Godkin Lecture Series at Harvard University; Lecture #3

The following program is presented by radio station WGBH FM in Boston and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. From San is there at Harvard University. The 3rd of the 1960 series of God can like. The British novelist and visit ACP snow speak on science and government will be introduced by Dan Price dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration Harvard. Here is Dean Price ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the past two evenings Sir Charles snow has brought to bear on some of the problems which we must solve if we are to save either our skins or our civilization. The understanding of the scientists and the insights of the novelist. These are the two

professions by which he has been best known to the world. But he has had a third profession and I think the Harvard Crimson was the first journal ever to list it ahead of the others. The profession of a civil servant or to be more exact a civil service commissioner responsible for the recruitment and the use of scientific personnel. During the war and the years that follow. For these two nights this he has said he has been telling us a story a story of two gifted and courageous sat coming into conflict within the closed politics of British official committees over two great wartime issues. The development of radar and the effectiveness of mass bombing. It is his understanding as a sentence that has enabled him to interpret for us the significance of these issues and these decisions. But it has been the understanding of the novelist that is let him show us the personal tragedy

and the political irony of the outcome. The irony lay I think in this that the politics was completely unrelated to the open politics by which the British people held their rumors responsible. And search Charles has been entirely too tactful to ask us directly to consider whether we are in the United States any better prepared to relate the controversies within the scientific and strategic world to the formal processes of political responsibility. And now tonight Sir Charles as he has promised will interpret more directly the parable but he has been telling us here the experience of a civil servant will come to the aid of the scientist and the novelist in showing the significance of his story. I suspect that age has made search Charles just a little uncomfortable billing him occasionally as a social scientist. Whether brother I dare not

guess whether any such discomfort comes from professional modesty or wounded pride. But he has already been giving us a rare insight into problems which social scientists and citizens in general must face up to or else. I know this audience as well as the television audience and the entire Harvard community which will later read his lectures is looking forward with anticipation to the interpretation that he will give us tonight in the third and final Godkin lecture on government and starts as are charged her with us Dean Price. And ladies and gentlemen I've been told so many things in my life. Being called a social scientist is not really throwing me off my stride

but I confess the bald crimson almost halved. Are we. In the midst of perceptive which I greatly value well it detected a resemblance between me and mr. Well I'm not a self-conscious man I quite at my best for the moment. Give me give me 10 minutes before I get into my stride. I mean the story has Dean Price said and I've said last night I was going to try to develop some morals from it. We all know. The ideal solutions to the problems which have been implicit in the stories. The first

ideal solution would be to abolish nation states. If you abolish nation states then most but I think not all of these secret choices would cease to be important or indeed to happen at all. And second even if we even if we keep nation states than we did we'd get rid of a lot of the aura of mystery and special ominous ness that hangs over these choices. If a large proportion of the decision making community here were people who were. As well trained in science as in other disciplines. That is if we had an educational system which could still produce a fairly totally comprehending man. Well. You know as well as I that neither of those are ideal solutions are in sight and therefore I think

it's not wasting our time. If we examine rather more carefully something of the nature of closed politics. Throughout these lectures I've used the word politics in direct opposition to. Open politics exactly as Dean Price intent suggested a moment ago. Why open politics I mean that kind of politics in which one has ultimate trickles to a larger body of opinion or an electorate or even what you may loose to call social forces. Anything which is away from and larger than the group in which the decision is being made. For instance an English Cabinet in its operations has a good deal of the nature of close politics. But in the long run the prime minister or any

other minister can have and has a court of appeal in the electoral body. And so therefore you are not dealing with close politics as I have intended them in these electors. In all these vital matters of scientific decisions of secret choices on the other hand youre dealing with something very much like pure politics. Whether there's nothing else which can be brought into action except the people themselves. At what point of decision. For example if in his in the debate strategic bombing had been able to appeal to the general body of scientists in England and if he'd been able to give them an adequate background all of the issues involved the way in which the way in which an air force is used and the figures then in fact he

