Sex Control, Science, and Society

Transcription

1 1..? L. Usng varous technques developed as a result of fertlty research, scentsts are expermentng wth the possblty of sex control, the ablty to determne whether a newborn nfant wll be a male or a female. So far, they have reported consderable success n ther experments wth frogs and rabbts, whereas the success of experments wth human sperm appears to be qute lmted, and the few optmstc reports seem to be unconfrmed. Before ths new scentfc potentalty becomes a realty, several mportant questons must be consdered. What would be the socetal consequences of sex control? f they are, on balance, undesrable, can sex control be prevented wthout curbng the freedoms essental for scentfc work? The scentfc ethcs already mpose some restrants on research to safeguard the welfare and prvacy of the researched populaton. Sex control, however, mght affect the whole socety. Are there any crcumstances under whch the socetal well-beng justfes some lmtaton on the freedom of research? These questons apply, of course, to many other areas of scentfc nqury, such as work on the be logcal code and the expermental use of behavor and thought-modfyng drugs. Sex control provdes a useful opportunty for dscusson of these ssues because t presents a relatvely low-key problem. Success seems farly remote, and, as we shall see, the deleterous effects of wdespread sex control would probably not be very great. Before dealng wth the possble socetal effects of sex control, and the ways they may be curbed, descrbe brefly the work that has already been done n ths area. The State of the Art Dfferental centrfugaton provded one major approach to sex control. t was supposed that snce X and Y chromosomes dffer n sze (Y s consder- 13 SEPTEMBER 1%8 Sex Control, Scence, and Socety Amta Etzon A59 ably smaller), the sperm carryng the two dfferent types would also be of two dfferent weghts; the Y-carryng sperm would be smaller and lghter, and the X-carryng sperm would be larger and heaver. Thus, the two knds could be separated by centrfugaton and then be used n artfcal nsemnaton. Early experments, however, dd not bear out ths theory. And, Wtsch ponted out that, n all lkelhood, the force to be used n centrfugaton would have to be of such magntude that the sperm may well be damaged (1). n the 1950 s a Swedsh nvestgator, Lndahl (2), publshed accounts of hs results wth the use of counter-streamng technques of centrfugaton. He found that by usng the more readly sedmentng porton of bull spermatozoa that had undergone centrfugaton, fertlty was decreased but the number of male calves among the offsprng was relatvely hgh. Hs concluson was that the femaledetermnng spermatozoa are more senstve than the male and are damaged due to mechancal stress n the centrfugng process. Electrophoress of spermatozoa s reported to have been successfully carred out by a Sovet bochemst, V. N. Schrjder, n 1932 (3). She placed the cells n a soluton n whch the ph could be controlled. As the ph of the soluton changed, the sperm moved wth dfferent speeds and separated nto three groups: some concentrated next to the anode, some next to the cathode, and some were bunched n the mddle. n tests conducted by Schrjder and N. K. Kolstov (3), sperm whch collected next to the anode produced sx offsprng, all females; those next to the cathode-four males and one female; and those whch bunched n the centertwo males and two females. Experments wth rabbts over the subsequent 10 years were reported as successful n controllng the sex of the offsprng n 80 percent of the cases. Smlar success wth other mammals s reported. At the Anmal Reproducton Labora- tory of Mchgan State Unversty, Gordon replcated these fndngs, although wth a lower rate of success (4). Of 167 brths studed, n 31 ltters, he predcted correctly the sex of 113 offsprng, for an average of 67.7 percent. Success was hgher for females (62 out of 87, or 71.3 percent) than for males (51 out of 80, or 63.7 percent). From 1932 to 1942, emphass n sex control was on the acd-alkal method. n Germany, Unterberger reported n 1932 that n treatng women wth hghly acdc vagnal secretons for sterlty by use of alkalne douches, he had observed a hgh correlaton between alkalnty and male offsprng. Specfcally, over a 10-year perod, 53 out of 54 treated females are reported to have had babes, and all of the babes were male. n the one excepton, the woman dd not follow the doctor s prescrpton, Unterberger reported (5). n 1942, after repeated tests and experments had not borne out the earler results, nterest n the acd-alkal method faded (6). t s dffcult to determne the length of tme t wll take to establsh routne control of the sex of anmals (of great nterest, for nstance, to cattle breeders); t s even more dffcult to make such an estmate wth regard to the sex control of human bengs. n ntervewng scentsts who work on ths matter, we heard conflctng reports about how close such a breakthrough was. t appeared that both optmstc