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Suggested Citation:"What Do Life Scientists Do?." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Page 261
Suggested Citation:"What Do Life Scientists Do?." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Page 262
Suggested Citation:"What Do Life Scientists Do?." National Research Council. 1970. The Life Sciences: Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9575.
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Page 263

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THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH to attain an intellectual critical mass and to sustain the pace of exciting investigation while training the novice investigator for his future career. Although this report gives emphasis to the research and education en- deavor of the universities, it remains possible for dedicated scholars to pursue meaningful research in the biology departments of the independent four-year colleges. Biology is still mainly "small science," and research in many subdisciplines can be conducted with relatively modest support. When access to major equipment is required, this is frequently arranged with the faculty of a nearby university or undertaken during the summer at some properly equipped institution. These efforts constitute a significant part of the total life sciences research endeavor. There are, however, important exceptions to this "small science" pattern. Decidedly larger aggregates of scientists, focused on a single goal, have been brought together to design a biological experiment for a space probe or to study the ecology of a major biome. The integrated approach to environmental research, stimulated by the International Biological Pro- gram, promises to open new levels of understanding of the functioning, resilience, and critical sensitivities of man-dominated ecosystems. In this program, teams of ecologists, social scientists, and physical scientists- as many as 150 individuals~ooperate in the analysis of entire ecosystems, such as the Western grasslands, the Eastern deciduous forests, or the Southwestern desert. Their data are compiled, coordinated, and utilized to construct mathematical models of these large systems, one day to be integrated with models of the atmospheres of the same regions. These sys- tems involve so many components and multiple interactions that realistic abstractions or simplifications must be designed for simulation on large digital computers. The model is a combination of mathematical expressions and statistical probability distributions representing the processes and inter- actions of the system, as from soil to plant or plant to animal, and the impact of temperature on energy flow. A properly designed model can be used to suggest the potentially most fruitful field experiments from among the multitude that might be conducted, to identify gaps in existing knowl- edge through deficiencies in model performance, and to suggest optimal courses of action in managing real-world ecosystems. In the medical schools, large groups with representatives from several clinical or preclinical departments coalesce to collaborate on some aspect of cardiovascular, neurological, or neoplastic disease. These groups can number from 20 to 200 scientists and may well serve as forerunners of an era of "big biology." WHAT DO LIFE SCIENTISTS DO? The average life scientist employed in an institution of higher learning devotes about half his time to research, 10 to 20 percent to administration, 261

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THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH a fourth to a third of his time to instruction, and the balance to assorted other responsibilities. The actual distribution, of course, vanes with the type of institution and the specific disciplinary field and according to whether he has clinical responsibility. This pattern is clearly in contrast with that of life scientists employed by nonacademic institutions, for whom research is, to an even greater extent, their dominant responsibility, de- manding about 70 percent of their effort, while the remainder of their time is largely devoted to administrative responsibilities. Surprisingly, nonaca- demic scientists report that they engage in instruction that varies in per- centages of their time from O to 10 percent about 3 percent for the entire group but 8.5 percent for physicians. The physicians also give a sixth of their time to clinical care and hence can devote only about half their time to research. Some pertinent data in this regard are summarized in Table 18. The same set of respondents, 6,125 scientists in academic institutions and 3,054 scientists in nonacademic institutions, were also queried with respect to whether the research in which they were engaged was basic, clinical, or applied. It was made clear that these designations were not necessarily mutually exclusive and, indeed, that an individual could check more than one of these categories if he felt that this was appropriate, par- ticularly if he was engaged in more than one research project. Some of the resultant data are shown in Table 19. It is not surprising that scientists outside the academic world engage in applied and clinical research. But it may be surprising that 22 percent of all life scientists in institutions of higher learning indicated that their research is applied in some degree. By their own judgment, 76 percent of academically employed physicians indicate that they are engaged in basic research, and only 12 percent state that the research that they are doing is "applied" in some fashion. Quite logically, entomologists and the faculty of agriculture schools consider that a large fraction of their research is directed toward application. Conversely, while it was to be anticipated that 48 percent of all life scientists employed outside the academic world engage in applied research, the fact that 79 percent of all such scientists consider that they are engaged in some funda- mental research was somewhat surprising. It indicates that the prejudices of many young scientists against careers outside the academic setting, for lack of opportunity to engage in basic research, may well be ill founded. In any case, the reader will recognize that there is no meaningful close definition of the terms "basic" and "applied" in these regards and that these indications by our respondents reflect their motivation in addressing specific problems and not the character of the work. By this measure, one investi- gator studying sodium transport in human erythrocytes may classify it as "basic" research; another may consider the same study "clinical," only because human cells are employed for the purpose; and a third may view

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