Preface
XI
and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, I succeeded, to my great astonishment, to convince the head of my Paris university library to start a new
section that would be devoted to what was then called in America Science
and Society studies. Although it received little money, you can now find there
several thousands of (mostly American) books and the main reviews in the
history of science and technology, including the military side of it, the arms
race, economics of research and development, science policy, etc.: no exclusive. But almost all the readers are people who specialise in that field, while
most of the 5,000 scientists working at the university don't even know the
existence of this library. Since their specialised libraries are practically empty
in this respect, the conclusion is inescapable: their only sources of information
are their generally narrow personal experience 10 , perhaps some historical articles written in scientific reviews by scientists who have no idea of historical
writingll, and cafeteria conversations:
The humanist who looks at science from the point of view of his own
endeavours is bound to be impressed, first of all, by its startling lack of
insight into itself. Scientists seem able to go about their business in a state
of indifference to, if not ignorance of, anything but the going, currently
acceptable doctrines of their several disciplines . .. The only thing wrong
with scientists is that they don't understand science. They don't know
where their institutions come from, what forces shaped and are still shaping
them, and they are wedded to an anti historical way of thinking which
threatens to deter them from ever finding out l2 .
It appears more honest to me to violate these miserable and far too comfortable taboos and to put on their guard those innocents who leap into the dark
into careers of which they know nothing. Because of their past and potential
10 It is not always that narrow. As in the USA - the model - there are in
France scientists who have been for a long time in top government committees
or who have cooperated with industry. They obviously know a lot more than the
average researcher, let alone student. But they mostly don't speak, much less
write, particularly when defence activities are involved. This striking difference
between French and American "Statesmen of Science" can perhaps be explained
by the fact that the political spectrum extends much farther to the left in France
than in the USA, so that defence work was, at least during most of the Cold
War, much more controversial here than on the other side of the Atlantic.
11 One of the books I have recently read is Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb:
The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and
Edward Teller (Henry Holt, 2002), a superb though very concentrated book.
The main text, 334 pages, is followed by over 2,000 notes: an average of six
references to sources per page (and a lot more on Internet). No active scientist
could spend ten years reading two hundred books and papers already published,
interviewing at length eighty colleagues, discovering and reading hundreds of
recently declassified government files, and organizing this amount of information
into a coherent book.
12 Eric Larrabee, Science and the Common Reader (Commentary, June 1966). As I
said above, old scientists who have long been top consultants to their government
are not as innocent as Larrabee puts it, but the new generation has not their
experience of science politics.
XI
and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, I succeeded, to my great astonishment, to convince the head of my Paris university library to start a new
section that would be devoted to what was then called in America Science
and Society studies. Although it received little money, you can now find there
several thousands of (mostly American) books and the main reviews in the
history of science and technology, including the military side of it, the arms
race, economics of research and development, science policy, etc.: no exclusive. But almost all the readers are people who specialise in that field, while
most of the 5,000 scientists working at the university don't even know the
existence of this library. Since their specialised libraries are practically empty
in this respect, the conclusion is inescapable: their only sources of information
are their generally narrow personal experience 10 , perhaps some historical articles written in scientific reviews by scientists who have no idea of historical
writingll, and cafeteria conversations:
The humanist who looks at science from the point of view of his own
endeavours is bound to be impressed, first of all, by its startling lack of
insight into itself. Scientists seem able to go about their business in a state
of indifference to, if not ignorance of, anything but the going, currently
acceptable doctrines of their several disciplines . .. The only thing wrong
with scientists is that they don't understand science. They don't know
where their institutions come from, what forces shaped and are still shaping
them, and they are wedded to an anti historical way of thinking which
threatens to deter them from ever finding out l2 .
It appears more honest to me to violate these miserable and far too comfortable taboos and to put on their guard those innocents who leap into the dark
into careers of which they know nothing. Because of their past and potential
10 It is not always that narrow. As in the USA - the model - there are in
France scientists who have been for a long time in top government committees
or who have cooperated with industry. They obviously know a lot more than the
average researcher, let alone student. But they mostly don't speak, much less
write, particularly when defence activities are involved. This striking difference
between French and American "Statesmen of Science" can perhaps be explained
by the fact that the political spectrum extends much farther to the left in France
than in the USA, so that defence work was, at least during most of the Cold
War, much more controversial here than on the other side of the Atlantic.
11 One of the books I have recently read is Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb:
The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and
Edward Teller (Henry Holt, 2002), a superb though very concentrated book.
The main text, 334 pages, is followed by over 2,000 notes: an average of six
references to sources per page (and a lot more on Internet). No active scientist
could spend ten years reading two hundred books and papers already published,
interviewing at length eighty colleagues, discovering and reading hundreds of
recently declassified government files, and organizing this amount of information
into a coherent book.
12 Eric Larrabee, Science and the Common Reader (Commentary, June 1966). As I
said above, old scientists who have long been top consultants to their government
are not as innocent as Larrabee puts it, but the new generation has not their
experience of science politics.