and pessmstc estmates were vague- between 7 to 15 years -and were not based on any hard evdence but were the researchers way of sayng, don t know and probably not very soon. No specfc road blocks whch seemed unusually dffcult were cted, nor dd they ndcate that we have to awat other developments before current obstacles can be removed. Fertlty s a study area n whch large funds are nvested these days, and we know there s a correlaton between ncreased nvestment and fndngs (7). Although most of the money s allocated to brthcontrol rather than sex-control studes, nformaton needed for sex-control research has been n the past a by-product of the orgnally sponsored work. Schroder s fndngs, for example, were an accdental result of a fertlty study she was conductng (4, p. 90). Nothng we heard from scentsts workng n ths area would lead one to conclude that The author s professor of socology at Columba Unversty, New York. An earler verson of ths paper was presented to the nternatonal Symposum on Scence and Poltcs at Lund, Sweden, June

2 there s any specfc reason we could not have sex control 5 years from now or sooner. n addton to our uncertanty about when sex control mght be possble, the queston of how t would be effected s sgnfcant and also one on whch there are dfferences of opnon. The mechansm for practcng sex control s mportant because certan technques have greater psychc costs than others. We can see today, for example, that some methods of contracepton are preferred by some classes of people because they nvolve less psychc dscomfort for them: for example, the ntrauterne devce s preferred over sterlzaton by most women. n the same way, although electrophoress now seems to offer a promsng approach to sex control, ts use would ental artfcal nsemnaton. And, whereas the objectons to artfcal nsemnaton are probably decreasng, the resstance to t s stll consderable (8). (Possbly, the opposton to artfcal nsemnaton would not be as great n a sexcontrol stuaton because the husband s own sperm could be used.) f drugs taken orally or douches could be reled upon, sex control would probbly be much less expensve (artfcal nsemnaton requres a doctor s help), much less objectonable emotonally, and sgnfcantly more wdely used. n any event both professonal forecasters of the future and leadng scentsts see sex control as a mass practce n the foreseeable future. Kahn and Wener, n ther dscusson of the year 2000, suggest that one of the one hundred techncal nnovatons lkely n the next thrty-three years s the capablty to choose the sex of unborn chldren (9). Muller takes a smlar poston about gene control n general (20). Socetal Use of Sex Control f a smple and safe method of sex control were avalable, there would probably be no dffculty n fndng the nvestors to promote t because there s a mass-market potental. The demand for the new freedom to choose seems well establshed. Couples have preferences on whether they want boys or grls. n many cultures boys provde an economc advantage (as workhorses) or a form of old-age nsurance (where the state has not establshed t). Grls n many cultures are a lablty; a dowry whch may be a szable economc burden must be provded to marry them 1108 off. (A workng-class Amercan who has to provde for the weddngs of three or four daughters may apprecate the problem.) n other cultures, grls are proftably sold. n our own culture, prestge dfferences are attached to the sex of one s chldren, whch seem to vary among ethnc groups and classes (21, PP. 67). Our expectatons as to what use sex control mght be put n our socety are not a matter of dle speculaton. Fndngs on sex preferences are based on both drect soft and ndrect hard evdence. For soft evdence, we have data on preferences parents expressed n terms of the number of boys and grls to be conceved n a hypothetcal stuaton n whch parents would have a choce n the matter. Wnston studed 55 upperclassmen, recordng anonymously ther desre for marrage and chldren. Ffty-two expected to be marred some day; all but one of these desued.chldren; expectatons of two or three chldren were common. n total, 86 boys were desred as compared to 52 grls, whch amounts to a 65 percent greater demand for males than for females (12). A second study of atttudes, ths one conducted on an ndanapols sample, n 1941, found smlar preferences for boys. Here, whle about half of the parents had no preferences (52.8 percent of the wves and 42.3 percent of the husbands), and whereas the wves wth a preference tended to favor havng about as many boys as grls (21.8 percent to 25.4 percent), many more husbands wshed for boys (47.7 percent as compared to 9.9 percent) (13). Such expressons of preference are not necessarly good ndcators of actual behavor. Hence of partcular nterest s hard evdence, of what parents actually dd-n the lmted area of choce they already have: the sex composton of the famly at the pont they decded to stop havng chldren. Many other and more powerful factors affect a couple s decson