STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA 94304

DEPARTMENT OF GENETICS a Area Code 415
: 321-1200

Mr. Stephen S. Rosenfeld
THE WASHINGTON POST

Dear Mr. Rosenfeld-

I appreciate your taking time to write me about your editorial of
July 3. I will try not to prolong the exchange.

 

Yes, I think that confusion about how fat the national science budget
is seriously undermines the constructive efforts you ask. How can I begin |
to justify the claim of science and science-education if my listener starts
with the conviction that I am only a reflex complainer about not getting a
regular 15% increase on a base of over $17 billion. With that kind of pre-
judgment (and the POST is very infiluential in reinforcing self~-comforting i
views, even if you don't always sell your positive messages) we can't even
get congressmen to listen. It's not as if this were a unique error-- there is
a whole cr@wd of John Lears spending their full time at debunking science,
and pressing these confusions and exaggerations.

You did quote Greenberg's book; I hope you will also give equal weight to
his more recent analysis. This years cutbacks are going to hurt the universities,
and badly.

Even so, I think I would agree that other national programs probably deserve
even higher priority. The scientists' screams have a factual basis (though of
course you are right, there is a hysterical tone to them), but they are simply
one particularly vocal reaction to the morass the country is being led into
on every front, always excepting highway construction. '

Scientists do accept the responsibility of justifying the social support of
their work -- there are of course many different answers, and they are not all
convincing. We do serve on PSAC, NIH, NSF, NIMH etc. advisory councils, and so
on, and through these channels we also try to advise on how best to take the
bites. But we would be dping the country a disservice if we did not now warn
as clearly as we know how of the longrange consequences of this kind of retrench-
ment.

-~ Sincerely, /
| | wy A,

bog (Nm PCa ~)-
jf Joshua Lederberg

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LT. J. P., KENNEDY, JR. LABORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY , NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
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