machines or even simple telephones or telegraph keys if you like, could be put. But it would have a broad band capability. In this way I came to the concept of providing a massive experimental facility, an experimental city. This sounds ambitious because it needs people in it too. But when you think that three million people are coming to the United States every year, you realize that this is the equivalent of a dozen cities of a quarter of a million people each. If you think of the world as a whole, the mass production of cities is something tremendous. As a plain old engineer I would not mass produce anything as complicated or as costly as a city without building a prototype. In a way, building a city in which we could try these new techniques is a more modest, more cautious approach than our present way of making a town into a city planlessly, or adding new technology to old cities without trying it out. More than that, the experimental city would be a place where we could give people a choice of different things which would remove the chores of city living. Without trying such things out, people do not know what they would like. When people do not even know what they can have, how can they make a choice? The idea of the experimental city would also be to see if, with modern technology, we could keep the desirable aspects of a city-the variety of living, working, cultural and educational experiences, and yet keep the size of the population of the city down. It is important because the problem of city living is the fact that the whole complex is too big, and this is very simply illustrated by the question of heat. In New York City in summer we have this marvelous engineering device called the air-conditioner. This Athelstan Spilhaus is President of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. As Chairman of the Committee on Pollution, National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, he was responsible for the 1966 report, "Waste Management and Control" in which the concept of the experimental city was first developed. Dr. Spilhaus is on the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and on S/C's Science Advisory Board. is nothing but a pump. It pumps the heat from inside the buildings onto the street, so the streets become so unbearable that as soon as people who can afford it leave their air conditioned offices, they flee to the suburbs or if they can get away for the whole summer, they flee to the mountains or the seashore and quit the city altogether. Only the poor have to stay on the hot streets. I think that one should experiment with waste heat sewers in a city. If a city is small enough, then you get the scouring of the winds, you get the change of air, and the waste heat problem is not as extreme. These are just examples of things that can be tried in such a city. The question is always asked: Why do you have to have a whole experimental city for this? Can't you try a transportation system here, a sewage system there, a communication system somewhere else? The answer is "No," because each one affects the other. Suppose we have this broad band information carrier service in the city where you charge, like electricity, by the kilo-bit for information. It may be that if people have such a communication system they would not need to travel so much and this would reduce the need for the transportation system. Also, as I mentioned, if you do clean up the noise, and the filth of the factories well, it means that the factories and the schools and the houses can be close together. This again reduces the need for transportation. If transportation is reduced, then those colloidal particles from the tires of the cars will be reduced and the pollution will be reduced. Each interacts with the other, and of course, all these technological things may interact with the way you provide health care, with the way that you provide education, with the way you have police surveillance, and so forth. So you need to consider a city as a system, and this is one reason for the experimental city. The basic reason we want an experimental city is that nobody knows the answer to city problems, and when you do not know the answers, then you should experiment. One of the problems with cities is that architects build buildings that are monuments to themselves and they build them so that they cannot be taken down except with one of those balls hanging from a crane. We would not do that in an experimental city. In an experiment you expect to make mistakes. We would take down the buildings as a child takes down an erector set, because we would expect that some would be wrong, or that some might be right only for a period of five years. So that it would be totally experimental in nature and would hopefully be a city which could react to the changes in people's wishes and choices. APPENDIX 6 RENÉ J. DUBOS, "SCIENTISTS ALONE CAN'T DO THE JOB," SATURDAY REVIEW, DECEMBER 2, 1967, pp. 68-71 SCIENTISTS ALONE CAN'T DO THE JOB (Dr. René J. Dubos, professor of environmental biomedicine at Rockefeller University, gave a series of four lectures last month in observance of the 200th anniversary of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. The lectures, collectively titled "Science and Human Affairs," were delivered at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center under the sponsorship of Columbia's new institute for the Study of Science in Human Affairs, with the support of the Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation. Below are excerpts from the lecture texts. A book on the same subject as these lectures will be published by Dr. Dubos.) The discovery of fire, the domestication of animals and plants, the development of irrigation and of urban centers, the emergence of great religions and complex political systems, etc., etc., had profoundly revolutionized human life even more perhaps than modern science is doing today. Nor are all the changes that have occurred in the modern world due to modern science. Smallpox vaccination and the great sanitary measures of the nineteenth century occurred without benefit of scientific knowledge and yet had effects on public health probably far more reaching than those of present-day scietific