PERSPECTIVE
In order to put McDonald's involvement in the UFO controversy in
proper perspective it is necessary to view the controversy from its
inception. Yet this itself is a difficult task because the matter is
complex, convoluted and strewn with half truths and falsehoods; there
is really no adequate way in which to adequately convey the flavor of
the period from 1947-65 in an introductory chapter.
[1]
But it is possible to cover some of the important events and in the process
attempt to communicate something of the atmosphere which pervaded the
subject at the time McDonald began his work in 1966. It would appear
that the best way to briefly go about this is to first present a
discussion of the general nature of the phenomenon reported since
about 1947 and then indicate the response to it by the Air Force, the
scientific community and the layman.
Although there have been efforts to relate the post World War II UFO
phenomenon to the foo-fighters (balls of light seen by fighter
pilots) of World War II, the airship wave of 1897, Medieval accounts
of things seen in the sky and the miraculous events recounted in the
Bible,
[2] for
our purposes this kind of information is too esoteric and
the links too tenuous for it to be relevant to setting the stage for
McDonald's entrance. We can be content to engage the subject in 1947
when it first came to the attention of the American public as a
result of the publicity afforded the sighting made by Kenneth Arnold
as he flew his plane over Mt. Rainier, Washington, on June 24, 1947.
Arnold allegedly saw eight disc-shaped objects flying at an estimated
1500 miles per
hour. The disc shape, somewhat similar to an inverted saucer on top
of an upright saucer, soon became the prototype description as
reports accumulated. Of course, many other shapes and variations on
the saucer prototype, as well as the classic unidentified "light in
the sky" have also been described.
J. Allen Hynek, Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at
Northwestern University, has provided us with a typology of UFO
reports which is useful for obtaining an initial grasp of the data.
His typology consists of: nocturnal lights, daylight discs,
radar-visual reports, close encounters of the first kind, close
encounters of the second kind and close encounters of the third kind.
Nocturnal Lights are the most common UFO report and consist of
unidentified lights in the night sky. As a class of reports they are
numerically large, but evidentially not as significant as the other
types. Hynek argues that:
[3]
The typical Nocturnal Light is a bright light, generally
not a point source, of indeterminate linear size and of
varying color but most usually yellowish-orange, although
no color of the spectrum has been consistently absent,
which follows a path not ascribable to a balloon,
aircraft, or other natural object and which often gives
the appearance of intelligent action. The light gives
no direct evidence of being attached to a solid body but
presumably may be.
The Daylight Disc, on the other hand, provides much more information
to the researcher.
[4]
The object (often objects in pairs) is variously described
as oval, disc-shaped, "a stunted dill pickle," and
ellipsoid. It generally is shiny or glowing (but almost never
described as having distinct point source lights),
yellowish, white or metallic. It exhibits in most cases
what we would anthropomorphically describe as "purposeful"
directed motion, with the ability to accelerate extremely
rapidly. No loud sound or roars seem to be associated
with Daylight Discs; sometimes there is a faint swishing
sound.
As we move through the typology the evidence claims UFO researchers
are prepared to make for their data increases. The Radar-Visual
report consists of an observation made both with instrumentation and
visually by one or more witnesses.
[5]
. . . it can be said that the radar operator
observes a blip on his screen that, he avers, is definite, is
akin to the type of blip given by a large aircraft, is not the
result of malfunction, and does not
resemble "weather phenomena." A visual sighting is
characteristically a light, or possibly a formation of lights
strikingly unfamiliar to the observer, with generally only a
suggestion, if that, of an object dimly outlined by the brightness of
the lights. The speeds involved are invariably high, but
combinations of high speeds at one time and hovering at another are
not uncommon. Reversals of motion and sharp turns, not abrupt
90-degree turns, are characteristic of Radar Visual cases.
The Close Encounter cases are the most impressive from the viewpoint
of the researcher. A brilliant light or object is seen within 500
feet, sometimes much closer, to the observer, although in Close
Encounters of the First Kind there is no interaction between the
percipient and the stimulus. Hynek describes a prototype thusly:
[6]
Brilliant luminescence, relatively small size (of the order of tens
rather than hundreds of feet), generally oval shape--sometimes capped
with a dome-absence of conventional wings, wheels or other
protuberances, and ability to hover and to accelerate very rapidly to
high speeds characterize the UFO at close encounter.
The Close Encounter of the Second Kind does not differ from the Close
Encounter of the First Kind except that the stimulus interacts with
the environment in some way and leaves physical effects. Hynek
States:
[7]
The physical effects reportedly include tangible marks on the ground
that can remain in evidence for days or even months and come
ostensibly from physical contact of the craft with the ground, the
scorching or blighting of growing things (particularly plants and
trees), discomfort to animals as evidenced by their behavior, and
such physical
effects on the human observer as temporary paralysis, numbness, a
feeling of heat, and other discomfort. Interference with the local
gravitational field is sometimes also reported, as evidenced by the
reports of some observers of temporary feelings of weightlessness or
other inertial effects, as though the well-known laws of inertia had
been temporarily abrogated.
One remarkable reported physical effect involves interference in electrical circuits, causing car engines to cease functioning temporarily, radios to cut out or to exhibit uncommon static, car headlights to dim or be extinguished for a short while, and, on occasion, car batteries to overheat and deteriorate rapidly.