to curb further brths, and the sex composton of ther chldren s one of them. That s, f a couple has three grls and t strongly desres a boy, ths s one reason t wll try once more. By comparng the number of famles whch had only or manly grls and tred once more to those whch had only or manly boys, we gan some data as to whch s consdered a less desrable condton. A somewhat dfferent lne was followed n an early study. Wnston studed 5466 completed famles and found that there were 8329 males born alve as compared to 7434 females, whch gves a sex rato at brth of The sex rato of the last chld, whch s of course much more ndcatve, was (2952 males to 2514 females). That s, sgntcantly more famles stopped havng chldren after they had a boy than after they had a grl. The actual preference for boys, once sex control s avalable, s lkely to be larger than these studes suggest for the followng reasons. Atttudes, especally where there s no actual choce, reflect what people beleve they ought to beleve n, whch, n our culture, s equalty of the sexes. To prefer to produce boys s lower class and dscrmnatory. Many mddleclass parents mght entertan such preferences but be ether unaware of them or unwllng to express them to an ntervewer, especally snce at present there s no possblty of determnng whether a chld wll be a boy or a grl. Also, n the stuatons studed so far, attempts to change the sex composton of a famly nvolved havng more chldren than the couple wanted, and the chances of achevng the desred composton were 50 percent or lower. Thus, for nstance, f parents wanted, let us say, three chldren ncludng at least one boy, and they had tred three tmes and were blessed wth grls, they would now desre a boy strongly enough to overcome whatever resstance they had to have addtonal chldren before they would try agan. Ths s much less practcal than takng a medcaton whch s, let us say, 99.8 percent effectve and havng the number of chldren you actually want and are able to support. That s, sex control by a medcaton s to be expected to be sgnfcantly more wdely practced than concevng more chldren and gamblng on what ther sex wll be. Fnally, and most mportantly, such decsons are not made n the abstract, but affected by the socal mleu. For nstance, n small kbbutzm many more chldren used to be born n October and November each year than any other months because the communty used to consder t undesrable for the chldren to enter classes n the mddle of the school year, whch n srael begns after the hgh holdays, n October. Smlarly, sex control--even f t were taboo or unpopular at frst-could become qute wdely practced once t became fashonable. n the followng dscusson we bend SCENCE, VOL. 161

3 1 f! t 1 1 over backward by assumng that actual behavor would reveal a smaller preference &an the exstng data and precedng analyss would lead one to expect. We shall assume only a 7 percent dfference between the number of boys and grls to be born alve due to sex control, comng on top of the to exstng bologcal pattern, thus makng for boys to grls, or a surplus of 9.5 boys out of every hundred. Ths would amount to a surplus of 357,234 n the Unted States, f sex control were practced n a 1965-lke populaton (14). The extent to whch such a sex mbalance wll cause socetal dslocatons s n part a matter of the degree to whch the effect wll be cumulatve. t s one thng to have an unbalanced baby crop one year, and qute another to produce such a crop several years n a row. Accumulaton would reduce the extent to whch grl shortages can be overcome by one age group radng older and younger ones. Some demographers seem to beleve n an nvsble hand (as t once was popular to expect n economcs), and suggest that overproducton of boys wll ncrease the value of grls and hence ncrease ther producton, untl a balance s attaned under controlled condtons whch wll be smlar to the natural one. We need not repeat here the reasons such nvsble arrangements frequently do not work; the fact s they smply cannot be reled upon, as recurrent economc crses n pre-keynesan days or overpopulaton show. Second, one ought to note the deepseated roots of the boy-favorng factors. Although there s no complete agreement on what these factors are, and there s lttle research, we do know that they are dffcult and slow to change. For nstance, Wnston argued that mothers prefer boys as a substtute for ther own fathers, out of search for securty or Freudan consderatons. Fathers prefer boys because boys can more readly acheve success n our socety (and n most others). Nether of these factors s lkely to change rapdly f the percentage of boys born ncreases a few percentage ponts. We do not need to turn to alarmst conclusons, but we ought to consder what the socetal effects of sex control mght be under condtons of relatvely small mbalance whch, as we see t, wll cause a sgnfcant (although not necessarly very hgh) male surplus, and a surplus whch wll be cumulatve. 