medicine; much the same could be said about the many different kinds of naturally occurring drugs that were empiracally discovered such as opium, quinine, salysilate, digitalis, etc. As to steam power, it was first put to human use on a large scale by practical technologists. But while the changes in the past were very profound, in general they spread slowly and thus allowed for the progressive development of adaptive processes, both biological and social. In contrast, the effects of modern science and technology reach suddenly into the physical and mental lives of immense numbers of people and affect simultaneously all aspects of society. Such increase in the rate of effects amounts to qualitative difference and has completely altered the attitude toward scientists. The most hopeful aspect of the science-society interplay is the intensity of the soul-searching which is going on at present within the scientific community itself. In particular, scientists realize the dangers inherent in the fact that they must now advertise their activities in order to obtain public funds for the support of scientific research. One of the concerns is that this necessity is causing an overemphasis on practical problems at the expense of disinterested knowledge. But more dangerous is the fact that it leads to extravagant claims concerning the results to be expected from scientific research. Many unwarranted promissory notes relate to such supposedly practical matters as a robot maid that will take care of kitchen work, a vaccine against dental caries, or perfect control of the weather (these are actual examples of claims made by scientitsts before Congressional appropriation committees). Other extravagant claims refer to nonpractical matters that have a spectacular appeal; for example, the imminence of the chemical synthesis of life or the possibility of communication with mysterious creatures assumed to populate the celestial bodies. Promissory notes are dangerous because they encourage a lazy acceptance on the part of the public of the belief that scientists can solve all the problems of the modern world by inventing new technologies and counter technologies. One need not worry about cigarette smoking because they (the scientists) will discover a cure for lung cancer; or about environmental pollution because they will find a way to clean the air of our cities and the water of our streams and lakes; or about overpopulation because they will invent new kinds of food and ways of settling people on the moon or on the floor of the oceans. There is a growing awareness that science is betraying its ideals by accepting the mores of the marketplace. It must rededicate itself to its historical integrity which lies in the system of discourse developed to differentiate between what scientists really know, and what they regard as only hypothetical. Science must also seek again its traditional freedom to judge in what areas new insights can be found to serve as dependable guides for action. Among advocates of the scientific enterprise, the plea has been chiefly for its expansion. But expansion means complexity which almost inevitably results in decay. The only solution to this dilemma is a new kind of leadership indicating distant goals of such large significance that they; dominate the trivial trend toward expansion for expansion's sake. Natural sciences have been highly effective for the study of the static aspects of the body machine; they will probably be effective also for the study of its more dynamic developmental aspects. But their usefulness is still sub judice with regard to behaviorial and social problems. In any case, it seems certain that difficulties are arising from the fact that behavioral and social sciences are trying to use methods of abstraction too soon. Chemistry and physics began with the observation of gross phenomena such as those relevant to cooking, pharmacy, falling bodies, celestial movements, etc.; they reached the level of mathematical abstraction only after a long period of detailed familiarity with concrete phenomena. Behavioral and social sciences likewise probably will have to go through a phase of slowly accruing a core of concrete facts relevant to the mind and to society before they can arrive at a meaningful abstract formulation of their problems; they may then become eventually anchored on biology and the other natural sciences. The limits of this deterministic approach may help in determining the frontiers of the realm of human freedom and the nature of humanness. There has grown a peculiar belief in many scientific circles that planning is useless or even dangerous because any kind of research eventually leads to practical applications. In my opinion, this belief has its origins in the least respectable aspects of the Baconian tradition, and is in fact almost anti-intellectual. I shall limit my discussion of this topic to an anecdote taken from recent history. The discovery of penicillin is repeatedly quoted as evidence of the practical values that come from accidental observations and from uncommitted research. Fleming's isolation of his famous mold seems to indeed constitute the perfect demonstration of the usefulness of unplanned, useless knowledge, but the details of the history of penicillin point to a different interpretation. The fact of importance here is that Fleming had long been concerned with antibacterial substances and with their potential role in resistance to infection. In fact, this area of interest had grown from the studies of Almsworth Wright, in whose laboratory he worked. He was intellectually and even emotionally conditioned to welcome the mold. One of his first experiments after he recognized the antibacterial activity of the mold filtrate was to test toxicity for phagocytic and other blood cells. In other words, he was continuing with the mold filtrate the kind of studies he had been conducting with other antibacterial agents, such as acridines dyes and lysozyme. Fleming would not have noted the presence of the mold, or recognized its significance, if he had been primarily interested in intermediate metabolism, in the ultramicroscopic structure of collagen, in the transmission of nerve impulses, or in any problem other