Lindemann wouldn't have lasted a week. But he had no such appeal. He had nothing but the apparatus of close politics at his command. And so of course lost. And all the news in all these situations and in all countries because I'm going to take up the crisis challenge straight away I'm no better than anybody else and you know all these decisions and situations you're faced with something like the classical situations of close politics where men are left with nothing but their own resources. Nothing but their own personality is nothing but the electoral techniques of these singular operations. One crude result is that the country at this moment are surprisingly at the mercy of scientific salesman. That is someone with too impressive a personality too easy a

persuasive gift is a danger to almost every country in this world. Inly Lindemann story. There are three characteristics for all of close politics which really are never completely separable which fused together and form part of the core of the complete phenomenon. But for the purposes of argument I'm going to try and distinguish them. And I think in fact it's it's not one useful to distinguish them in into shock categories. The first I'm going to call committee politics committee politics is that form of politics where men sit have nothing to do except get to get their own way by the use of the. Personality of. That intellect. Mama threw like

that which affects other people. Well they're sitting there. With no one but themselves to help them. And in the end. Well they vote with an equal vote. That is Committee politics at its purest. And the committee which finally decided on radar is a very good example of this sort of committee in full action. Here you had men responsible to no women having only their own personal authority to back them. None of them officials. And in the end the issue is going to be decided by or which could affect the most other which could produce the most support from among these four men. And as we saw when it was quite clear that it was three to one against women although probably a formal vote was never taken the only opinion was only too obvious that in fact as Linda Evans

only other possible source of support was Churchill out of power then in fact then the issue his issue was lost and that is a straightforward committee politics at its simplest. It's worth noticing probably that certainly in England and I suspect in nearly rules Assad is official commit is refraining from taking an open vote if they possibly can. Easy to decide which way the opinion is floating and normally that is enough. For instance the English Cabinet. To the best of my belief has never once had a vote in the sense of counting heads in the whole of its existence. But that is much more apparent than real. Everyone knows who is who is on which side. And in fact it does come down to which which is full and which is against and what level. Numbers don't race.

I think they're only stalking case of a committee vote. I can think of which was really carried out in the strict method of counting heads. There's the famous vote of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party in October 1972 when meeting in the house of one of Lennon's political enemies for the sake of safety they solemnly debated the proposition that the Bolsheviks and of better long parenthesis do now seize power or argued about it for seven years finally took a vote and the motion was passed by tend to come in the orphans and descending. That's the most remarkable open vote in the committee. English committees would not normally do that. You don't. Nor indeed would get the

same result. But only from their new circumstances I know where you will see the full beauty and rigor of committee politics all in the smaller colleges of my own Cambridge where people are always taking this guy deferred on everything including veteran positions. Human nature pretty much in the role. The second form of close politics which come into our store. I think I'm going to call hierarchical politics and that is the politics of a chain of command. It doesn't matter very much what the chain of command is whether it's one of the armed services or the civil service or a large industry in Syria. This chain of command goes

straight down. I did what the chain of command is supposed to mean. That is someone on top of the pyramid gives an instruction and it goes down the line and the order is carried out. That is the simple minded people particularly those who are both cynical and which is one of my least favorite combinations. See the manipulate such a chain of command is the easiest thing in the world. All you've got to do is to get the air of the man at the top. Get him to give an instruction the instruction will go down the line and your troubles are over. Poor fools let them try it. Because in fact hierarchies don't work in the least like that. Anyone who's ever been in any organized institution with a

hierarchical chain of command know the forces of passive resistance all the way down are quite astonishing. The English the English forces on the whole but to discipline the mule and officers I'm not so fond of representing their points of view and that are in direct conflict with their superiors. But even so really the situations are remarkably comparable and everyone who understands what institutions are really like knows that to make the thing work. You've got to carry people with you at all kinds of levels. One of the real strengths of TOS and some of his civil service colleagues in the first decision was was that he knew this both by instinct and experience. He was always

