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THE GOALS OF SCIENCE*

(or possibly: SCIENCE IN SOCIETY?)

S. E. Luria

Center for Cancer Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

“Based on a talk before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
December 8, 1976.
The main topic of this paper is the relation between the
scientific enterprise and the society in which that enterprise
is carried out. This relation has become increasingly tense and
complex in the last few decades. The problem arises, I believe,
from the internal stresses and contradictions within both society
and science.

Our society is fundamentally based on the premise of
democracy. Modern democracy is the dauqhter of the rationalism
of the 17th and 18th century and is therefore in a sense the
twin sister of science. It is by its very origins committed to
rationality, to optimism about the future of mankind, to faith
in progress based on factual knowledge of the world. But, at the
same time, western democracy is also committed to a utilinarian
view of the world, a world of budgets and appropriations and cost-
benefit accounting that puts a price on every item and on every
activity within society. And, in addition, democracy is buffeted
by irrational forces, which range from the irrationality of various
counter-cultures to the irrational persistence of economic injustice,
to the aberrations of war and nationalism, racism and to sectarian
prejudices of all sorts.

The scientific enterprise itself also presents a multitude
of faces. To its practitioners and to a certain number of initiated
observers, science preserves the quality that made it, from Newton

to Darwin and to Einstein, the most daring and most successful
adventure of the human mind. For the enthusiastic scientist, the
scientific enterprise is a monument to humanity's intellectual
power and freedom -- a modern equivalent of the great cathedrals
that the burghers of the middle ages raised as monuments to

their newly found sense of economic power and political freedom.

But, if science is the cathedral raised in praise of
intellectual freedom, one must admit that too often, under the
pressure of utilitarian society, the cathedral of science has come
to look like one of those monasteries one sees in the French
countryside, in which a modest church is almost hidden by a
prosperous distillery ef lLiquewes. The sale of products becomes
the justification for being allowed to pray the Lord. It is a
fact of life that science has become so expensive that its support
can be justified only on the basis of the benefits that derive
from it, which is to say that science has to be justified by the
practical technologies that it generates.

Unfortunately, having to justify itself by the cost-benefit
criterion, science inevitably also becomes involved in |
participation in many of the questionable activities of society --
a participation that in the long run is bound to undermine the
rational heritage of science.

These multiple contradictions within both the enterprise of
democracy and the enterprise of science are, I believe, at the

root of the strains and misunderstandinas that have arisen.

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I shall single out some of these problems and comment upon them
in the restricted field of the so called hiomedical science “
(itself a misnomer, like science-and-technology and other hinomials
that please politicians and obscure reality). The three aspects
I am going to discuss are, the cost-benefit reckoning of the
fruits of research, the decision-making process in the
selection of research programs, and the distrust of science and
scientists that is manifested in our society at large and
among certain elements of society in particular. Even though I
cannot hope to come up with satisfactory practical solutions to
these problems, I shall try to suggest possible steps toward a
restoration of confidence.

The cost-benefit problem is the one that most directly
affects the pursuit of science. It manifests itself, for example,
in the form of conaressional inquiries as to whether the American
public is getting its dollars' worth from the investment in research,
in terms of practical results, be these gadgets or vaccines or
therapeutic advances. This is perfectly legitimate request.
After all, public money jis appropriated for buildiyy distiteries, x
not to raise cathedrals. And scientists, in order to carry out their
work, have willingly accepted the practice of justifying the church
by the distillery.

The main problem, however, is the misunderstanding that

confuses basic research, out of which come rather indirectly whatever
practical benefits may be expected from science, with targeted
research, which is nothing but the application of existina
knowledge to a specific target. To carry the metaphor a step
further, basic research on herbs and essences may ultimately
yield a new heavenly liquor. Targeted research may succeed in
producing a cheaper variety of coca-cola.

