Word: basics
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Cambridge Project, of course, is a "basic" rather than "applied" research project, and Harvard and M. I. T. organizations connected with the project have been laying great emphasis on the fact that it is to be devoted to the development of basic theory rather than to applied problem solving for the Department of Defense. But the language of the actual M. I. T. proposal itself, as distinct from the explanations and clarifications which have been produced for consumption within the Cambridge community, makes it rather obvious that the distinction between basic and applied research in the behavioral sciences...
...proposed research program is a university based effort and therefore oriented to advance a major field of science. While it is a basic research effort, it is likely to lead to many applications. The potential applications of the advances made- if the project succeeds- may perhaps be better understood by those in public life who will apply the knowledge than by the scientists themselves. Yet it is clear to us that public policy will be aided by advances in the understanding of human interactions and in the prediction of the performance of social systems...
...Department of Defense, and links several of these with specific methodological tools, which will be developed through the Cambridge Project. The emphasis of this section and of the entire proposal, which runs on for some 82 pages, is on the concrete value to the Department of Defense of "basic research" in social science computer methodology: the document tries to leave no doubt that the project will aid the Defense Department in carrying out what in Pentagonese is vividly referred to as its "mission...
...under Defense Department sponsorship. This trend. by concentrating experience in social science research within the Defense Department, serves to insure that the Defense Department will continue to be the only organization able to use the new applications which its social science programs develop. Alker sees ARPA's move into basic methodological research via the Cambridge Project as the most monopolistic development of all in this regard. In computer technology and the behavioral sciences, the technology contains imperatives of its own, and these are already making obsolete the traditional safeguards of academic openness to which the Cambridge Project so carefully adheres...
...other hand, the question of how the research will be used is one that needs to be pursued honestly and with a grounding in reality. The argument is made that since the Cambridge Project is funding "basic" research, there is no sure way of determining how whatever applications may eventually arise from a given research project will be put into use-and that therefore science should be allowed to run its course. But while it is true that the outcome of theoretical or advanced research is impossible to forecast with great accuracy, that does not mean that we can only...