asking himself as a man to hierarchical politics doesn't ask himself where shall I go for what job. Well in this large and elaborate structure has one got to insert some sort of persuasion or some sort of if necessary coercion some sort of real attempt to carry the writer with me. That is the under special law of people who can manipulate chains of command. For a real decision as opposed to a legal listing decision. The important people are quite a long way down and in that this is a thing which makes the working of a chain of command extraordinarily difficult for people who are. Bound by constitutional diagrams. I remember. Personal

example of this quite early in the war when I was quite a junior in temporary civil servant. But I'd taken on myself the Tosca of providing sufficient right of all people to Mandy's after A to C is a point which everybody else happen to have forgotten by that which but by the by that's quite easy to do in fact one normally finds in all scientific decisions. The last thing anyone thinks of is people. Well I was as I say junior and temporary and I was suddenly asked to go and see someone of great eminence on this. This invitation came through my hierarchical superiors but in such a form that it couldn't be refused. I'm sorry to say that it gave my superiors a certain amount of discontent. Well I went off and the men I saw off became a close friend was so far up in the hierarchy that

no official connection could be made. Only Osprey was all right. To which I said yes. Shall we get the men to which I said yes. Do you need any help. I said No not at present. And then the interview ended. But that is an exact example of someone who knew how to intervene quite lower down the ladder. At a point which might conceivably have been of importance. And this is a constant. Problem an amusement to those who are used to big organizations. Remember that the heads of big organizations have romantic stereotypes of them just as you tend to have romantic stereotypes of them. And everybody likes to talk about hire and fire. But if in fact the heads of very large companies start hiring firing you fire you see the situation in which they get the result. You cannot run it it's one of the great safeguards of large organizations to

impose all kinds of rules. Difficult is complex it is. Which no one completely understands but which greatly reduces the false single assertive will. I would suspect that in this gotra Iraq or cold politics are the most interesting in the world. So then the most interesting in the western world. And I also suspect it's high time someone made a serious study of them. The third full of politics the third and last poll in the Lindemann story is what I should call what I do call in fact call politics. This is the simplest and this simply means using the power of someone who possesses a concentration of power using the influence. By your own connection with him someone

who really has the decisive Lindemann connection with Churchill is of course the clearest example of cool politics. As I remarked when. Lindemann sent for tis who was then the senior scientist in government and in effect that we don't know the words told him that he was out Lindemann had no official position. Whatever little he might have been any one of us here. And yet in fact I knew that this decision was final and everybody in the English Government would have known to say. Now this is cool. Politics at its most extreme and the Lindemann Churchill relation is the most fascinating example of cold politics that we're likely to see. For. Over two years. Lindemann had no official position and yet he had more power than any

scientist in history. Now. Roosevelt had a cold rather in the same way I suspect that Churchill had a cold but so far as I know some of you will be able to correct me I don't think any scientists were anything like as influential as Lindemann Lindemann remember was an absolutely inseparable friend and mine of my information for what it's worth is that so you Vonnie of a Bush operated on the normal official distance or something like the normal official list. Hitler had a cold though he kept the power to himself more than anyone has ever done. Unfortunately for his old head no scientist anywhere near it. If he had a scientist of the class someone near him then fakes might have been different. It's very interesting to know how politics

work at the very start. Of Churchill's prime ministership Lindemann used to make it obvious what his position was by holding his interviews in 10 Downing Street. But soon that was not necessary. And within about three months anyone in official England knew that this was this friendship was unbreakable and that they were speaking to the second most powerful post in the country. A great many people know that's not true. Some people tried to protest. They didn't get any distance. They're both better along nearly everyone. Now again that's I'm overstating my case. Before that along a number of people were jumping up on the wagon. It's unfortunately is a delusion to think that people don't like to see the exercise of

most people very much hypnotized by the exercise of power. They like to see power confident exercised fascinated by it and try their best to get associated with it. And that was only too evident the effect of the bombing it was false through with so little opposition. Sure. People in conditions of crisis and I suspect often circumstances not of crisis. I'm much more prepared to accept to resist it. I'm fairly sure this is true of nearly all people in secret clothes politics. Anyway it's very easy to abdicate both one's reason and one's will in secret. Politics includes politics. If the power is strong