The distinction between basic and targeted research is an
extremely difficult one for the scientifically uneducated to grasp.
There is an enormous difference between development research,
which consists of applying existing knowledge to a new target,
and basic research, which means the creation of new knowledge
that may or may not ultimately be relevant to a given problem.
Sending a man to the moon involved nothing but Newtonian mechanics
plus lots of sophisticated gadgetry. But to control cancer we must
first understand what cancer is and how cancer cells behave, and
how they differ from normal cells, and how normal cells are put
together. The Newton of cancer has not yet appeared on the scene,
or maybe is just now getting nis graduate dearee. x

Many kinds of answers have been given to the question of
cost-benefits from basic science. Specifically dealing with
biomedical science Mr. Benno Schmidt, former chairman of the National
Cancer Board, has pointed out that any serious industry would invest
at least 5% of its budget in research, whereas the US Goverment

spends 110 billions for health activities and only about three billions
for health-related research. This is but a pragmatic answer, that
does not take into account the difference between targeted and basic
research. After all, the total federal budget for research is

about 25 billions, of which over 15 billions go into a variety

of war-related activities, and nobody bothers or dares ask cost-
benefits questions about those. All the fuss is about the three
billions for biomedical science.

More convincingly, the Committee on the Impact of Biomedical
Research has pointed out that most biomedical research deals with
problems that are still unsolved at the basic level, that the benefits
are indirect and sporadic, but that when the benefits come, they pay
off handsomely for the investments that made them possible. The
eradication of poliomyelitis, of death due to Rh incompatibility,

and soon we hope of hepatitis, are given as examples of the benefits
ohe Mauch of Exowe lek ok Serer alert,

derived from immunetogy-etene-.

This is really the crux of the matter. New technologies
seldom if ever arise from the demand of an applied field.

Discoveries that lead to practical applications are made, not
because someone wanted to solve a given practical problem, but |
because many individuals were busy building their little corners
of the cathedral. |

Let me quote from an article by Victor Weisskopf* himself

quoting H. B. Casimir:

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"One might ask whether basic circuits in computer might
have been found by people who wanted to build computers. As
it happens, they were discovered by physicists dealing with the
counting of nuclear particles because they were interested in
nuclear physics."

-.-."One might ask whether induction coils in motor cars might

- have been made by enterprises which wanted to make motor transport
and whether then they would have stumbled on the laws of induction.
But the laws of induction had been found by Faraday many decades
before that.

"Or whether, in an urge to provide better communication,
one might have found electromagnetic waves. They weren't found
that way. They were found by Hertz, who emphasized the beauty
of physics and who based his work on the theoretical considerations
of Maxwell. There is hardly any example of twentieth century
innovation which is not indebted in this way to basic scientific
thought."

In a more humble vein, I may cite my own experience that. 25 0
relates to the cancer problem. In 1946, I was interested in the
effects of radiation on genetic material, and I asked myself the
question whether a virus had just one gene or many. In the latter
case, could two viruses be damaged by radiation in different genes,

in such a way that they might come together to reconstruct a
good virus? That curiosity led to the discovery that the genetic
material, the DNA of bacteria and viruses, could repair radiation-
induced damage. Later it was found that genes in all organisms

are subject to damage and repair. It took twenty years before
someone found that the human disease Xeroderma pigmentosum, which

Shain
leads to cancer, is a genetic defect caused by an inability to repair x

 

DNA injured by radiation. And only recently lit f's\becoming ‘clear
that the DNA-repair system present in every cell makes errors, which
are mutations, and are likely to be the cause of many cancers
including those produced by chemical carcinogens.

Let me suggest an analogy. The thousands of scientists
working in their laboratories are like the uncountable numbers of
coral polyps that are continously working under the waves, out of
view, building immense coral reefs. The practical applications of
; science are like those rare sites where the coral reef emerges and
forms an atoll, on which a complete new set of life activities can
then develop -- birds, and insects, and plants, and mammals --
using the new land created by the submarine work of the coral bvolyps
but bearing little resemblance to the coral itself. Let us not
forget that On the atoll itself the coral polyps are usually dead. %.

