CFFiCE MEMCRANDUM  e STANFORD UNIVERSITY e OFFICE MEMORANDlJ?d . STANFCRD UNIVERSITY . OFFICE MEMCKAKDUX

To   : Phil Handler
    Prof. Joshua Lade&erg

FROM :  Deoartmeti of GenetHlf
     School 01 ,rfieddno
     %ntord irnwewty
     Stanforti California 94305
SUBJECT:   Authenticity of Scientific Advice: role o

DATE:
   NW 24 19c

   I know you are going through an agony over this. I
finding you out, I send this memo to prepare for a phone
back?

The detailed argumen ts can better be done over ?1lia

.

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wanted to call you today, but   5
discussion. Would you call me  z
                   if
                                  z
phone.  My operational sugges- z

tion is that the NAS membership be encouraged to play a more responsible role in the      3
scrutiny of recommendations made by NAS committees, whose public reputation does rest       .
to a lage measure in the reputation of the membership of the whole academy.           2
  Publication (following disinterested review) is of course the crucial process to   1
sustain the authenticity of experimental science.  NAS committee reports are of course   6
published, but in a way that discourages pluralistic and responsible criticism frcm the  g
membership, except in the most controversial and emotionally loaded situations. After a
report is announced in the press, it will takes days or weeks before a member will learn  2
of the text,                                                                          7
       perhaps receive it (at his own expense!) and then he has no convenient forum $
in which to respond, unless Ye means to make (literally) a tederal case of it.         z
                                                                           :
                                                                           <
   My proposal: that a privilege and responsibility of NAS membership is to receive       .
gratis, and concurrent1 .y with any public release, the texts of any reports that invoke     0
the authority of the NAS. Members will be invited -:o respond with critical (which means   7,

+ or -> comments which will be retained on file at the Academy, and avaflzble to any     zi
                                                                           m
inquirer for the cost .of reproduction. By some now unspecified mechanism it may also be   3
decided to publish these comments as appendices to the principal report. The cost of
such an operation is not a legitimate c&*iticism; it will be a small increment to the    5
                                                                           0
existing budget, and in my view likely to result in a great improvement in the quality   ?
of reports and in their credibility.  As NAS is dragged or self-propelled into moreand  5
more controversial areas of inquiry, it becomes ever more important to sustain an example g
of open dialogue as opposed to authoritarian dicta.. Models for such procedures are al-
ready well established in the federal bureaucracy (e.g. publication of proposed re?ula- '
tions in the Federal Register) as well as in the paradigms of the scientific process     2
-- Polanyi's "Republic of Science" if you like.  Members might also act as communicators  :
(without prejudice + or -> of critical texts prepared by others,                is
                                                       E

One could also think of an analogue of the Federal Register, a Journal of the NAS      c
                                                                           z

which would record texts in sometimes less than elegant formats in a way that might save 2
both time andcperhaps) money.                                          ii
                                                                           VI

I look forward to going into this with you in more detail.

b

Sincerely,