and very firmly you can hear a friend of mine a man who is normally very tough and very intelligent on a black London wartime night. As we talked about the bombing policy saying the prime minister decided who are we to say them. Judge by the criterion of getting what he wanted. Lindemann was the most successful politician of the age and I think of the last three or four hundred years you have to go back as far as Persia's if before you get any grey eminence who said anything like the same effective power. And yet all our stereotypes of the quarter don't apply to Linda. I mean one thinks at least I used to think of courtiers as being supple people bending people eager to follow in the

mood. Mere shadows of the stuff that was quite untrue Lindemann remained his own man. This was a two sided friendship. At least as many of the ideas came from Lindemann as from Joe Johns. There was great respect and admiration on both sides it was obvious that Lindemann Churchill as he should be able to speak well best of Churchill greatly admired Lindemann. This went on until they were until Lindemann died. It was a friendship of singular quality. There was nothing there was nothing base about it it was dignified and extremely loyal and soul Secor facing on both sides. It's one of the curious foreigners that led them into such bad choices. But that's what politics seems to me to belike this curious mixture of committee politics Iraq politics cold politics and as I say as I said earlier.

These tend to intertwine. And issues and. Operate together in almost all they are almost all the kind of decisions with which we're faced. And this in in this secret world I don't mean this is satire. Satire is cheap satire is the result of someone who doesn't understand the world. But it's very important that people of goodwill should understand how the world takes its how their new charms of making it better. And now after looking at this I've got to tell you that I've got no. Easy answer at all. How are we going to make the world take better. How are we going to make these decisions rather more sensibly. If there were no it would have been found by now. It's this is one of the most intractable problems that organized

society has thrown up. But I think I can say here least I can suggest to you. Certain things which we ought not to do. I think that comes out of the story. The first one which I'm fairly clear is that it's a great mistake to have a scientific overlord. It's better to have in any government system to have no scientist than one single scientist particularly a single scientist to fanatically strong will. That is I'm almost sure all the worst solution of all. It was particularly serious with Lindemann who as you can see from this story was a man of abnormal strength of character. And one whom his colleagues as the war went on tend to regard as the all wise all knowing. But it would be serious I think in most conceivable circumstances. When I say that

I wonder if. I'm getting too fond of all countries checks and balances. I can think of certain circumstances where when one scientist would in fact have been a very good thing if Bush had been as close to Roosevelt as Lindemann was to Churchill then one can see great good coming from that one. Or if I happen to be the overlord I'm not the name and then again great good would have happened. But in fact none of those things ever happen and there's never been a good scientific overlord in history and I must say I can. I think the chances of getting one a fairly slight. And so I would throw my weight. All my. In all by influence against anyone going in for that particular investment. If you have scientists you must have more than one. And not giving anyone the power that

Lindemann had. I think it's also fairly clear that there are some scientists whom we ought not to give any power to a toll because there are many methods by which judgments become distorted. There are many means by which judgments become distorted. Fear distorts judgment but fear is not a thing which distorts judgement. Most circumstances which we've been thinking about the two things which seem to me to distort judgment much more dramatic are two different kinds of euphoria. The first is the euphoria of gadgets and the second is the euphoria of secrecy. These are usually euphoria which meet in the same person but they get it so I mean that particular sense of inflation which comes to people when they're either thinking about or possess

a gadget of that oh my god you time mean anything which is which may be efficacious like a hydrogen bomb. Also all silly like one of Lindemann is mines for dropping on at a place that doesn't matter if you're good a scientist who is sufficiently possessed by his own gadget then his judgement is likely to be extremely dangerous to his own side. And it's quite understandable and no you are to the physical presence of a gadget particularly if you have made it the more wonderful it seems the more you know. How every step has been has been surrounded by snags how by ingenuity you got round the snags. It's quite unthinkable that anybody else would have this ingenuity or would have had these bright ideas would have produced this beautiful shining machine.

