I would start with it rather small, with just a couple of different functions now, and not try to rob all the other agencies of their applied science functions. But start with a few things, like marine, environment and so on, and see if one could get applied science activities established in that agency, and then maybe it would be a suitable one to grow into other national fields for which no existing agency has adequate mission or responsibility or an adequate urge to push forward the field. push

I would like to reflect on that problem. I really didn't get to that in my statement, and I dismissed it a little lightly, and I just haven't had time to develop ideas on that particular question of an applied science institute. I think it is worth thinking about.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. DuBridge, we will certainly think about it and we would appreciate anything you wish to do to supplement your own thinking on it. We will leave time so that that can be done for the record, if you like.

Mr. BROWN. Let me ask you, in connection with our support for basic science, you have indicated that here the problem is one of our commitment rather than structure. The problem that we have here in the Congress and I am sure the executive branch has it also—is how do you measure the desirable degree of commitment. You have indicated that this is under study for the 1971 budget.

There is a typical measuring rod which Congress and most people apply to other types of things, and that is does it have a payoff; you know, the cost effectiveness measuring stick. If it is effective, I mean if it produces results, we will commit the necessary funds for it, because under this yardstick you get back more than you put into it. Now, this is difficult to measure in basic science, and it is questionable whether it should even be used as a measuring rod.

The other kind of measurement that could be used-and I am only suggesting this and asking for your comment—is are we supporting all of the able and competent scientists who would devote their energies to basic science if they had the resources to do it? In other words, are we at present precluding the use of a large body of competent scientists because we are not supporting them in basic science? Are they being, say, forced into applied science or technology or becoming salesmen because we just don't have the support for them? Can that be measured and would that be a reasonable index?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes; I will take your first question first about the payoff.

It is certainly true that the specific payoff for work in chemistry or physics or in astronomy cannot be foreseen and cannot be measured quantitatively. I think if one is looking for payoff in monetary terms in basic science, you have to look back into history and take the whole progress of science in the last 200 years, and say what has it done for the world, and what has it done for the United States. And then you begin asking, well, what would our life be like in America if we hadn't had this 200 years of progress in so many fields of basic science.

Mr. BROWN. You understand there are some people who say we would be better off?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Right.

I think the way in which you can answer the assertion that "we would be better off" would be to look at, say, some major country where

this has not been the case. And I suggest India might be a good example.

The major difference between the United States and India is that the United States has found ways to develop science and use it effectively, India has not. And if you would like to trade places with India, then I guess you are free to make that choice. But I think that the science and technology gap between the United States and India is only one example, and India is better off than many others. That one example suggests that the use of science for the welfare of human beings is a pretty important thing, and sure, it has some backlashes. You know, we get some pollution out of it and some other problems, and traffic congestion. But if you ever tried to drive around India among the bullock carts I don't think you would think their traffic congestion problems are any better than ours. So I think that is the kind of point of view I take: That the sum total of the results of the scientific enterprise in the last 200 years has given us a great many of the good things that we like. They would not have been possible without the development of science and technology. So you have to take a long view, if you are going to talk about payoffs. There have been some specific studies that traced a particular valuable technological development back through its history of applied science, basic science, and so on, and people have added up the amount of money that has been spent and then looked at the total value of the final product and found that the investment, you know, has paid off at 50 or 100 percent a year. But it is only occasionally that one can identify things so closely. I think you can in such fields as agriculture and a few others.

But even our progress in agriculture did not come wholly out of work in agriculture. It came out of new discoveries in physics about the structure of organic material. It came out of new discoveries from chemistry and biochemistry as well as the more applied work in agriculture. Therefore, the payoff is hard to determine, and it has got to be projected a 100 years ahead maybe. And it has got to be projected not in terms that this experiment or that one will be the thing that leads to a big payoff, but altogether all of the scientific enterprise will have a payoff. But I think that science is a field in which one has to think in terms other than dollar payoffs. You have sort of got to think in somewhat more intangible, intellectual terms. The exploration of the universe I just think has been an elevating thing for human beings. I think we are better off as human beings because we know about the structure of the universe now as compared to 500 years ago when everybody thought that the planets were being pushed around by angels and devils and that the day on which you were born and where the angel was on that day determined your future. I think we are better off that we know better about the mechanism of nature and the shape and structure and progress and history and future of the universe. You can't measure that in dollars.

Mr. BROWN. Well, the other criterion I was setting forth here had to do with the degree to which we are actually making use of our trained manpower.

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. Can that be used as a measurement? I am talking about dollars. You are suggesting a billion dollar budget for the Science

Foundation. How do we justify this to some hardnosed members of the Appropriations Committee?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes. All right. I think you have put your finger on a much more viable method of judging the adequacy of the scientific enterprise.

The scientist is looking always for significant and important things to do. No scientist wants to do trivial things. It is the last thing in the world he wants to do, like any other human being who doesn't like to spend his life doing trivial things.

So he tries to identify those scientific enterprises in his area of interest which have an important effect on strengthening our knowledge in that area of science. And you can tell the important newly developing areas of science. As new discoveries open up new potentialities for a new scientific field, the bright young scientists are pretty likely to say, there is the wave of the future, there is where I want to be.

A number of years ago nuclear physics was clearly the exciting area to be in, and the young physicists flocked into it. In more recent years, other areas. And now I suppose biochemistry and microbiology are among the more exciting areas.

What I am getting at is simply the initiatives, the interests, and the thinking of especially the younger scientists, are clearly an extremely good gage of what scientific areas have scientific importance for the future, and which ones are significant.

Therefore, if one does look around the country and ask in what areas of science are there competent, lively, imaginative young people working without adequate support, you do identify then the important areas. And I would put as an important criterion for the adequacy of science the identification of competent scientists who are now working on what they consider to be lively and important areas for the future, where the support is inadequate.