I have referred to cancer. This brings me to the second area
of public criticism, the decision-making machinery by which
priorities in science are chosen. In the scientist's view the

problem seems to lie with the politicians; in the popular view, with
the scientists themselves. About six years ago Washington began to
become interested in a National Cancer Plan. It was at first the
pet project of Senator Yarborough, and when he failed to be re-
elected, the Cancer Plan became Senator Kennedy's baby. Then
President Nixon, presumably seeing some political mileage in it,
swiped it away and adopted it as his own. After President and
Congress had made the decision, several hundred scientists were then
brought together to put some substance into it. Since 1972 the
program has come along rather successfully in terms of scientific
advances, although it has already begun to come under attack both by
the cost-benefits advocates because in four years it has not yet
solved the cancer problem, and by many scientists because of its
crash program aspects.

Incidentally, it is one of the interesting features of
democracy to have on the one hand a national cancer program, while
at the same time the use of the most powerful carcinogen -- cigarettes --
has increased to 600 billions per year, producing 80,000 lung cancer
deaths; no effort has been made to curb the advertisement of
cigarettes in magazines and newspapers; and no cost-benefit study has
yet been published by tabacco growers or cigarette manufacturers.

Among the criticisms leveled to the cancer program was that
socially speaking, cancer is not the only or the most urgent area
where efforts might be concentrated: nutrition, child care and many

others seemed to social reformers more urgent subjects to tackle.
On the other hand, many scientists complained, not without reason,

that the cancer program received disproportionate share of the ava be
research funds and that basic research in other areas was

suffering -- which was true. And yet the cancer program, scientifically
speaking, has prospered reasonably well. The reason is that it

turned out to be a field of biological research whose time had come,

at least at the basic level.

In the past 25 years molecular biology had made its enormous
advances -- discovering the nature of the gene, the genetic code, the
nature of gene messages and their translation into the structure
of proteins. All this had been done almost exclusively through work on
bacteria and bacteriophage.

The next natural frontier was the cell of the complex organisms;
but here a complete new set of problems confronted the biologist:
whereas in bacteria each gene responds in a stereotyped way to changes
in the extra-cellular environment, in the different types of cells of
a complex organism, for example a human being, different sets of genes
become programmed in development to function in specialized ways: cells
with identical genes differentiate” This is the central problem of
development, and is also the central problem of cancer. What makes a
liver cell or a nerve cell or a skin cell what it is? And ‘eam! does
the cancer cell behave the way it does?

It appears now that cancer cells and agents that cause cancers,

including viruses, may be destined to play in the growth of molecular
10

developmental biology the same role that bacteriophages, the
viruses of bacteria, played in the growth of molecular biology.
Just as the orderly functioning of the genetic material of a
bacterium could be explored by introducing into the bacterium
a disrupting virus, so also the orderly functioning of normal
cells may be clarified by studying what goes astray when a cell
becomes cancerous. And in turn, from the growth of the new
developmental biology, there may then grow the knowledge from
which cancer prevention and therapy may evolve.

The fact that cancer research turned out to be a field
whose time had come does not in itself answers the criticism of
the way it was chosen for priority. It is because of the fundamental
soundness of the scientific research structure in our society
that a reasonable balance was achieved, so that not much money was
spent on trivial gadgetry or on cragh programs following untested
Teads.