The first time I succumb to this one screws are not that I've ever made against my life but in fact I did one see what I saw the first English get in 1902 and I saw it flying its trials and it was explained to me what had been simply almost incredible that anyone could produce a machine so beautiful so ingenious on cooler reflection I'm going to have my doubts and of course in fact of course we now know the Drummonds been flying much more beautiful and much more ingenious machines several months before and that I think is a very common thing to subside since the overriding truth is a bleak one. And it's this that between two countries of approximately the same industrial development the number of the number and power of the gadgets on both sides will be about about the same between this country and the Soviet Union where the level of military

technology is almost exactly identical. Well the amount of. People the amount of money the amount of resource being invested is again very very similar. Then it's unthinkable that one side is going to get a decisive leader over the other. All the other over the while that's the overriding truth of which I can never understand this situation will fluctuate in detail. One country will get its nose ahead in one thing one in the other but in the groups this situation of approximate identity is going to go along as long as one can forsee. It's quite unrealistic and dangers for the West to think that as a whole it's going to have a decisive lead in technological superiority over the East as a whole. That's a typical

piece of gadget is thinking is done as more harm than any other kind of thinking. If one isn't existing in the immediate present of gadgets and if possible to be a little more sensible I think. Is the classical example of this of course was when the first news of the atomic pile began to circulate in a scientific world. Well you heard people in 43 saying this will blow Russia wide open and this is going to give America a lead for 20 years. Some of my friends went to a fault. It seemed to us that a spirited country was adequate to adequate human resources could do the job in about six hours from the time the news was known when always overestimates disease periods. It took the Russians exactly four. And I think this sort of gadget tiering in for us is one of the reasons why most administrator including nearly all the

base are quite convinced that scientists couldn't do their job. They're so used to this sort of gadget tearing optimism that they feel it's scarcely human that men should be so little detached. And many of the top administrators who were sitting in on these call him up to Saddam and thought he was one of their own felt most of the other scientists really ought not to be let into any sensible human community at all. There is something in letters I shal later say why I think it's extremely important we should have scientists in the ministration government but it is perfectly true that there is something akin to a gadget tearing streak in a great many scientists in order to become. A really first class scientist. You've got to have a very strong strain of the obsessional you've got to be able to think about one thing

very deeply for a long time. And the ministry has to be able to think about a lot of things in their interconnections for a short time and the process is all different. So the scientists in the creative periods are not happy in administration it's only when they've got over that or not been much good at creative science that they really take the administration as an administrator knows it. That is of a not merely means I think that we've got to be careful of the scientist we pick. We've got to keep out the gadget is at all costs and for the rest we've got to take in people older than most people are chosen for ministration. That was what happened of course to to Sol who had lived his scientific life before he became an administrator at all. The euphoria of secrecy about which I could spend some happy moments amusing

myself if not you. Know. Is very similar. I've seen perfectly ordinary looking man apparently sane. Absolutely intoxicated by the thought that they knew something which nobody else knew. And which they proposed to keep as quiet as possible. It didn't matter it seemed to me when I saw these get it whether the news was about their own side or the enemy is whether it was bad news or good. Nevertheless the possession of this secret is so wonderful in itself that made them almost insane. It takes a very strong head to keep secrets for a very long time and live in a secret world and not go slightly dotty. It's very unwise for a country to be advised for a long time by

people who have gone slightly dull to you. I could go on for a long time with these working tips and prescriptions that are all sorts of obvious notes on the positive side the extreme importance of knowing what you want to do. It's far less relevant whether what you want to do is right or wrong. What matters is who you should know positively what you want. That's all B.S. elementary lesson politics. For example in the first of the Lindemann Plashers knew exactly but radar was the one hope and against that Lindemann though he knew that he hated Linda hated Lindemann though he knew that he hated TOS it was far more fragmentary and what he really wanted to do and strong and always will was he was not as positive in his recommendation.

