all areas of research in the life sciences, even at
the levels of greater complexity such as population biology and ecology.
This report is commended to all those concerned with the future of
American science, education, medicine, agriculture, and indeed of the bio-
sphere.
Sincerely yours,
HARVEY BROOKS, Chairman
Committee on Science and Public Policy
1V
OCR for page R5
COMMITTEE ON RESEARCH IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
*PHILIP HANDLER, National Academy of Sciences, Chairman
NYLE C. BRADY, Cornell University
JAMES F. CROW, University of Wisconsin, Madison
HORACE DAVENPORT, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor
HARRY EAGLE, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
JAMES D. EBERT, Carnegie Institution of Washington
DON W. FAWCETT, Harvard Medical School
H. ORIN HALVORSON, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
ARTHUR D. HASLER, University of Wisconsin, Madison
STERLING B. HENDRICKS, U.s. Department of Agriculture
UPJOHN B. HICKAM, Indiana University, Indianapolis
NORMAN H. HOROWITZ, California Institute of Technology
; DONALD KENNEDY, Stanford University
STEPHEN KUFFLER, Harvard Medical School
ALBERT I. LANSING, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
DANIEL S. LEHRMAN, Rutgers University, Newark
CLEMENT L. MARKERT, Yale University
ERNST MAYR, Harvard University
NORTON NELSON, New York University School of Medicine
HANS NEURATH, University of Washington School of Medicine
ALLEN NEWELL, Carnegie-Mellon University
DAVID PIMENTEL, Cornell University
DAVID M. PRESCOTT, University of Colorado, Boulder
HOWARD SCHNElDERMAN, University of California, Irvine
SOL SPlEGELMAN, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons
CURT STERN, University of California, Berkeley
LEWIS THOMAS, Yale University School of Medicine
ERNEST H. VOEWlEER, Abbott Laboratories
MAXWELL M. WINTROBE, University of Utah College of Medicine
LAURA H. GREENE, National Academy of Sciences, Executive Secretary (1969-1970)
HERBERT B. PAHl, National Academy of Sciences, Executive Secretary (1967-1969)
*Members of Executive Board.
, Deceased.
V
OCR for page R6
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
HARVEY BROOKS, Harvard University, Chairman
ElPMAN BERS, Columbia University
PAUL DOTY, Harvard University
CARL ECKART, University of California, San Diego
HERBERT FRIEDMAN, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
ROBERT M. GARREES, University of California, San Diego
J. G. HARRAR, Rockefeller Foundation
ARTHUR D. HASEER University of Wisconsin, Madison
EEEAND J. HAWORTH, Brookhaven National Laboratory
STERLING B. HENDRICKS, U.S. Department of Agriculture
CLEMENT L. MARKERT, Yale University
ROBERT K. MERTON, Columbia University
GEORGE A. MILLER, Rockefeller University
HARRISON SHUEE, Indiana University
HERBERT A. SIMON, Carnegie-Mellon University
ROBERT E. GREEN, National Academy of Sciences, Executive Secretary
V1
OCR for page R7
PREFACE
In 1963, the Committee on Science and Public Policy of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences embarked upon a series of surveys of the status of various
scientific disciplines. Each survey has attempted to summarize the most
recent accomplishments of the discipline at its frontiers, the extent to which
the findings of the disciplines have been translated into societal benefit in
recent times, the nature and magnitude of research endeavors, and the re-
quirements to assure that future research efforts would be vigorous and
commensurate with perceived national needs. To date, reports published
in this series have summarized the findings of surveys in ground-based
astronomy, solid earth geophysics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and
the social and behavioral sciences.
For several years an equivalent study of the biological sciences was de-
ferred. Whereas the physical sciences are usefully divided along conven-
tional lines, no equivalently justifiable division of the life sciences seemed
rational, and the entirety of the life sciences appeared to be so broad as to
escape the grasp of any survey committee. Nonetheless, in 1966 the need
for such a study seemed so compelling that the Committee on Research in
the Life Sciences, which is responsible for the present report, was appointed
by the Committee on Science and Public Policy to undertake the task.
vat
OCR for page R8
. . .
Vlll PREFACE
The work of the Committee was soon organized into two major, essen-
tially independent efforts. In attempting to appraise the "state of the art,"
the Committee agreed that the classical subdisciplines of biology are no
longer sufficiently instructive or suitable as approaches to current under-
standing and appreciation of the phenomena of life. Thus, instead of orga-
nizing the study according to conventional categories such as zoolo~v. bot-
any, and microbiology, the Committee appointed panels charged, respec-
tively, with review of molecular biology, biochemistry, cellular biology, the
biology of development, the functions of tissues and organs, the structure of
living forms, the nervous system, the biology of behavior, ecology, heredity
and evolution, the diversity of life, and the origin of life. This classification
of approaches to understanding of the living world will be apparent in
Chapter One of this report and in subsequent analyses of the nature and
magnitude of the research effort in biology. Moreover, the Survey Com-
mittee believes that this organization of biological understanding is appro-
priate to the organization of formal biological instruction.