The questioning of choices and priorities is only one aspect
of a more general phenomenon, which may be defined as a crisis of
confidence in the decision-making machinery of our society. The
crisis of confidence is related to the apparent inability of a
successful society to manage large problems, from the Exoath of
atomic war to the problems of economic injustice and unemployment --
what I referred to earlier as the irrationalities of our democratic

society. More specifically, the crisis of confidence involves doubts
a)

as to the abilitv of societv to handle intelliqently and con-
structively the powerful technoloay that science has made
possible. The contrast between the billion dollar spectaculars
of NASA, the 100 billion dollars for so-called defense, and the
25% of unemployment among recent hiah school araduates (35% if black)
does not increase public confidence in the effectiveness of

our democracy to make rational choices and to provide for human
needs. In the resulting frustration, the distrust of the public
turns to the scientists. What is beina questioned is usually
the choice of priorities for research, as though scientists
preferred to work on useless topics than on useful ones. For
example, Senator Javits, who has been a steady supporter of
science within Congress, had the following to sav at a recent
conference:

"The decisions with respect to the future of biomedical
research, the determination of priorities, the weiahing of the
nonquantifiable social costs and benefits of medical technoloay --
these decisions are in fact political becuase they involve the
entire body politic including, of course, the research community
itself. A scientist is no more trained to decide finally the moral
and political implications of his or her work than the public --
and its elected representatives -- is trained to decide finally

on scientific methodologies."
12

This is a perfectly reasonable statement which however fails
to specify any useful machinery by which scientists and the public
can effectively cooperate in setting priorities.

But the crisis of confidence goes heyond matters of
priorities and choices. It begins to question the very intearity
of scientists in the performance of their work. It casts scientists
into the sinister light of the most lurid science fiction stories.

A typical and disturbing instance is the ongoing controversy
about recombinant DNA experiments, a controversy that has been
especially heated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The experiments
in question consist in joining together fraqments of DNA from
bacteria with fragments of DNA from cells of more complex organisms,
plants or animals. The joint fragments can then be introduced into
bacteria, grown in large amounts, and studied in a variety of
ways to investigate the properties and function of specific genes
and groups of genes. This technology makes available a powerful
tool for the study of gene action and organization in complex
organisms. It will be a key technology for the molecular understanding
of cell differentiation during development.

The early developers of this technology observed a self-
imposed moratorium and called for national requlation. The reason
for this was to avoid the danger that genes from pathogenic organisms
or cancer producing viruses would be manipulated in this way,

creating a hazard that was clearly forseable.

af
13

Under prodding by these scientists, who were exerting a
welcome sense of responsibility, the NIH formulated quidelines.
Under the guidelines all potentially dangerous experiments, like
those involving genes of pathogenic viruses or even the less
dangerous ones involving any human genes, can be done only in a
few special laboratories under high containment conditions. Other
experiments, including any in which genes of bacteria and of
animals other than man are brought together, can be performed in
containment laboratories under strictly controlled canditions.

Even so, there has been strong criticism of all research
involving recombinant DNA. The criticism falls into three categories,
which I would classify as mystical, sanitary, and political. I
have little patience for the first cateaory, I helieve the second
is not justified, but I see some justification for the third
category.

Vnat I call the mystical criticism is the assertion that
there is something intrinsically wrong in creating new organisms
by mixing the heredity of bacteria and of complex organisms like
plant and animals. The argument is that barriers that nature has
set between organisms should not be crossed. There is not much
point in arguing seriously against such an assertion. The argument
of natural barriers to human knowledge and human use of knowledge
has been put forward many times by the ovponents of scientific

progress, from the use of the telescope by Galileo to the use of
14

steam engine to replace horsepower. It is interesting that one
of the foremost advocategof the need to respect natural barriers
also advocates abandoning the current efforts of cosmologists to
detect intelligent life on other solar systems.

The second argument is that of safety: it is claimed that
any organism carrying recombinant DNA may prove to be pathogenic
and that therefore such experiments should not be done at all or
only done in very special laboratories.

Apart from the fact that there is no reason to suspect that
genes from a plant or an animal should render a bacterium pathogenic
for man (it is generally extremely difficult to cause anv non-
pathogenic bacterium to acquire pathogenicity), the simnle answer
to the question of safety is that the proposed experiments, innocent
as they probably are, would still be done under conditions of
containment much stricter than those under which expert
bacteriologists in hospitals and public health laboratories are
accostumed to handle true pathogens.

