Letters to the Editor of Dædalus
On scientists as professionals
Febbraio 20, 2006
To the Editor:
An egregious example of the ongoing
misunderstanding between scientists
and society is on view in the Summer
2005 issue of Dædalus, devoted to the
professions, in which scientists are not
even mentioned. The introductory arti-
cle by Howard Gardner, a distinguished
Harvard professor known for his work
on ‘multiple intelligences,’ and Lee S.
Shulman, emeritus professor of educa-
tion at Stanford (currently president of
the Carnegie Foundation), lists physi-
cians, lawyers, and accountants; archi-
tects and engineers; journalists and edu-
cators as ‘professionals.’ They do not in-
clude scientists in the list and–it is in-
teresting to note–they do not include
creative artists, like Picasso or Beetho-
ven. These authors de½ne professionals
as “individuals who are given a certain
amount of prestige and autonomy in ex-
change for performing for society a set
of services in a disinterested way.”
The primary orientation of both sci-
entists and artists, Ovviamente, is not to
serve society but to an impersonal goal–
to seek some form of truth. Let us not
overlook the possibility that Gardner
and Shulman simply wished to perpetu-
ate the ‘two cultures’ distinction made
famous by C. P. Snow a half-century ago.
The implication would be that scientists
are simply technicians, incapable of par-
ticipating in the higher culture. In Harris
polls, on the other hand, the nonaca-
demically oriented public lists scientists
as the ‘most admired’ profession.
In reality, scientists serve society in
many ways, and this service is, for the
most part, disinterested. One distin-
guishes ‘fundamental (basic)’ scientists,
who try to ½nd explanations for the phe-
nomena of the natural world and work
for the most part in academic institu-
zioni, from ‘applied’ scientists, who ad-
dress such practical problems as devel-
oping a vaccine against sars or flu or
building a better airplane and who ½nd
a home in industrial laboratories. ‘In-
ventors’ use existing knowledge to cre-
ate commercially useful products or
processes, Quale, in most cases, can be
patented. The same scienti½c approach-
es and rules of evidence, even the same
metodi, govern the search for funda-
mental facts and relationships and the
solving of practical problems.
Doctors and engineers, as profession-
COME, use the ½ndings of basic science in
the practice of medicine and the solu-
tion of architectural and environmen-
tal problems. In the process, Tuttavia,
they also make signi½cant discoveries.
Doctors used clinical knowledge as a
basis for the fundamental discovery
that a major form of diabetes is driven
by an ‘autoimmune’ response in genet-
ically predisposed individuals. Exam-
ples abound of engineering accomplish-
ments leading to, rather than following,
scienti½c discovery: the invention of the
steam engine, prompting the develop-
ment of thermodynamics; the successful
Dædalus Spring 2006
139
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Letters to
the Editor
flight of the Wright brothers, driving
knowledge of aerodynamics.
The role of scientists in advising both
governmental and nongovernmental
bodies, which involves essentially the
entire community of established scien-
tists, may be seen as another disinter-
ested service to society. The American
public simply has no idea of the vast ad-
visory network that provides continu-
ous input to the executive and legislative
branches of government and their many
subdivisions, as well as to nongovern-
mental organizations and the private
sector. The National Institutes of Health
(nih) alone has some 270 ‘study sec-
tions’ (panels of scientists), which ad-
vise on applications for research grants,
each meeting two or three times a year
for several days at a time. ‘Congressional
Fellows,’ supported by various scienti½c
societies, provide another channel of sci-
enti½c input to legislators (and now to
most agencies of the executive branch).
More than 1,600 Science and Technolo-
gy Fellows of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science have
worked, since the program was started
In 1973, as ‘special legislative assistants,’
in legislative and policy areas requiring
scienti½c and technical input, on the
staff of members of Congress or con-
gressional committees. The program has
been highly commended by senators and
representatives from both Democratic
and Republican sides of the aisle.
One of the most important rewards of
science is the satisfaction of getting an-
swers to dif½cult and potentially impor-
tant problems. The contemporary public
does not understand this and thinks of
high-pro½le awards, such as the Nobel
Prize, mainly in terms of the large sum
of money that changes hands. Yet a re-
cent study, published in Science, showed
that two-thirds of science and engineer-
ing researchers at universities, ranging
140
Dædalus Spring 2006
from Harvard to Texas A&M, evinced lit-
tle interest in patenting their discoveries
(over the period 1983–1999), although
they might have made a good deal of
money by doing so.
Let me close by noting that research,
Infatti, has an artistic side. Nature is
complex, but the scientist ½nds a piece
of Nature’s jigsaw puzzle–and it has its
own beauty. If he keeps working on the
same problem, he may ½nd additional
pieces, which ½t together to create a
beautiful whole.
Byron H. Waksman, M.D.
Byron H. Waksman, a Fellow of the American
Academy since 1979, is professor emeritus of mi-
crobiology and biology at Yale University and vis-
iting scientist in neurology at Harvard University.
On Social Security & the aging
of America
Febbraio 27, 2006
To the Editor:
In “Measuring Social Security’s ½nan-
cial outlook within an aging society”
(Dædalus, Inverno 2006), Jagadeesh Gok-
hale and Kent Smetters set forth a con-
cise and clear account of the standard
½nancial framework for understanding
Social Security’s ½nancial problems that
is generally subscribed to by academic
experts and the Social Security Admin-
istration’s actuaries. Gokhale and Smet-
ters criticize this formulation and offer
a re½nement from which to better as-
sess reform proposals. I contend that the
standard formulation, as well as their re-
½ned version of it, is deeply flawed from
the perspective of social justice. Basical-
ly, this formulation has led to all of the
reform proposals requiring that a large
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