Word: piel
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...Piel does not advocate abandonment of secrecy; but he warns that the American military classifications system is clumsy and misused, while Cold War security measures are encroaching on the rights of the individual scientists as free citizens...
...both Piel and C. P. Snow, Science and Government, secrecy creates a further danger necessarily limits the number of people making high-level scientific decisions; government becomes "a private affair." This is undesirable in a state ruled by democratic principle. It leads to a high percentage of unwise decisions, a tendency towards authoritarianism, or, at least complacent and uninformed voters...
...layman is hampered by ignorance, the researcher is truly strung by elaborate checking , loyalty oaths, and clear procedures. Piel deplores "the promotion of conform and notes: "Everyone who freedom and science must be concerned at the present authoritan drift in our culture." Undeniably, scientific effort is impaired. The individual scientist is regarded as a natural resource, a weapon to "give the modern state its military power. This is not healthy. Furthermost there is excessive emphasis on technology and applied science, with responding neglect of pure science...
...Piel notes, Americans in the past have been singularly fortunate in that most of their pure science research was done by someone else. During the nineteenth century, all the important innovations upon which we based our technology were made abroad. And even in twentieth century nuclear physics, the United States -- first country to develop the atomic bomb -- exploited the theory of foreigners like Bohr, Fermi, Einstein, and Bethe...
...result, over the years, Americans have grown complacent about the theoretical basis of their technological progress. By neglecting basic search, we are attempting a very advised shortcut. "In short, we have mortgaged the future of science in our eagerness to exploit its past," says Piel. He knows that technology is no "miracle...