Word: research
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Cambridge Project's present members would care to put the case for government-related social science research in such wierdly millenarian terms as Dr. Pool's. But the notion that the morality of almost any government's actions is likely to be greater as its knowledge about the world increases- regardless of the social basis of the government and the social or economic interests which it represents- seems to be something like an ideological common denominator among the social scientists who are now gathering around the Cambridge Project. "The world," said Harvard Government professor Karl Dcutsch this week "is more...
...point that Cambridge Project backers have repeatedly emphasized is that the Project will accept no classified research, and all developments will be available to anyone who wants to use them. "The methods developed with the support of the Cambridge Project, and data prepared with its support." reads a memorandum circulated at Harvard last week. "shall he available to competent invetigators everywhere.... None of the work undertaken or partially supported by the Project," it continues, "will be subject to military or proprietary secrecy. The Project will not accept as a condition of a grant or contract the requirement that the sponsor...
...implication of this policy is supposed to be that although the Defense Department is sponsoring the research, the research remains apolitical or non- partisan because everyone will have equal access to it. But there is serious doubt as to whether this "equal access" is any more than a meaningless formula. Havward Alker, a professor of political science at M. I. T. who participated in the initial drafting of the Cambridge Project proposal, noted this week that although the Project is directed towards "methodological" research rather than towards applied research specific to the Defense Department, the fact remains that only organizations...
...realm of "equal access," however, Alker sees little hope that the results of the Cambridge Project can be widely distributed and applied in non-Defense areas. The reason for this is that the Defense Department, in spite of its tendency to be suspicious of social science research, has nonetheless come to control the behavioral sciences field. Well over half the government-supported behavioral science research in the U.S. today is 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...
...PROBLEM, in any event, is ultimately not where research money come from but how the research will eventually be used. The fact that the Defense Department is willing to fund a project is only an indicator that the project is likely to have Defense applications, whether immediate or remote. The money does not in itself transform the project, and it would be unfortunate if the mounting arguments over the Cambridge Project became sidetracked into questions of "tainted money" and guilt by association...