ainsi Toe Phil Handler
JOSHUA LEDERBERG *

NOV 29 1971

NAS Letter 1(8) p.6 6-71

I was remiss in having overlooked this accomo-~

dation to the membership.
Qe d carpe clans |
You ware even mere wade tous than I was in thin-
king of advance distributions. In any case I do
look forward to the constructive impact, as time
goes on, of the many improvements that have been
initiated during the last year.

The technical problem of distributing an unwieldy
volume of material surely has some technical
solutions. May I be permitted the thought that

our academicians might even point the way to the
wider actual use of microforms for such purposes. |
This would be an important experiment-demonstration

from both a technical and administrative point of
view.

The one further facility that I have to stress
(apart from the logistically entangled problems of
when and how to distribute drafts or reports) is a
routinized procedure for recording comment. Members

, may wish to influence the text of a report prior |
to its issuance. Somewhat independently of that,
; they may also wish to record further comments, per-
haps even dissents, without hoping to modify the
report. The comment may be too technical to be ap-
propriate; it may be evident that any consensual
statement would require mexe compromises that
would blunt the force of a comment. The opportunity
to do this for any reason would more faithfully
reflect the pluralism and tentativeness of the sci-
entific process. I appreciate your responsi-
; , Sincerely,
PROFESSOR Josnua Lebrrsrrc
Department of Genetics
School of Medicine

Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

 

 

 

 

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