Separation Of Functions: Research And Teaching In Ecotopia Berkeley PDF

SEPARATION OF FUNCTIONS: RESEARCH AND TEACHING IN ECOTOPIA Berkeley, June 9. American universities are our major source of scientific innovations, and important for social policy formulation as well. But, in line with their penchant for small-scale organization, the Ecotopians have attempted to sepa...

SEPARATION OF FUNCTIONS: RESEARCH AND TEACHING IN ECOTOPIA Berkeley, June 9. American universities are our major source of scientific innovations, and important for social policy formulation as well. But, in line with their penchant for small-scale organization, the Ecotopians have attempted to separate research functions from teaching functions. This has brought about a striking proliferation of small research institutes. These are usually located near universities and their staffs are partly permanent members and partly university professors on their year-off research rotation. These institutes seem to contain 30-100 members---scientists, technicians, machinists, and so on---it is hard to tell who is what, as their professional roles are not so well defined as with us. One such institute I have visited, near Monterey, was studying a variety of oceanographic and related biological problems. Another, south of San Francisco, concerned itself with astronomy, astrophysics, and so on. (The Mt. Hamilton telescopes, I am told, are once again usable due to the drop in air pollution and city illumination levels since Independence.) Scientific institute laboratories such as these appear to a layman to be well equipped, and Ecotopian scientists are often invited to international congresses where their work is highly respected for its originality, though of course it is not as broad in scope as ours, nor anywhere near as well financed. The atmosphere of the research institutes, considering the great national responsibility they bear, is surprisingly playful. There is a great deal of sitting around with coffee or tea or marijuana, and many projects seem to make constant use of children's construction-set materials. The electronic equipment in many labs lends itself to games in which, I was told, a certain amount of fooling around turns out to generate surprising and useful ideas. Ecotopia also manages to support a sizable number of utterly independent and very small research outfits, often two- or three-person labs. Many scientists think these tiny grouplets are the source of the most brilliant ideas in Ecotopian science---for reasons that are not well understood but are thought to involve the kind of solitary, independent minds attracted to such free circumstances. It is not clear how these small projects are financed, much less supervised, if indeed they are supervised. Evidently there are central government funds that are disbursed through an organization like our National Science Foundation, whose advisory committees are required to devote certain sums to high-risk projects, usually proposed by younger scientists. It is believed that if one in a hundred of these projects results in an interesting discovery, the money can be consid ered well spent. The great example cited to me was the finding of a photochemical mechanism that could tap electrical energy directly from algae and other growing plants. This was the work of two 26-year-olds, reportedly rather antisocial types with somewhat odd interests that happened to contain an unusual combination of botany, plant physiology, and electronic miniaturization. (Although this achievement has not yet proved itself in practical power-generation, it did win them a Nobel Prize.) My scientific background is not sufficient to evaluate some of the claims that have been made to me, but great stress has been laid on the fact that natural processes have been adapted to produce chemicals we obtain from coal and oil. Thus fermentation---which we use mainly to make liquor---turns grain, beet sugar, and other crops into alcohol which is widely used for heating and cooking, as well as for the production of other chemicals. The Ecotopians are extremely proud that they employ petroleum products solely for lubrication---and even there are making progress toward producing heavy, durable oils from vegetable sources. Plant breeding is highly developed, and plant care has attained a positively Japanese level of sophistication. Special types of oceanographic research are highly advanced; a seaborne unit, for instance, has been at work for some years in an attempt to decode the "speech" of dolphins and whales---specially equipped divers live among dolphins at sea for long periods, just as ethnographers would do if they wished to learn the language of an unknown tribe. Active research also continues on additional ways of harnessing solar, wind ad tidal power. Ecotopian scientists complain as ours do about lack of funding for particularly intriguing projects. There is some grumbling even now about the abandonment of expensive high-energy nuclear and fusion research soon after Independence. But money seems to be available for a great range of basic biological investigations, and the reorientation of national production technology which followed Independence was achieved only through massive scientific effort. There is one striking lack in Ecotopian science, which reminds one how drastic have been the effects of secession in some areas. Neither in Ecotopian universities nor in research institutes can one find professors of several once flourishing disciplines: political science, sociology and psychology. Their practitioners evidently drifted off into programs that take place in research institutes, farms, factories, and other productive institutions of the society. Here students are subjected \_ to the same standards as their "masters." The publication of a brilliant short paper counts for more than a number of dull long ones. "Inventions," whether abstract ideas, proposals for better production processes or creative works, are greatly respected and much discussed. And participation in the community, whether a college, a living group, or an academic association, is thought to be important for all. (Dissident loner types refer to this last as the "togetherness test.") Thus the service-station and degree-mill concept of the university, which still tends to prevail with us, has been destroyed in Ecotopia. The services in research, weapons development, policy formulation, and the like, which universities rendered business and government before Independence, must be performed by entirely new organizations. Such a great departure was, of course, facilitated by the fact that at Independence the support of the federal government in Washington, which had been the mainstay of virtually all university research, was abruptly ended. What has taken its place may not be as grand as the old universities, with their exciting conduits to the White House and Wall Street. On the other hand, the curious combination of intellectual rigor and lack of customary disciplinary boundaries may explain why so many Ecotopians are expert at arguing esoteric positions (sometimes merely to see if they can successfully defend them!); intellectual discussion is enjoyed almost for its own sake, as an art. And this hypothetical turn of mind, encouraged by the Ecotopian universities, may have facilitated the adoption of so many startling innovations so quickly and with so little relative disruption.