Now, I know from the Government point of view it is awfully hard to say, well, we are going to spend our money on the whims of the scientists, and it is a hard thing to justify. But the whims and the desires and the intellectual enthusiasm of the scientists are all we have got. That is all that makes science go.

It is not a thing that can be directed and ordered by a Government agency. It is a thing that has to well out from the sprit of curiosity and impulse to do things useful and significant that are inherent in the individuals. Therefore, if we could identify where the individuals are and see where they are lacking in adequate facilities, support, atmosphere, then you have got a far better criterion than any other I can think of for saying our support is or is not adequate.

Now, you know perfectly well in the last 3 or 4 years the support has been inadequate because things have been going along, new scientists have been training, new ideas have been developing, new projects have been started and suddenly they have had to be stopped or decreased, and new ones haven't been started.

So we have a clear example of inadequacy today.

Mr. BROWN. But can we measure these things, can we get a count of the number of brilliant young new scientists who are not being adequately supported in the fields in which they are not being supported?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. Is that effort being made in terms of the commitment? Dr. DUBRIDGE. Yes, we can and it is. I do not think it is possible to measure this with very high precision nor do I think it is necessary to do it.

Mr. BROWN. No.

Dr. DUBRIDGE. But it doesn't take very much of a sampling process to find out in the major institutions of the country where science is going on what the situation is. Remember, there are only 150 universities in the country that are really involved in scientific graduate training and research.

There are 2,000 colleges that aren't, or are only involved in undergraduate training or only in small scale research. If we could find out from the 150 or even the 50 leading universities, I am sure a sample there would show exactly where the lively young minds are that need additional support.

And the Federal Council committee on this is now taking a look at precisely this problem.

Mr. BROWN. I have never seen this kind of information. I have seen the information indicating that we have cut back so much and so many projects are having to be cut. You can get a reaction from this. The reaction, of course, is any time you start something and then cut if off you get a reaction.

But that doesn't begin to measure whether or not we are really doing the job that needs to be done in terms of supporting the potential amongst these brilliant young scientists who otherwise are not going to starve to death, but they are just going to move into some other more lucrative field and we will be deprived of their efforts in this area.

Dr. DUBRIDGE. Well, we are studying that situation exactly now. Mr. BROWN. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DADDARIO. Beyond studying it and coming to some determination about how many of these young people ought to be supported, Dr. DuBridge, there does have to be created in the public mind the type of opinion, which the Congress then will reflect, that they are actually deserving of such support and that it is necessary to the welfare of this country that that be done.

Dr. DUBRIDGE. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that your committee can be a key factor in conveying to the Congress what the situation actually is. We will certainly keep you informed of whatever we can find out

about it.

If your committee can look at these facts and size up the situation and come to a conclusion about the national interest in this field, it will be enormously helpful and useful in educating the people of the country.

Mr. DADDARIO. Dr. DuBridge, when under the Reorganization Act, the Office of Science and Technology was founded, it was given the responsibility to evaluate scientific research programs undertaken by the various agencies of the Government. In your concluding remarks, you talk about basic sicence being supported by an independent agency, which is the National Science Foundation.

You also said that you did not think it wise to take away from other agencies the basic research activities that those agencies were working on, but rather to build up the National Science Foundation through

the development of other activities and support along the lines Mr. Brown has been talking about.

Isn't it necessary that what is being done in these agencies be examined so that their basic research will maintain the quality of their work rather than to just enhance their own growth? Aren't we in one of those times where such an examination would be extremely helpful, when these agencies under the financial gun are beginning to divest themselves of some of these activities, to see that this is done in an orderly way? Even though the financial situation is a serious one that they ought not to be allowed to do this without some plan over a long enough period of time so that they can be assumed and developed within the National Science Foundation or NIH?

Dr. DUBRIDGE. I certainly agree with you.

Mr. DADDARIO. How do you go about evaluating this as a responsibility of OST and then developing the program so that it will be done in an orderly way? Mr. Brown points out how much difficulty we do have in the Congress. I do believe that unless we had taken the steps we have over the course of time, the cutting would have been more severe. Nonetheless, it is painful. The National Science Foundation takes upon itself some $19 million, perhaps even more than that, of DOD programing. This naturally makes it more difficult to get that extra $19 million to support young graduate students whom you believe to be so important to this particular effort over the course of time.

Shouldn't we be doing something in the administration and management of the adjustment to this independent agency concept which you believe to be important and still not do harm to the mission agencies themselves?

Dr. DU BRIDGE. I think we must increase our efforts to do just that, to take a look at the science programs of all the agencies. It isn't too difficult. You don't have to examine every individual project of every agency to get a feeling and a pretty good judgment as to the general value of the scientific work which an agency is supporting, and you don't have to have detailed project-by-project analyses to know whether the general areas of science being supported by an agency have reasonable relevance to their mission, either in the short or the long term.

And the attempt to transfer activities has certainly been a problem in recent years. Because of DOD's tight budget they have been anxious to load onto the Science Foundation certain things which they had previously been doing. These things were perfectly appropriate things for the Science Foundation to take over. But the funds for doing it have never been adequately and promptly enough supplied. So this question of transfer of functions, I think, is a very delicate one that must be looked at. And no matter how carefully a budget proposal for the R. & D. funding of the country is presented by the President to the Congress, the individual congressional committees each have their authority to make changes which may spoil these plans for a rounded and well-balanced whole.

And that is why I suggested that the congressional problems here are very serious. Even if one had a very well-considered, rounded, balanced program for our national science effort which were presented by the President in his budget, it is not at all sure that it would come out of Congress still adequate or well-rounded or adequately balanced.

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