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OCR for page 261
THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
to attain an intellectual critical mass and to sustain the pace of exciting
investigation while training the novice investigator for his future career.
Although this report gives emphasis to the research and education en-
deavor of the universities, it remains possible for dedicated scholars to
pursue meaningful research in the biology departments of the independent
four-year colleges. Biology is still mainly "small science," and research
in many subdisciplines can be conducted with relatively modest support.
When access to major equipment is required, this is frequently arranged
with the faculty of a nearby university or undertaken during the summer
at some properly equipped institution. These efforts constitute a significant
part of the total life sciences research endeavor.
There are, however, important exceptions to this "small science" pattern.
Decidedly larger aggregates of scientists, focused on a single goal, have
been brought together to design a biological experiment for a space probe
or to study the ecology of a major biome. The integrated approach to
environmental research, stimulated by the International Biological Pro-
gram, promises to open new levels of understanding of the functioning,
resilience, and critical sensitivities of man-dominated ecosystems. In this
program, teams of ecologists, social scientists, and physical scientists-
as many as 150 individuals~ooperate in the analysis of entire ecosystems,
such as the Western grasslands, the Eastern deciduous forests, or the
Southwestern desert. Their data are compiled, coordinated, and utilized
to construct mathematical models of these large systems, one day to be
integrated with models of the atmospheres of the same regions. These sys-
tems involve so many components and multiple interactions that realistic
abstractions or simplifications must be designed for simulation on large
digital computers. The model is a combination of mathematical expressions
and statistical probability distributions representing the processes and inter-
actions of the system, as from soil to plant or plant to animal, and the
impact of temperature on energy flow. A properly designed model can be
used to suggest the potentially most fruitful field experiments from among
the multitude that might be conducted, to identify gaps in existing knowl-
edge through deficiencies in model performance, and to suggest optimal
courses of action in managing real-world ecosystems. In the medical
schools, large groups with representatives from several clinical or preclinical
departments coalesce to collaborate on some aspect of cardiovascular,
neurological, or neoplastic disease. These groups can number from 20 to
200 scientists and may well serve as forerunners of an era of "big biology."
WHAT DO LIFE SCIENTISTS DO?
The average life scientist employed in an institution of higher learning
devotes about half his time to research, 10 to 20 percent to administration,
261
OCR for page 262
262 THE LIFE SCIENCES
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OCR for page 263
THE WORLD OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH
a fourth to a third of his time to instruction, and the balance to assorted
other responsibilities. The actual distribution, of course, vanes with the
type of institution and the specific disciplinary field and according to
whether he has clinical responsibility. This pattern is clearly in contrast
with that of life scientists employed by nonacademic institutions, for whom
research is, to an even greater extent, their dominant responsibility, de-
manding about 70 percent of their effort, while the remainder of their time
is largely devoted to administrative responsibilities. Surprisingly, nonaca-
demic scientists report that they engage in instruction that varies in per-
centages of their time from O to 10 percent about 3 percent for the entire
group but 8.5 percent for physicians. The physicians also give a sixth of
their time to clinical care and hence can devote only about half their time
to research. Some pertinent data in this regard are summarized in Table 18.
The same set of respondents, 6,125 scientists in academic institutions
and 3,054 scientists in nonacademic institutions, were also queried with
respect to whether the research in which they were engaged was basic,
clinical, or applied. It was made clear that these designations were not
necessarily mutually exclusive and, indeed, that an individual could check
more than one of these categories if he felt that this was appropriate, par-
ticularly if he was engaged in more than one research project. Some of the
resultant data are shown in Table 19. It is not surprising that scientists
outside the academic world engage in applied and clinical research. But it
may be surprising that 22 percent of all life scientists in institutions of
higher learning indicated that their research is applied in some degree.
By their own judgment, 76 percent of academically employed physicians
indicate that they are engaged in basic research, and only 12 percent state
that the research that they are doing is "applied" in some fashion. Quite
logically, entomologists and the faculty of agriculture schools consider that
a large fraction of their research is directed toward application. Conversely,
while it was to be anticipated that 48 percent of all life scientists employed
outside the academic world engage in applied research, the fact that 79
percent of all such scientists consider that they are engaged in some funda-
mental research was somewhat surprising. It indicates that the prejudices
of many young scientists against careers outside the academic setting, for
lack of opportunity to engage in basic research, may well be ill founded.
In any case, the reader will recognize that there is no meaningful close
definition of the terms "basic" and "applied" in these regards and that these
indications by our respondents reflect their motivation in addressing specific
problems and not the character of the work. By this measure, one investi-
gator studying sodium transport in human erythrocytes may classify it as
"basic" research; another may consider the same study "clinical," only
because human cells are employed for the purpose; and a third may view
Representative terms from entire chapter:
academic world
