PROGRAM IN HUMAN BIOLOGY

Building 80, Inner Quad

  
   

STANFORD UNIVERSITY,
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305 /“

_ Area Code 415
497-3693

21 May 1979

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue

New York, NY 10021

Dear Josh:

As usual I enjoyed visiting with you. I will continue
to think about the possibility of policy work in New York.

You asked for materials about my current courses. Enclosed
are the prospectuses and reserve-reading lists for my environmental
decisionmaking course (HB 41, 53 students, analogous to last
quarter's health course) and for my risk assessment course (HB 144,
37 students). Casework is important in both: the topics are
listed. (Note that length of space on the prospectus is not
indicative of importance in the courses.)

For our students I believe sensitization, substantive
knowledge, and critical exercise are important in six areas:
history and perspective, the scientific analytic base, decision-
analytic approaches, information-gathering and decisionmaking,
modes of social control (taxes, regulation, courts, etc.), aspects
of goals, values, and priorities, and the special responsibilities
of technically trained people. I try to cover all of these in
all of my courses. ‘

I hope your seminar on comparative toxicology goes well, and
I hope I might have an opportunity to sit in on it sometime,

By the way, I did call David Donniger at NRDC to discuss
the OSHA benzene suit; we had a cordial discussion, but it was
hard for me to grasp his approach to the case (I don't mean this

as a complaint; it's just not easy to do by telephone.) He is
sending me the brief.

My very best regards.
Cordially,
William W. Lowrance 4 ‘

WWL:sm (hut Poe Gane?

encl.