13 SEPTEMBER 1%8 Socetal Consequences n explorng what the socetal consequences may be, we agan need not rely on the speculaton of what such a socety would be lke; we have much experence and some data on socetes whose sex rato was thrown off balance by war or mmgraton. For example, n 1960 New York Cty had 343,470 more females than males, a surplus of 68,366 n the 20- to 34-age category alone (15). We note, frst, that most forms of socal behavor are sex correlated, and hence that changes n sex composton are very lkely to affect most aspects of socal lfe. For nstance, women read more books, see more plays, and n general consume more culture than men n the contemporary Unted States. Also, women attend church more often and are typcally charged wth the moral educaton of chldren. Males, by contrast, account for a much hgher proporton of crme than females. A sgnfcant and cumulatve male surplus wll thus produce a socety wth some of the rougher features of a fronter town. And, t should be noted, the dmnuton of the number of agents of moral educaton and the ncrease n the number of crmnals would accentuate already exstng tendences whch pont n these drectons, thus magnfyng socal problems whch are already overburdenng our socety. nterracal and nterclass tensons are lkely to be ntensfed because some groups, lower classes and mnortes specfcally (16), seem to be more male orented than the rest of the socety. Hence whle the sex mbalance n a socety-wde average may be only a few percentage ponts, that of some groups s lkely to be much hgher. Ths may produce an especally hgh boy surplus n lower status groups. These extra boys would seek grls n hgher status groups (or n some other relgous group than ther own) (ZZ)-n whch they also wll be scarce. On the lghter sde, men vote systematcally and sgnfcantly more Democratc than women; as the Republcan party has been losng consstently n the number of supporters over the last generaton anyhow, another 5-pont loss could undermne the two-party system to a pont where Democratc control would be unnterrupted. (t s already the norm, wth Republcans havng occuped the Whte House for 8 years over the last 36.) Other forms of m- balance whch cannot be predcted are to be expected. All socal lfe s affected by the proportons of the sexes. Wherever there exsts a consderable predomnance of one nex over the other, n pont of numbers, there s less prospect of a well-ordered socal lfe. Unbalanced numbers nexorably produce unbalanced behavor ( 7). Socety would be very unlkely to collapse even f the sex rato were to be much more serously mbalanced than we expect. Socetes are surprsngly flexble and adaptve enttes. When asked what would be expected to happen f sex control were avalable on a mass bass, Davs, the well-known demographer, stated that some delay n the age of mamage of the male, some rse n prosttuton and n homosexualty, and some ncrease n the number of males who wll never marry are lkely to result. Thus, all of the costs that would be generated by sex control wll probably not be charged aganst one socetal sector, that s, would not ental only, let us say, a sharp rse n prosttuton, but would be dstrbuted among several sectors and would therefore be more readly absorbed. An nformal examnaton of the stuaton n the U.S.S.R. and Germany after World War 1 (sex rato was 77.7 n the latter) as well as srael n early mmgraton perods, support Davs nonalarmst poston. We must ask, though, are the costs justfed? The dangers are not apocalyptcal; but are they worth the gans to be made? A Balance of Values We delberately chose a low-key example of the effects of scence on socety. One can provde much more dramatc ones; for example, the nventon of new psychedelc drugs whose damage to genes wll become known only much later (LSD was reported to have such effects), drugs whch crpple the fetus (whch has already occurred wth the marketng of thaldomde), and the attempts to control brth wth devces whch may produce cancer (early versons of the ntrauterne devce were held to have such an effect). But let us stay wth a fndng whch generates only relatvely small amounts of human msery, relatvely well dstrbuted among varous sectors, so as not to severely undermne socety but only add, maybe only margnally, to the consderable socal problems we 1109

4 .- already face. Let us assume that we only add to the unhappness of seven out of every 100 born (what we consder mnmum mbalance to be generated), who wll not fnd mates and wll have to aval themselves of prosttuton, homosexualty, or be condemned to enforced bachelorhood. (f you know someone who s desperate to be marred but cannot fnd a mate, ths dscusson wll be less abstract for you; now multply ths by 357,234 per annum.) Actually, to be far, one must subtract from the unhappness that sex control almost surely wll produce, the joy t wll brng to parents who wll be able to order the sex of ther chldren; but as of now, ths s for most, not an ntensely felt need, and t seems a much smaller joy compared to the sorrows of the unmatable mates. We already