Therefore he was on the wrong foot even if other circumstances hadn't hadn't defeated him. In the second case Lindemann knew perfectly well what he wanted to do he wanted to bomb Germany almost any cost to Saddam had not such a clear counter proposal and that with people who behave ring I'm sure made a difference. The first imports from this guy in the first secret of success in this God of Close politics is to be absolutely certain what it is that you're going to do and be able to express it very clearly in shopping by success I'm afraid that I mean in getting your own way you may get your own way disastrously as a result of this policy. But this in this in the sense of practical politics. You have got to be certain what it is that you're going to make happen. And we also saw that a committee. Like a committee chair can be the sharpest tool

the government can use. If the committee is properly placed there's a great deal of technicality about this which I think I won't go into but briefly you haven't you've got to put it in its proper low. Level in government which in England normally mustn't be too high. You've got to cede that it has certain powers all follow up otherwise committees die on their feet. It's useless to have a purely advisory committee is there never any good. And thirdly the objective mustn't big grandiloquently of August. If you have a committee which just improve the condition of the human race you would get very far. But you can get some distance if you say try and defend the country by means of scientific means. But that I think that is rather too technical I think for this god of discussion there is a lot there's quite a lot to be said about it. And of course

unfortunately the precision of the objective is much easier in military affairs than it is in most other things. There's a military objective. It's fairly easy to prescribe The only equivalent civilian one which is exactly as it is usually something connected with meds. There is of course a grim family resemblance between either shortening people's lives or attempting not to do so and the only place where you can get actual applied science into operation of the same social support and same speed. It is the only point is in medical research. Off Off to consider military research. Possibly I said but I suspect the medical research may be more efficient because there are other other factors which mean that you don't waste so much money.

But in those two only two cases applied side wins where the objectives are easily and accurately specified that is why we find to get relatively easy to cope with. With that with such problems where we're getting some results in all the other places where scientific initiatives could arise we are losing our way. Wasting money losing chances which should be well doesn't matter. Is that a job. Hasn't the West got so much in the way of applied science that there's no necessity for the government to take any further steps. That's a question which are far from reflective and sensible people. Does anyone in his senses need more in the way of material goods for instance than the average comfortably off professional America. If so if not then why worry about applied science much more. Why

not leave well alone. Why not just have scientists as they've always been in the past. Call them in when you do you want a bit of advice from them and keep them in their place. You said yourself. My friends say that many of them make very bad administrator and many make very bad administrators. Why not face that fact and use them as little as you can. And they all schools are my friends. Isn't the only serious problem to keep the peace. And isn't that a job the statesman not the scientists. What does it matter about scientists and government. Well I'm familiar with those questions that I lost by some of my most intelligent acquaintances and there's a lot of truth in them. But they're no good. Or rather they spring from roots from which also spring

a great many of the present dangers and loss of hope. One of those dangers and I think the deepest is that we are beginning to lose our sense of the future. And that seems to be true all over the West. It seems to be as true here as it is in the older societies of Western Europe. We're becoming existential societies and we're living in the same world as future directed societies. Ah but you can see it is an obvious example has become existential and indeed we've lost the power. To compress it to appreciate a call or even comprehend it which is not exist in shul. The same quality. Is reaching down to these

deep choices of things much nearer the working mechanism of society much nearer the kind of problems which we've been thinking on the news. Whatever we see here a quality about them which comes from the feeling that we've reached an end state in human society. And that vision of the future is not really a vision of toll it's million names. We seem to be flexible and yet with all the operators we've got we're losing the power to change and change is what we must do and that. Is why for all the fault for all the disadvantages what you can see in my story. I want scientists in government but scientists here I mean people trained in the natural sciences as well as

engineers and engineers have their own value. But as a class the social attitudes are much more homogeneous and much more rigid than you would expect of a professor of a professional group. Natural scientists normally have a wider spread of social attitudes more social imagination more variety and I think they will provide only provide a quality in our society and our government I won't separate those two too sharply. Which will get. From nowhere else. I don't mean simply that if we have. Scientists at various levels of government there we should have a larger body of opinion to troll have some invisible influence on these difficult choices the secret choices which we've been discussing. I mean that I think is an advantage I think it's not bombed it's Russia that a rather

