ACS News

COMMENT

Needed: champions for an informed public

As chemists meet in the next few weeks and months, we shall talk of many things:

• The frontiers of science and tech­nology.

• Toxicological responses to expo­sures to chemicals, the regulation of the manufacture, processing, use, and dis­posal of chemical substances.

• Changing laboratory practices. • The qualifications and motivation

of students. • New curriculum developments. • Employment opportunities. • The plight of the young investiga­

tor. • The level of support for re­

search. • The problems of the universities. • Retirement age. • Incentives for and barriers to in­

novation. • Public attitudes towards science

and technology, etc.

This great multiplicity of overlapping and interwoven topics is encompassed within the symbiotic goals of the chemical profession: the extension of knowledge, the professional well-being of individuals, the viability of institutions, and the contribution of the science to the public welfare.

In our discussions there will be champions for many causes. This par­ticular communication is a plea that more chemists, all kinds of chemists, champion the cause of an informed public.

Public is used here to include the entire spectrum of individuals from the highly specialized professional chemists to the individual who never has had and never will have a professional commit­ment to chemistry. In this sense public includes all of those who are a part of our technological society and participate or will participate in the value judgments characteristic of a democratic society by exercising the right to speak and the right to vote.

Informed about what and to what de­gree? This ambiguity is useful, even essential, to a consideration of an in­formed public as a goal worthy of pur­suit. To me, the goal, an ever-receding

goal, is a public in which individuals in any one part of the public spectrum are capable of communicating at a mean­ingful level with individuals in any other part of the public spectrum.

There is clear evidence that progress has been made, and hence can be made, at both ends of the spectrum. Some individuals who have been pain­fully diffident about their capacities to comprehend scientific matters have made sustained efforts to understand the scientific and technological problems of society and been remarkably perceptive in raising penetrating questions. At the same time, individual scientists have doggedly suppressed their impatience (arrogance?) and made sustained efforts to understand the social, economic, and political matrix within which science and technology are embedded. The magni­tude of the progress may not be great but it is sufficient to indicate that an in­formed public is a feasible goal to pur­sue. My personal opinion is that it is much more feasible today than it has ever been before.

What are the roles of professional chemists in pursuing this goal? What are the roles of a society of professional chemists? They are many and they are varied. To me, the primary role of both is to make it very evident by what we do and what we say that we do indeed be­lieve an informed public is a goal worthy of the investment of our time and our resources.

The mechanisms of pursuing that goal also are many and varied. Three types of mechanisms are suggested here:

• Expand the opportunities for young people who are intellectually curious but not professionally driven to develop competence in chemistry to have a truly rewarding, rewarding as judged by the student, experience with chemistry.

• Increase the feasibility for those preparing to enter the profession and those already in the profession to extend their understanding of the interaction of the chemical profession, including chemical technology, with the social, political, and economic matrix that en­gulfs the profession.

• Intensify our efforts to communi­cate, both to listen and to speak, with

individuals in other regions of the public spectrum.

There is a natural tendency to assume that the first two are the responsibility of the academic institutions. Not so. Aca­demic institutions may be appropriate agents to deliver but the priorities given to these activities by administrators are largely determined by the relative values placed upon various activities by the total profession. Reward systems within academic institutions recognize the value judgments made by the profes­sion. If the members of the profession make known their value judgments on these matters, there is a very reasonable chance that these value judgments will be reflected in academic programs.

It is exactly for the reason that the mechanisms of pursuing the goal of an informed public are so many and so varied that many champions for an in­formed public are needed. It is difficult if individuals work at cross purposes: The endeavors of each of us enhance the efforts of others. Throughout the entire profession, we have the capacity to effectively pursue the goal of an in­formed public. Given that capacity we have the responsibility to do so.

In the fall, I shall bring together a small group to consider mechanisms through which the American Chemical Society can use its prestige and re­sources to encourage the expansion of opportunities for the general student to have a personally rewarding experience with chemistry at the high school level and at the college level (mechanism 1 above). I suspect that in recent years the value system of the profession and the reward systems of institutions have tended to operate against the use of resources to meet the needs of the general student. I have no doubt that there are many chemists in academic institutions who would like to devote at least part of their creative talents to this end but have recognized that to do so would jeopardize their professional ad­vancement to the extent of being pro­fessional suicide.

Anna J. Harrison ACS president

June 26, 1978 C&EN 25