recognze some rghts of human gunea pgs. Ther safety and prvacy are not to be volated even f ths means delayng the progress of scence. The rest of the socety, those who are not the subjects of research, and who are nowadays as much affected as those n the laboratory, have been accorded fewer rghts. Theoretcally, new knowledge, the bass of new devces and drugs, s not supposed to leave the nner crcles of scence before ts safety has been tested on anmals or volunteers, and n some nstances approved by a government agency, manly the Federal Drug Admnstraton. But as the case of lysergc acd dethylamde (LSD) shows, the trp from reportng of a fndng n a scentfc journal to the bloodstream of thousands of ctzens may be an extremely short one. The transton dd take qute a number of years, from the days n 1943 when Hoffman, one of the two men who syntheszed LSD-25 at Sandoz Research Laboratores frst felt ts hallucenogenc effect, untl the early 1960 s, when t splled nto llct campus use. (The trp from legtmate research, ts use at Harvard, to llct unsupervsed use was much shorter.) The pont s that no addtonal technologes had to be developed; the dstance from the chemcal formula to llct composton requred n effect no addtonal steps. More generally, Western cvlzaton, ever snce the nventon of the steam engne, has proceeded on the assumpton that socety must adjust to new technologes. Ths s a central meanng of what we refer to when we speak about an ndustral revoluton; we thnk about a socety beng transformed and not just a new technology beng ntroduced 1110 nto a socety whch contnues to sustan ts pror values and nsttutons. Although the results are not an unmxed blessng (for nstance, polluton and traffc casualtes) on balance the benefts n terms of gans n standards of lvng and lfe expectancy much outwegh the costs. Wether the same gans could be made wth fewer costs f socety would more effectvely gude ts transformaton and technology nputs, s a queston less often dscussed (le).] Nevertheless we must ask, especally wth the advent of nuclear arms, f we can expect such a favorable balance n the future. We are aware that sngle nnovatons may lterally blow up socetes or cvlzaton; we must also realze that the rate of socal changes requred by the acceleratng stream of technologcal nnovatons, each less dramatc by tself, may supersede the rate at whch socety can absorb. Could we not regulate to some extent the pace and mpact of the technologcal nputs and select among them wthout, by every such act, kllng the goose that lays the golden eggs? Scentsts often retort wth two arguments. Scence s n the busness of searchng for truths, not that of manufacturng technologes. The applcatons of scentsc fndngs are not determned by the scentsts, but by socety, poltcans, corporatons, and the ctzens. Two scentsts dscovered the formula whch led to the composton of LSD, but chemsts do not determne whether t s used to accelerate psychotherapy or to create psychoses, or, ndeed, whether t s used at all, or whether, lke thousands of other studes and formulas, t s gnored. Scentsts splt the atom, but they dd not decde whether partcles would be used to produce energy to water deserts or superbombs. Second, the course of scence s unpredctable, and any new lead, f followed, may produce unexpected bountes; to curb some lnes of nqurybecause they may have dangerous outcomes-may well force us to forego some major payoffs; for example, f one were to forbd the study of sex control one mght retard the study of brth control. Moreover, leads whch seem safe may have dangerous outcomes. Hence, ultmately, only f scence were stopped altogether, mght fndngs whch are potentally dangerous be avoded. These arguments are often presented as f they themselves were emprcally verfed or logcally true statements. Actually they are a formula whch en-.ables the scentfc communty to protect tself from external nterventon and control. An emprcal study of the matter may well show that scence does thrve n socetes where scentsts are gven less freedom than the precedng model mples scence must have, for example, n the Sovet Unon. Even n the West n scence some lmtatons on work are recognzed and the freedom to study s not always Seen as the ultmate value. Whereas some scentsts are rrtated when the health or prvacy of ther subject curbs the progress of ther work, most scentsts seem to recognze the prorty of these other consderatons. (Normatve consderatons also much affect the areas studed; compare, for nstance, the hgh concern wth a cancer cure to the almost complete unwllngness of socologsts, snce 1954, to retest the fndng that separate but equal educaton s not feasble.) One may suggest that the socety at large deserves the same protecton as human subjects do from research. That s, the scentfc communty cannot be excused from the responsblty of askng what effects ts endeavors have on the communty. On the contrary, only an extenson of the exstng codes and mechansms of self-control wll ultmately protect