Technology and Culture

566 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE wars. But wherever one turns in this book there are feisty things being said and a refreshing no-nonsense approach which savors more of the Truman than the Ford era. Cussed and cantankerous it may be, but it makes excellent reading. Eric H. Robinson Science for Development. By Jacques Spaey, with the collaboration of Jacques Defay, Jean Ladiere, Alain Stenmans, and Jacques Wautrequin . New York: UNIPUB, 1971. Pp. 224. $4.50. Science Development. By Michael J. Moravcsik. Bloomington, Ind.: In­ ternational Development Research Center, Indiana University. Pp. xxv+291. Available to those from less developed countries without charge; otherwise $6.00. Subtitled “An Essay on the Origin and Organization of National Science Policies,” Science for Development was written by a team of specialists under the direction ofJacques Spaey, secretary general of the prime minister’s Department for the Programming of Science Policy in Belgium. It appeared in French in 1969. Through UNESCO it was translated and published in English in 1971, and has now be­ come available; as this was shortly after Dr. Spaey’s death, the book has something of the character of a memorial volume. The book is divided into three parts. The first is intended to lay the stage, raising a conceptual framework for the analysis of science as an element in the social system in relation to the economy and to the structures of culture and cognition. The second part, confronting “the facts,” attempts to detail and compare the magnitudes and forms of scientific activity to be found in different countries, and would specify the character, significance, and support of science in relation to the stages of economic development. And it attempts to describe the historical evolution of science policies and of the instrumentalities for the support, planning, and control of scientific activities in the United States and in western Europe. The third part undertakes to formulate and propose systems and policies for utilizing national and international science capabilities and institutions in the promotion of economic growth. In sum, an excellent outline, laying out with classi­ cal French lucidity and order, an ambitious, indeed an encyclopedic endeavor. The book’s substance is not ofcorresponding quality. Its coverage is broad but shallow. It is a derivative discourse, reflecting an assiduous reading of establishment journalism at the level of Science and the Economist, and the diligent examination of the public documents and of data prepared by international organizations and public agencies. Science is seen from the perspective of the senior civil servant, encap­ sulated in the form of the organizational chart and the personnel TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 567 manual. In sum, it is the work ofintelligent, knowledgeable amateurs. Possibly the study of all complex social phenomena that happens to intersect with the particularities of private experience must be afflicted with varieties of amateurism. The affliction is especially grievous in the case of “science policy” which has for long been the weekend sport and the happy hunting ground of those possessed of a few epistemological dogmas and some modicum of skill in economics or the natural sciences. I was once hired by the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a project on the relationship of science to economic development. Alas, the academy’s idea of what should be done and mine could not be reconciled. For me it meant a free world-ranging search into the unknown, backed up by a committee who might discuss and advise upon my findings. The academy had in mind periodic meetings by a set of distinguished natural scientists at which they would exchange profundities on what they already knew, or thought they knew, and where perhaps they would have “ideas.” From the outpouring of their thoughts my task would be to distill the essence of their wisdom, add supporting data, and produce a report that would satisfy them all. I wondered then how the grey eminence who did chemistry at Indiana, the lean mathematician from M.I.T., or the bushy-headed physicist from Berkeley would respond to the suggestion that research in chemistry or physics or mathematics be carried on in a like manner through the occasional and reflective discussion of a committee of...