A separate panel was asked to address itself to the utilization of the digital
computer in the life sciences, because of its growing and unique role. An-
other panel was concerned with education in the life sciences, both for future
investigators and teachers and for citizens generally. The results of these
studies will be found in Chapters Seven and Six, respectively. An additional
set of panels collaborated in evaluation of the contributions of biological
understanding to agricultural practice, to medical practice, to management
of renewable resources, to industrial technology, and to the problems of
environmental health. These deliberations are summarized in Chapter Two.
To place these matters in perspective, an independent panel was asked
to address itself to "Biology and the Future of Man." The results of these
efforts, edited by the undersigned, were gathered in a single volume en-
titled Biology and the Future of Man, published by the Oxford University
Press in May 1970. Chapters One and Two of this report represent an
abbreviated digest of that volume; Chapter Nine, entitled "Biolo~v and the
Future of Man," is reproduced in its entirety from that work.
In the second phase of our study, a pair of questionnaires, designed by
the executive board of the Survey Committee, was distributed to 25,964 life
scientists, of whom 23,967 qualified as "investigators" by our criteria, and
to 2,277 individuals who had been identified as chairmen of academic de-
partments in the life sciences in American universities. These question-
naires will be found in Appendixes A and B. as will an analysis of the valid-
ity of the biologically concerned universe represented in the responses. It is
the belief of the Survey Committee that the results obtained by this ques-
tionnaire procedure are adequate to describe quantitatively the research
and education effort in the fundamental biological sciences, including
O - O ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
--I ~ rr
' _ _ ~ _ on ___ _ HA ~ _
OCR for page R9
PREFACE iX
those normal to the "preclinical" medical curriculum as these existed in
1967-1968.
Regrettably, the returns of questionnaires both from individual clinical
investigators and from the chairmen of clinical departments represented
much smaller fractions of those two communities than did the returns from
investigators in the fundamental biological sciences or the related depart-
ment chairmen. There is no reason to consider that that return reflected any
specific bias, and it undoubtedly constitutes an adequate sample, but it rests
on a smaller sampling of the total population so engaged (40 percent) than
does that in the fundamental sciences (64 percent).
The data encompassed in these questionnaire returns were transferred to
magnetic tape and analyzed by appropriate computer programs. With some
refinements, these analyses are summarized in Chapters Three, Four, and
Five, undoubtedly the most comprehensive description of the world of
biological sciences yet available.
Withal, it must be recognized that our questionnaires and their responses
resect the situation in the last year of the post-World War II growth of
federal support of research and research training. Had the Survey Com-
mittee had a vision of the subsequent abrupt alteration in the rate of federal
funding, the questionnaires would surely have been designed somewhat
differently. In any case, the data presented totally fail to reflect the impact
of subsequent changes in federal philosophy and consequently in funding
of the research and education effort generally or in the life sciences in par-
ticular. However, the impact of these changes was well known to our Survey
Committee and our panels as this report was in preparation, particularly
the chapter entitled "Conclusions and Recommendations." It was in the
light of this collective experience as well as the understanding gained from
analysis of the questionnaire returns that these conclusions and recom-
mendations were constructed, although we lacked an adequate, compre-
hensive data base with which to support some of our recommendations,
which must, necessarily, rest on largely anecdotal evidence and personal
experience.
As the report will reveal, the task of its preparation was formidable. Such
success as we may have encountered we owe to the generous support of the
National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the
Smithsonian Institution, which underwrote our major expenses and whose
staffs were cooperative in all regards; to our panelists and Committee,
who gave of their time and effort without stint; to the Committee on
Science and Public Policy, our sponsors, reviewers, and constructive critics;
to numerous biological scientists who undertook specific writing assign-
ments; to Milton Levine and Herbert H. Rosenberg of the National Science
Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, respectively, and Roland
OCR for page R10
x
PREFACE
Bonato of the George Washington University for their generous assistance in
the design and analysis of our questionnaires; to U. H. Leach, Jr., Herbert
Soldz, Seymour Jablon, and A. Hiram Simon of the Academy staff for in-
valuable assistance with data processing and preliminary analyses, which
saved us from disaster; to the publications staff of the Academy; to Robert
Green, Executive Officer of the Committee on Science and Public Policy,
and his secretary, Mary Van Demark, for assistance in many ways large and
small; to the crew of young men and women who transferred the question-
naire data into forms suitable for transfer to the computer tapes; to Donna
Teplitz, Brenda Hendon, and particularly to Gail Clark, who patiently man-
aged our office and faultlessly prepared manuscripts and tables, and to
Marilyn Swann and Saundra Greene, who aided me in all ways; and finally
to Herbert Pahl, executive director of this study in its early phases, and
Laura Greene, who succeeded him and managed the entire questionnaire
effort, meticulously supervising each detail thereof as well as the final prepa-
ration of the tables and figures in this report and all aspects of the publica-
tion process. All warrant our gratitude and deep appreciation.
We conclude much as we began. Four years ago we believed public
support of the research endeavor in the life sciences to be among the great-
est investment bargains available to the American people. Today we know
that to be true. Accordingly, we are pleased to offer this report to all those
concerned: to responsible administrators of the executive branch of the
federal government, to the Congress, to our colleagues in science, to aca-
demic administrators, to foundation executives, to students, and to practi-
tioners of fundamental or applied life sciences and all their counterparts
outside our own national borders.
PHILIP HANDLER, Chairman
Committee on Research in the Life Sciences
Woods Hole, Massachusetts
August 1970