scence from a socetal backlash and the heavy hands of external regulaton. The ntensfcaton of the debate over the scentsts responsbltes wth regard to the mpacts of ther fndngs s by tself one way of exercsng t, because t alerts more scentsts to the fact that the areas they choose to study, the ways they communcate ther fndngs (to each other and to the communty), the allances they form or avod wth corporate and governmental nterests-all these affect the use to whch ther work s put. t s smply not true that a scentst workng on cancer research and one workng on bologcal warfare are equally lkely to come up wth a new weapon and a new vaccne. Leads are not that random, and applcatons are not that readly transferable from one area of applcaton to another. Addtonal research on the socetal mpact of varous knds of research may help to clarfy the ssues. Such research even has some regulatory mpact. For nstance, frequently when a drug s shown to have been released prematurely, standards governng release of expermental drugs to mass producton are tghtened (Z9), whch n effect means fewer, more carefully supervsed technologcal nputs nto socety; at SCENCE. VOL. 161

5 least socety does not have to cope wth dubous fndngs. Addtonal progress may be acheved by studyng emprcally the effects that varous mechansms of self-regulaton actually have on the work of scentsts. For example, urgng the scentfc communty to lmt ts study of some topcs and focus on others may not retard scence; for nstance, socology s unlkely to suffer from beng now much more reluctant to concern tself wth how the U.S. Army may stablze or undermne foregn governments than t was before the blowup of Project Camelot (20). n ths context, t may be noted that the systematc attempt to brdge the two cultures and to popularze scence has undesrable sde effects whch aggravate the problem at hand. Mathematcal formulas, Greek or Latn termnology, and jargon were majof flters whch allowed scentsts n the past to dscuss fndngs wth each other wthout the nonprofessonals lstenng n. Now, often even prelmnary fndngs are reported n the mass meda and lead to polcy adaptatons, mass use, even legslaton (21), long before scentsts have had a chance to double-check the fndngs themselves and ther mplcatons. True, even n the days when scence was much more esoterc, one could fnd someone who could translate ts fndngs nto lay language and abuse t; but the process s much accelerated by well-meanng men (and foundatons) who feel that although scence ought to be solated from socety, socety should keep up wth scence as much as possble. Perhaps the publc relatons efforts on behalf of scence ought to be revewed and regulated so that scence may reman free. A system of regulaton whch bulds on the dfference between scence and technology, wth some knd of lmtatons on the technocrats servng to protect socetes coupled wth lttle curbng of scentsts themselves, may turn out to be much more crucal. The socetal applcaton of most new scentfc fndngs and prncples advances through a sequence of steps, sometmes referred to as the R & D process. An abstract fndng or nsght frequently must be translated nto a technque, procedure, or hardware, whch n turn must be developed, tested, and mass-produced, before t affects socety. Whle n some nstances, lke that of LSD, the process s extremely short n that t requres few f any steps n terms of further develop ment of the dea, tools, and procedures, n most nstances the process s long and 13 SEPTEMBER 1968 expensve. t took, for nstance, about $2 bllon and several thousand appled scentsts and techncans to make the frst atomc weapons after the basc prncples of atomc fsson were dscovered. Moreover, technologes often have a lfe of ther own; for example, the ntrauterne devce dd not sprng out of any applcaton of a new fndng n fertlty research but grew out of the evoluton of earler technologes. The sgnfcance of the dstncton between the basc research ( real scence) and later stages of research s that, frst, the damage caused (f any) seems usually to be caused by the technologes and not by the scence appled n ther development. Hence f there were ways to curb damagng technolloges, scentfc research could mantan ts almost absolute, follow-any-lead autonomy and socety would be protected. Second, and most mportant, the norms to whch appled researchers and techncans subscrbe and the supervsory practces, whch already preval, are very dfferent than those whch gude basc research. Appled research and technologcal work are already ntensvely guded by socetal, even poltcal, preferences. Thus, whle about $2 bllon a year of R 8z D money are spent on basc research more or less n ways the scentsts see ft, the other $13 bllon or so are spent on projects specfcally ordered, often n great detal, by government authortes, for example, the development of a later verson of a mssle or a spced-up tear gas. Studes of R & D corporatons-n whch much of ths work s carred out, usng thousands of professonals