The suggestion that such experiments should be done in
remote laboratories where scientists could go occasionally to
carry out their work indicates a profound misunderstanding of
the significance of recombinant DNA research. I referred earlier
in this paper to the fact that the molecular study of
differentiation is the current frontier of biology. Within this

area, the use of recombinant DNA techniques is not a peripheral
15

technology, which a scientist might perform once a month or once
a year in a remote laboratory in the Nevada desert. It is as
central a methodology as the use of a microscope. te Pelling
biologists today to forego recombinant DNA experiments is like
telling a chemist not to use NMR or ed a physicist that he or
she cannot use a laser. It may even be that the importance of
recombinant DNA techniques for basic biology outsteps some of the
practical applications that have been proposed, such as the mass
production of insulin or of interferon.

At a more fundamental level, it seems to me that attempts
to put limits to the use of powerful means of scientific exploration,
provided such means are used responsibly, ignores the reality of
today's world. We as human beings face problems that are not only
technologically but biologically unique. To cope with the stresses
and pressures that our own species will have to face in the next
couple of centuries and to create a world fit for the new billions
of human beings to live in, we shall have to understand as precisely
as possible all interactions within our own body cells. We shall
need to acquire a molecular understanding of the unique human brain,
of human language, of human cognition. It is not through fear or
distrust of experimental techniques that we shall acquire that
knowledge. As Karl Popper stated in his Spencer Lecture/: "Science
or progress in science may be regarded as a means used by the human

species to adapt itself to the environment.”
16

And yet, while I disagree with many of the arguments put.
forward by opponents of recombinant DNA research, I must admit
that I feel some sympathy for the political implications of
their opposition.

Their criticism ultimately stems, not just from distrust
in science, but from a political disaffection for what I called
earlier the irrational side of our society. It also reflects
a challenge to the will of scientists and scholars to stand up
as defenders of rationality against those irrationalities.

Claims such as I have made, of the overriding human value
of science, of its betng a modern equivalent of the cathedrals
of the middle ages, should be matched by evidence that scientists
and other scholars are in fact selflessly dedicated to the cultural
enterprise. Unfortunately, we know that too often this is not
true. Scientists have lent their work and their prestige to some
of the shabbiest enterprises of our society. To take only Vietnam
as an example, scientists and scholars have collaborated in all
sorts of ways, from the weaponeering of the automated battle-
field, to the programming of the rain of fire over undefended
villages, to the planned uprooting of millions of innocent people.
And Vietnam is only one of the domains in which many scientists have
gone along, passively or actively, with the irrationality of politics
and the call of power. Is it surprising that our claims to innocence

and purity sound somewhat hollow?

RK
7

What can be done to change this situation?

In the first place. I think scientists should actively
promote open discussion of the goals and limitations of science
in order to generate that informed public opinion that alone
can give legitimacy to any social undertaking, including science.
In fact, I believe the work of the Cambridge Committee on
the {mpact of Recombinant DNA Research may ultimately prove
to be a positive step in the right direction.

At a more fundamental level, what is needed to restore
public confidence in the enterprise of science and in the
intellectual enterprise in general is for intellectuals, including
scientists, to exert an active leadership in the restoration of
rationality to our democratic society. Scientists should take
the initiative for a common front with the public, not just to
direct the uses of science toward this or that goal of practical
relevance, but to help redirect the priority of society away from
social inequality, racial injustice, wanton waste and absurd
weaponeering.

‘We cannot call ourselves the builders of today's cathedrals
if we close ourselves into the cult of a private chapel or if
we are willing to worship in the temples of Mammon.

We cannot ignore or condone the irrational and inhuman

uses to which the fruits of science are often put for reasons of

power or of profit.
18

d

If we scientists refuse to join the ventures of injustice;
if we denied our know-how to the dehumanizing enterprises of
society; if we insisted that the rationality of our work be
matched by rationality in the use to which the products of our
work are put, then we could again claim to be the builders of a

cathedral, open to all for worship and wonder.