than antibacterial activity. Furthermore, when H. Florey and A. Chain revived the penicillin phenomenon in 1940 and made it available to clinical medicine, their attention was directed to it by their concern with the treatment of war wounds. Penicillin was indeed the product of an accidental discovery, but the discovery was made, and the knowledge developed, because certain scientists had definite goals in mind. "Chance," Pasteur wrote, "favors only the prepared mind." The mind must be prepared not only by scientific training and technological know-how but also by the awareness of social needs. What I have tried to do is convey my belief that much of scientific research, probably the very largest part, follows directions that are governed by social needs, and also that we must develop a more sophisticated knowledge of these needs if we want science to fulfill its social role. Since even the most prosperous country cannot possibly have enough resources, and especially enough talented and trained personnel to study all the scientific problems that come to mind and that could be investigated, the recognition of social needs implies the establishment of priorities determined in part at least by para-scientific criteria. While most scientists have always allowed social criteria to influence their choices of activities, they have been commonly unconscious of this influencewitness the kind of irrational justification given for the manned-space program. This most sophisticated scientific-technological effort is in fact supported by a total rejection of rationality. Asked why we should try to get to the moon, President Kennedy quoted the words used by George Mallory when he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest: "Because it is there." As an explanation this is of course a perfect panchreston, an explain-all that fits all cases equally well, since there is nothing in the world that is not at some "there." It is possible to be curious about many different things, but most scientists find it easier to direct their curiosity to problems which are fashionable, well financed, and most likely to be rewarded by academic promotion, glamorous prizes, or fancy consultant fees. However, what is most fashionable and profitable from the point of view of the scientific community is not necessarily what is most needed by society, nor for that matter is it what is most interesting intellectually. The increasing alienation of science from the rest of the social structure (as evidenced by the present debates in Congress and by the shift of many students from the natural sciences to the social sciences and the humanities) need not represent an antiscience movement. More likely it has its origin in the fact that natural scientists are so interested in their own, self-made problems that they tend to neglect the problems that are most meaningful for human life in the modern world, or for the aspirations of mankind. In a few cases, certain fields of science have been developed as a result of social pressure, despite the hostility, opposition, or at best reluctance of the scientific community. The agricultural experiment stations in each individual state, and the various organizations grouped around the land-grant colleges, were established to provide through science a more rational basis for practical agriculture. During the first few decades that followed this new teaching and research enterprise, however, orthodox academies looked with contempt on the "cow colleges." As late as the 1920's, when I worked at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, the faculty and students of Rutgers College (also located in New Brunswick, New Jersey) looked down on us as second-class citizens ! Yet, cow colleges and agricultural stations soon developed into great centers of learning and contributed much not only to the practical problems of agriculture but also to theoretical science. A detailed study of their evolution and achievements would be rewarding because it would document that: Enlightened social pressure can hasten or even generate the development of neglected fields of science; Under the proper conditions, there exists a rapid feedback between practical and theoretical problems; furthermore, this can be accelerated by creating institutions (extension services for example) in which practitioners formulate questions and take theoretical answers to the field where these answers are subjected to the acid test of practical conditions-a process which brings to light new theoretical problems. Until recently, it was believed that when technology created a new social problem a counter technology could be developed as a solution. But it is now becoming evident that, in general, new technologies with their counter technologies correspond to narrow-range, short-sighted adaptive mechanisms that will not long be able to take care of the problems of modern societies. Automobiles and superhighways constitute caricatures illustrating this social failure of technology. The concatenation linking monocultures, pests, pesticides, and all the complex procedures to control the toxicity of pesiticides constitutes another obvious example of sociotechnological failure. Many medical problems characteristic of our times can be similarly traced to the unpredicted consequences of medical technologies and counter technologies. A simple example is the concatenation linking cortisone to infection, then to the use of antibacterial drugs that control infection but open the way for yeasts for fungi that in turn demand the use of still other drugs, etc. The new techniques for kidney dialysis, organ transplantation, and the use of various forms of prostheses are already beginning to create their own medical, social, and ethical problems. The wholesale use of contraceptives and, more importantly perhaps, the systematic limitation of family size will certainly also create their own problems involving perhaps the genetic endowment of the human race. With the present death rates, population stabilization demands, for example, that family size be limited to 2.3 children per couple (divorced, remarried people must not have a new crop of children if they have already used their quota!). But what are the |