organzed n supervsed teams whch are gven specfc assgnments-ponted out that wde freedom of research smply does not exst here. A team assgned to cover a nose cone wth many dfferent alloys and to test whch s the most heatresstant s currently unlkely to stumble upon, let us say, a new heart pump, and f t were to come upon almost any other lead, the boss would refuse to allow the team to pursue the lead, usng the corporaton s tme and funds specfcally contracted for other purposes. Not only are appled research and technologcal developments guded by economc and poltcal consderatons but also there s no evdence that they suffer from such gudance. Of course, one can overdrect any human actvty, even the carryng of logs, and thus undermne morale, satsfacton of the workers, and ther productvty, but such tght drecton s usually not exercsed n R&D work nor s t requred for our purposes. So far gudance has been largely to drect efforts toward specfc goals, and t has been largely corporate, n the sense that the goals have been chefly set by the ndustry (for example, buldng flatter TV sets) or msson-orented government agences (for nstance, ht the moon before the Russans). Some preventve control, lke the suppresson of runproof nylon stockngs, s beleved to have taken place and to have been qute effectve. am not suggestng that the drecton gven to technology by socety has been a wse one. Frankly, would lke to see much less concern wth mltary hardware and outer space and much more nvestment n domestc matters; less n developng new consumer gadgets and more n advancng the technologes of the publc sector (educaton, welfare, and health); less concern wth nature and more wth socety. The pont though s that, for good or bad, technology s largely already socally guded, and hence the argument that ts undesrable effects cannot be curbed because t cannot take gudance and survve s a false one. What may have to be consdered now s a more preventve and more natonal effectve gudance, one that would dscourage the development of those technologes whch, studes would suggest, are lkely to cause sgnfcantly more damage than payoffs. Specal bodes, preferably to be set up and controlled by the scentfc communty tself, could be charged wth such regulaton, although ther decrees mght have to be as enforceable as those of the Federal Drug Admnstraton. (The Federal Drug Admnstraton, whch tself s overworked and understaffed, deals manly wth medcal and not socetal effects of new technologes.) Such bodes could rule, for nstance, that whereas fertlty research ought to go on uncurbed, sex-control procedures for human bengs are not to be developed. One cannot be sure that such bodes would come up wth the rght decsons. But they would have several features whch make t lkely that they would come up wth better decsons than the present system for the followng reasons: () they would be responsble for protectng socety, a responsblty whch so far s not nsttutonalzed; () f they act rresponsbly, the staff mght be replaced, let us say by a vote of the 1111

6 approprate scentfc assocatons; and () they would draw on data as to the socetal effects of new (or antcpated) technologes, n part to be generated at ther ntatve, whle at present-to the extent such supervsory decsons are made at all-they are frequently based on folk knowledge. Most of us recol at any such noton of regulatng scence, f only at the mplementaton (or technologcal) end of t, whch actually s not scence at all. We are nclned to see n such control an openng wedge whch may lead to deeper and deeper penetraton of socety nto the scentfc actvty. Actually, one may hold the opposte vew-that unless socetal costs are dmnshed by some acts of self-regulaton at the stage n the R&D process where t hurts least, the socety may backlash and wth a much heaver hand slap on much more encompassng and throttlng controls. The effcacy of ncreased educaton of scentsts to ther responsbltes, of strengthenng the barrers between ntrascentfc communcatons and the communty at large, and of self-mposed, late-phase controls may not suffce. Full soluton requres consderable nternatonal cooperaton, at least among the top technology-producng countres. The varous lnes of approach to protectng socety dscussed here may be unacceptable to the reader. The problem though must be faced, and t requres greater attenton as we are affected by an acceleratng technologcal output wth ever-ncreasng socetal ramfcatons, whch jontly may overload socety s capacty to adapt and ndvdually cause more unhappness than any group of men has a rght to nflct on others, however noble ther ntentons. Refaaerr md Nota 1. E. Wtsch. praonal communcaton 2. P. E Lndahl, Nafun 181, 784 (1958). 3. V. N. Schrdu lad N. K. Koltsov. bd. l (1933). 4. M. J. Gordon, Se. Amcr (1958). 5. F. Unterberger, Deutsche Med. Wochenschr. 56, 304 (1931). 6. R. C. Cook, 1. Eercd. 31, 270 (1940). 7. J. Schmooklcr. Znventon ond Economc Growth (Harvard Unv. Press, Cambrdse, Mass., 1966). 