Dr. Barry Commoner
AAAS Board Member 1967-1974
Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
Queens College, CUNY
I am glad to know from your letter of October 9 [1996] that the AAAS Board is going to study the role of the AAAS in addressing the issues facing science and society. I have been particularly interested in these issues and am therefore encouraged to find that the current Board is interested in addressing them.
In this connection, I thought it would be useful to send you the enclosed reprint*, which is a report in 1960 of the AAAS Committee on Science and the Promotion of Human Welfare, which I chaired. As you can see, the report deals extensively with the relationship between the scientific community and science-related social issues. The report also proposes a series of specific procedures regarding how the AAAS can act with regard to these issues. Many of the problems discussed in the report are still with us, and the new ones have become only more urgent.
Since leaving the Board, I have taken notice of the AAAS activities that relate to these issues, and I regret to say that there has been an increasing tendency to either ignore them or, in some unfortunate instances (for example, certain editorials in Science), to attempt to minimize them.
I believe it is now even more urgent than it was in 1960 that the AAAS undertake to meet its responsibility to participate in the discussion and resolution of science-related social issues. Perhaps the ideas and recommendations in the earlier report may help the current Board move in that direction.
* "Science and Human Welfare" (Science, 8 July, 1960)
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