A Report from the Front: MIT in the Anti-Science War

To what extent are scientists responsible for the uses society makes of their research results? Are technologists accountable for the purposes for which the devices or processes they develop are used? If so, to whom are they accountable - their own peers, the whole community to which they belong, the individuals who might be affected by their product? To what degree can technical skills and resources be employed to meet social needs regarded as important? In other words, can intellectual swords be turned into ploughshares? Should universities be mainly responsive to the demands placed on them by other social and political institutions, as sellers to clients or customers, or should they, through their own independent action and example, try to promulgate national policies and goals? Does the sponsorship of university research by industry and government compromise the claim of the university to political neutrality and intellectual " objectivity "? To what degree is the university, as a corporate body, justified in exercising control over the research undertaken by its members, when such research does not violate the law or contravene universally accepted ethical standards? If such control is the responsibility of the university, who within it should exercise it and by what mechanisms? Should it be the teaching staff voting democratically, the administration in informal consultation with teachers and students, or everyone in the university, including clerical and custodial staff, each individual having one vote? Are there circumstances in which official compliance by the university with the requirements or requests of a political authority constitutes a " political act "? For example, does any contractual relation with the military, such as participation in the Reserve Officers Training Corps programme, or the conduct of research for one of the armed services, constitute political endorsement of national military and strategic policies? Does work in the development of " multiply targetable strategic warheads " imply corporate institutional endorsement of the ultimate deployment of such warheads as part of the national strategic arsenal?

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