8. Many people prder adopton to arl15dal nsemnaton set G. M. Vernon and J. A. Boadway, Morra7e Fm ly Uv. 21, 43 (1959). 9. H. Kahn and A. J. Wener, The Year 2000: A Fromcwork for Specdoton on the Nex Thrty-Three Yems (Macmllan, New York, 1967). p H. J. Muller, Sdrncr 134, 643 (1961). 11. C. F. Westoff, bc Socat-psychologcal 6-ctUrC of fertlty, n Znternotonrrl Popdoton Conference (nternatd Unon for Scentfc Study of Populaton, Venna, 1959). 12. S. Wnston, Amrr. J. Socol. 311, 226 (1932). For a crtcal comment whch docs not fd the pont made above, see H. Wefler. fbd. 65, 298 (1959). 13. J. E. Clare and C. V. Kscr, Mlbank Mem. Fund Quart. 29, 441 (1951). See also D. S. Freedman, R Freedman, P. K Whelpton. Amer. J. Socol. 66, 141 (1960). 14. Based on the fgure for 1965 regstered brths (adjusted for those unreported) of 3, from V& Slatsfcs of the Unted Stares 1W5 (US Government Prnng Offce. Washngton. D.C., 1%5), vol 1. pp. 14, secton 1. table 1-2. f there s a surplus of 9.5 boys out of cvcry hundred. there would have bum 3,760,358/100 X 9.5 = surplus n 1% Calculated from C. Wnkler, Ed., Statstcal Gude 1965 for New York Cty (Department of Commerce and ndustral Development, New York. 1%5), p Wnston suggests the opposte but he refers to YX control produced through brth control whch s more wdely practced n hgher classes, especally n the perod n whch hs study was conducted, more than a generaton PgO. 17. Quoted n J. H. Greenberg, N ~ r c Sex ~ l Dsproporton: A Study n Demographc De- /emnsm (Unv. of Cdorado Pres, Boulder, 1950). p. 1. The sources ndcated are A. F. Webcr, The Growth of Ctes n the Nnrteenfh Century, Studes n Hstory, Economcs, and Publc Law, vol. 11, p. 85, and H. YOU Hentg. Crme: Couser ond Condtons (MG Graw-Hll, New York. 1947). p For om of the best dscussons, sce E. E Morson. Men, Machnes. ond Modern Tmer (M..T. Press, Cambrdge, Mass., 1966). Sa also A. Etzon, The Actve Socety: A Theory of Socetal and Poltcal Processes Wrcc Press, New York, 1968). chaps. 1 and See reports n The New York Tmes: Tranqulzer s put under US. curbs; sde effects noted, 6 December 1%7; F.D.A. s studyng reported reactons to arthrts drug, 19 March 1%7; F.D.A. adds 2 drugs to brth defect lst, 3 January On 24 May 1966, Dr. S. F. Yolles, drector of the Natonal nsttute of Mental Health, predcted n testmony before a Senate subcommttee: The next 5 to 10 years... wll see a hundredfold ncrease n the number and types of drugs capable of Paectng the mnd L. Horowtr, The Rse and Fa11 of Project Comelot (M.LT. Pms. Cambrdge, Mass., 1967). 21. For a detalcd report, see testmony by J. D. Cooper, on 28 February 1%7. before the subcommttee on government research of the commttee on government operatons, Unted States Senate, 90th Congrcss (Frst sesson on Bomedcal Development, Evaluaton of Exstng Federal nsttutons), pp NmWS AND COMMENT Behavoral Scences: Report Bds for a Bgger Role Three years after the fall of Project Camelot, the ll-fated, Army-fnanced study of socal change n Latn Amerca, t s begnnng to be possble to see Camelot as a mlestone for the socal and behavoral scences rather than as a permanent mllstone. t s true that federal funds for support of research abroad are now harder to come by, and that Camelot embarrassed Amercan socal and behavoral scentsts workng abroad and rased practcal dffcultes for many of them. t s also true that, as a consequence of Camelot, the effect of mltary support of socal scence research abroad on U.S. foregn relatons has been sharply 1112 questoned, partcularly by Senator Fulbrght. And t appears that Congress has adopted a more crtcal general atttude toward the socal scences. On the other hand, the cause of the socal scences has found new champons n Congress, who, for example, advocate creaton of a separate Natonal Socal Scences Foundaton (NSSF) and of a Councl of Socal Advsors. And, more concrete, many of the mposng number of federal educaton and socal programs establshed n the mddle 1960 s provde not only funds for research by socal scentsts n the unverstes but opportuntes for them to work as researchers, advsers, and admnstrators n the programs themselves. t would take a Pollyanna wth a masochst streak to say that Camelot was an unalloyed blessng for the SOcal and behavoral scences, but t dd force a facng of facts and prompted a much-needed effort to defne what the relatonshp between the federal government and the socal and behavoral scences should be. One result of ths effort s a report, The Behavoral Scences and rhe Federal Government,* publshed ths month by a commttee of promnent behavoral scentsts who have worked under the auspces of the Natonal Academy of Scences-Natonal Research Councl. Ths Advsory Commttee on Government Programs n the Behavoral Scences was formed late n 1965, wth Donald R. Young, vstng professor at Rockefeller Unversty, as charman; Gene M. Lyons, Dartmouth, was later Avalable from the Prntng and Publshng Offce, Natonal Academy of Scences, 2101 Constcuton Avenue. NW, Washngton, D.C SCENCE. VOL. 161