Introduction

In 1989 Francis Fukuyama, a senior policy analyst at the U.S. Department of State, wrote a paper about the end of the Cold War entitled ``The End of History?'' It offered an intriguing thesis: ``What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such; that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government'' [Fukuyama, 1989 p 4]. What Fukuyama calls ``the end of history'' is an important change in the context of science for two overlapping reasons. First, because the challenge of the communist Soviet Union drove United States science policy for much of the twentieth century. Second, because the atomic bomb and a subsequent series of events and circumstances---including SDI, the Green Revolution, AIDS, and now global change---have connected science to global geopolitics, irreversibly enlarging its relevant context.

Fukuyama is persuasive in a major way, i.e., the fall of communism amounts to ``an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism''[p 3]. (note: Fukuyama and I herein use ``liberal'' in its broader sense of supporting individual freedoms protected by law, free elections, and free markets; not as an opposite of ``conservative.'') The triumph of western ideas is evident in that liberal democracy and free markets are apparent goals among nations and peoples worldwide (although at the moment Islam seems to contest Western political liberalism). He points to ``the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture in such diverse contexts as the peasants' markets and color television sets now omnipresent throughout China'' [p 3]. Fukuyama recognizes that many problems remain to be worked out, including racism, nationalism, and the distribution of wealth and resources to name only three. But he argues that all systemic ideological alternatives have been exhausted and in the long run Western liberalism ``is the ideal that will govern the material world''[p 4].

However, Fukuyama misses an important unresolved conflict of values, a conflict important for science. Although the two blocs of nations with mostly different views of the world have ended their struggle, both believed nature was something to be dominated and exploited through science and science-based technology. The old conflict will be replaced by a new struggle between the old view of nature as an external, exploitable resource and a new view of ourselves in nature; an emerging consciousness of the limits of Earth as our support system; a struggle over ecological values, a struggle against the unlimited Western consumerism and accompanying faith in growth which is the logical consequence of Western liberal economics. (note: In Social Limits to Growth, Hirsch has explained this faith in growth in terms of ``an outmoded perspective on the nature, and therefore the promise, of economic growth'' [1976, p v].) The parameters and alignments of this new struggle are not yet clear.

Lynn White, the wise historian of medieval technology, has discussed the ancient roots of the Western values which view nature as ours to exploit and consume. (note: See White, 1968, especially Chapter 5, ``The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.'' According to White, these roots lie in our Judeo-Christian heritage which gives man ``dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth'' [Genesis I:26]. When it destroyed pagan animism ``Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects'' [p 86].) However, it was not until science and technology united in the nineteenth century that ``the impact of our race on the environment has so increased in force that it has changed in essence''[ White 1968, p 78], leading to what White calls the ``ecologic crisis.'' The physical manifestation of the crisis is what we call ``global change.'' (note: The crisis comprises impacts of population growth, greenhouse warming, species loss, systemic famine, ozone destruction, local chronic and acute pollution, and other such problems.) The ecologic crisis will drive social problems, for example, when drought reduces food supplies, producing a vicious feedback [Homer-Dixon et al, 1993; Kaplan, 1994]. White summarizes: ``Our ecologic crisis is the product of an emerging, entirely novel, democratic culture'' [p 79]. While man has always affected the environment, we now have both the ideology to buttress exploitative behavior and the technology to amplify it.

This paper asserts that the ecologic crisis will force us into another long, important conflict over fundamental values which will change the context of science. Like some current, bloody manifestations of nationalism, the new struggle is enabled by the ending of the Cold War; before that we could not give the ecologic crisis adequate attention. Science, especially earth science, will become more important in the new context because, although it does not address values, it can discover ecological threats and ways we might avoid or mitigate them.

By ``context of science'' I mean the people, issues, trends, events, resources, and other relevant contents of policy space that affect and are affected by science. The terms ``context'' and ``environment'' are taken to have analogous meanings, differing mainly in that ``context'' includes not only the results of past events (e.g., geologically formed terrain, human institutions) but also history itself (including laws, myths, ``institutional memory,'' traditions, etc.).

The struggle between socialism and liberal democracy shaped the context of modern science. As perceived, the Soviet threat had a large technological component and science, especially physical science, directly supported the U.S. response. The most famous example is our space program. Another is our Antarctic research program which constituted our peaceful presence on that continent, with scientific results a bonus. Unfortunately, just as we recognize our need to better understand the Earth, the end of the Cold War may cause the Antarctic program to be scaled back [Mervis, 1994]. The coming ecological struggle will shape a new context for science, with new criteria for justifying and prioritizing programs: Antarctic research will become more important.

In discussing the links of science to society and politics my perspective is from outside science, particularly from that part of the context with which I am most familiar, the U.S. Congress. As a former physicist with 20 years of science policy experience, I believe this perspective will be informative as most readers will be familiar with the view from inside. I use the pronoun ``we'' to mean all U.S. citizens, including scientists, to avoid a we/they dichotomy. Some of my comments may not be welcome, but I believe this perspective is needed.

My assumptions about science in the United States follow: First, science is worthwhile and necessary for many reasons, and as we make changes and adapt to a new environment, we must be careful to save what is good and needed. Second, not everything about science is good and needed; it is not a perfect institution. Third, a certain amount of research is required simply to increase knowledge, an end in itself, and is quite properly justified as such. (note: Herein I will call research done to increase knowledge, to answer a scientific as opposed to a practical question, ``basic'' research. Such research can also be considered autonomous in that it is guided by its own (internal, scientific as opposed to external, practical) questions and criteria.) While simple increase of knowledge can stand alone as a social goal apart from practical considerations, the amount of such research society should or will support is difficult to determine and will change over time. Fourth, in comparison to other areas of the Federal budget science continues to be well-funded because science has broad, public and congressional support. In 1991 the Federal support of basic research at all institutions was $17B, and the support of all research at academic institutions was $16B. These large numbers contradict the doomsayers. (note: Pessimistic views on funding for research, especially basic research, are common. Examples are Science:The End of the Frontier? [Lederman 1991]; Endangered Support of Basic Science [Weisskopf 1994]; U.S. Is Starving Basic Research [Sagan 1993]. Leon Lederman, Victor Weisskopf, and Carl Sagan are all in various ways spokesmen for the institution of science.) Fifth, Congress' support of science is uninformed, which may be a mixed blessing: To the extent that Congress believes science can help solve the thorny problems facing the nation, it could demand results impossible to achieve. Sixth, in an era of fiscal constraint any conceivable budget scenario will limit the natural growth of the scope of science, forcing choices about what to fund. If scientists decline to make the choices, non-scientists in Congress will choose; both within scientific programs and between scientific and other expenditures.

The purpose of this paper is to place science in its broader political and social context and to discuss science's links to society and politics. Thus two different yet interacting environments concern us here. The ``ecologic crisis'' results from our impact on the natural environment and to deal with that crisis we need a strong institution of science. But the health of our science is threatened by its own ecologic crisis. Changes such as the end of the Cold War are changing the environment of science as well as the natural environment. White says it well:

``The continuation of civilization as we know it depends on science, and the continuance of science would seem to depend on our ability to examine this sphere of human activity objectively and relate it to its human context. Those responsible for the statesmanship of science must develop a scientific understanding of science itself. They must become increasingly aware of the intricacy of the ecology of the scientist. We must learn to think about science in new ways unless we intend to leave the future of science to chance.'' [White, 1968 p 105]

Science as an institution is adapted to a context that no longer exists. My thesis is that in the old context ecological values were not important, in the new one they are central. Science must now adapt to this new and changing context, and that process will be more constructive for the institution if science changes itself rather than leaving the changes to others.