high proportion of the top. Administrators top politicians have had some sort of scientific training. I did a rough calculation once of the top manager aerial class of the Soviet Union and I very rough it looks as though 35 to 45 percent of the top thousand or 2000 have had something like a scientific or technical university education which is utterly different of course from anything that you know or that we know this is true of the diplomatic service as well as an ordinary into an administration. And I think that has meant that simply by the sheer size of the informed population tended to make wiser choices technical in the West. But that seems to be a second report. I believe that again for all our faults

for all the things that you've seen in the stories that scientists or at least some scientists can give our government and our society a quality which we need so desperately that we don't see the need of it at all. And that quality is foresight. I'm not saying of course that all scientists have foresight foresight is an extremely rare quality. Scientists by and large are as much bound as most men by their immediate circumstances their race their class that time. But some. Do just a little transcendent. And if they have the possibility of transcending this then the whole nature of that experience means that they're liable to develop the qualitative rather fast and in high to

desirable fashions. I was thinking when I read Mr. Marson excellent biography of Mr. Secretary Stimson. And compare his thoughts on the making and use of the atomic bomb with the faults of the Chicago scientists who were headed by frack. No in fact I'm not trying to I'm not in the least trying to denigrate Stimson you seem to me to show him to be the only politician in your country or even aware that was a problem that this was a serious thing on which much of the rest of much of the immediate future harm. He deserves great credit in his Memorandum of April 25th 45. Is there any thoughtful memorandum by a politician on the whole problem. But if you're compared it with the letter of what is it July the 16th I think Franken is called the six a cognitive

scientists. That is an absolute difference of quality and insight because the scientists had something above and beyond concern and the sudden intuition ly had. What one might call insight what might or might knowledge or rather the possibility of knowledge to come. And this is a quality which if scientists possess a tool on the level to possess more than most of us you see the scientific process itself lives in history. It is a future directed process itself. And so scientists almost alone in our day in the latest know what it's like to be in a future directed suicide. Every scientist who's any good knows that his pupils 20 years younger

will in 20 years know incomparably more than he can now hope to know just as he himself knows better. Wise or clever a man did twenty years ago. The process existed. It goes on and it is future directed and it has within it in a whole of foresight. And so that is my real reason. Despite all the difficulties of one thing scientists and government as I said I've tried a shot at explaining why they're not much good at administration. And that I think is right. If the operations of the committee. Were in fact administered by non-scientists and if they'd been administered by scientists that have been done with us. But that's only half the point. I've spent try spent 20 years of my life. I just got

out of it this year with the English professional administrators. And on the whole I think as much or more than any professional group I've ever lived with that is extremely intelligent but tough that have voted that on mobile. They're very generous within the ordinary human limits they've got a crew. Of the unpleasant qualities of small groups but they have a deficiency. That active man and this is true of. Administrators and politicians anyway. Active men by nature live in the shul they're interested in the devices and the procedures of the shawl and in a sense it's right they should be. They become. Lost as of the short term solution. And often when I see my colleague my then colleague

some of the ablest men I've ever known. I couldn't help thinking of a quotation from one of the old Icelandic sagas which runs like this. Snore was the wisest man in Iceland who had not the gift of foresight no foresight in that connection. I don't expect a supernatural Meenie meant something like second side but never mind for me it had a different ring. And the phrase stayed in my mind. Why is this man in Iceland who had not the gift of foresight. And more and more that seems to me to bring Uncomfortably True for all of us all over the West. We're immensely competent we know our own operations like a part of I have. We can do things no society

has of ever done. We are. Practiced beyond belief in all kinds of practical political technical manipulations. But that is not enough. It's nothing like enough. And it would be a pity if when this storm of history is over the storm of history in which we're now living the best effort all people could find for us would be the wisest men who had not the gift of foresight for that thought. The last time I got my British author and signed up for science and government. The Goggin lectures were produced for broadcast by Charles Ada's milks for radio station WGBH

FM in Boston. These tape recorded programs have been distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the n AB Radio Network.