The Close Encounter of the Third Kind is even more bizarre, for it
involves the reporting of the presence of an animated creature as
part of the UFO observation. Hynek does not provide much of a
prototype, he says:
[8]
They differ from other close encounter
cases only by definition, by the reported presence of occupants, (in
or about the craft) and by the fact that these encounters are not as
frequently reported by highly trained and sophisticated people as are
other close encounters.
Up to this point the qualitative aspects of the phenomenon have
received attention. Let's now turn to the quantitative. Below is a
table indicating the number of sightings of all types reported to the
Air Force from 1947-65. These reports are almost exclusively
domestic, but a few from American bases abroad are also included
(see Table I). This does
not mean the phenomenon itself is primarily
domestic, on the contrary it is global in its scope. However,
international communication about the problem and knowledge of
foreign research itself is so limited that it is wise at this point
to treat the American experience in isolation. Suffice it to say
that reports of the same sort of data exist throughout the world.
Although Hynek's typology encompasses that aspect of the UFO
phenomenon which he believes represents legitimate data, there is
|
| TABLE I | |
|---|---|
|
| |
| Years | Reports |
| 1947 | 122 |
| 48 | 156 |
| 49 | 186 |
| 50 | 210 |
| 51 | 169 |
| 52 | 1501 |
| 53 | 509 |
| 54 | 487 |
| 55 | 545 |
| 56 | 670 |
| 57 | 1006 |
| 58 | 627 |
| 59 | 390 |
| 60 | 557 |
| 61 | 571 |
| 62 | 474 |
| 63 | 389 |
| 64 | 562 |
| 65 | 887 |
| SOURCE: |
Project Blue Book, Project Blue Book Information Office, SAFOI, Washington, D.C., August 1, 1967, p. 7. |
|
another component to the problem which most investigators
conceive of as illegitimate, but because it is so bizarre it has
received more that its share of attention and consequently,
according to many UFO researchers, has had a disproportionate and
unfavorable effect on the study of the UFO problem. It is the
contactee issue.
Hynek spoke of occupants in his prototype of the Close Encounter
of the Third Kind. However, he was unwilling to entertain
contactee reports. In the lexicon of Ufology the former consists
of observations of, but not interactions with, alleged UFO
occupants, while the latter consists of definite interaction with
the occupants, often of a religious or semi-religious nature and
often including claims of trips to other planets and/or
assertions that the observers themselves are from other planets.
The circus-type atmosphere which these reports created flourished
in the 1950s and continues to exist to some degree. A few of the
better known of the contactees were George Adamski, Truman
Bethurum, Daniel Fry, Orfeo Angelucci, Howard Menger and Gabriel
Green. They all wrote books and/or had followings based upon the
extraterrestrial messages of doom or salvation which they
profferred.
[9]
They attracted a great deal of attention
and regardless of the merits of the data enumerated by Hynek, data
which serious UFO investigators claimed was, and is, anomalous,
the contactee cults distracted interest from those data and
increased the probability that the scientific community would
view the UFO question as a nonsense problem and not submit it to
rigorous scrutiny.
Soon after the initial American UFO observations in June 1947 the
Air Force as the defender of American air space took the
responsibility to look into the problem and determine whether
these events jeopardized the national security of the United
States. Because earlier observations made in 1946 were over
Sweden the fear existed that they were actually tests of Russian
missiles which could, if they had intercontinental range,
change the complexion of the embryonic cold war.
The Air Force maintained the sole official responsibility for
explaining UFO data between 1947 and 1969. Volumes could be
written on this subject alone. However, such detail is not
necessary for the purposes of this study. What is important is
that the Air Force staffed a small investigatory project which
from 1947-49 was called Project Sign, from 1949-51 was
named Project Grudge and from 1952-69 bore the code name
Project Blue Book. The reports and press releases of each
of the projects assured the public that the sightings were not a
threat to the national security and could be explained as
misidentifications of stars, planets and man-made objects, or
were natural atmospheric phenomena, or hoaxes.
[10]
The Air Force adhered to this public position for 22 years until the
closing of Blue Book in 1969.
The Air Force made its pronouncements against a background of
claims that it did so after careful investigation of sightings
with the aid of some of America's finest scientific talent. The
implication for members of the scientific community became
obvious. The Air Force, through the use of the ample scientific
muscle at its disposal, could readily explain the UFO sightings
which perplexed the untrained layman.
To the practicing scientist this meant that further work on the
problem was unnecessary. This attitude received further reinforcement
in the 1950s by the only academically produced treatise on the subject.
A noted Harvard astronomer, Donald Menzel, produced a volume entitled
Flying Saucers.
[11]
Menzel pursued his UFO work very differently from
the way in which he did his astronomy. Rather than trying to explain
sightings by investigating them, i.e., interrogating witnesses, looking
for possible causes for each event, etc., he authored a book containing
examples of the various ways in which the atmosphere could produce a
shining sphere-like or elliptical-shaped phenomenon which could fool
the untrained observer. In so doing he produced the equivalent of an
atmospheric optics text for the layman. However, he never confronted
the data; he only offered possible explanations while assuming that
UFOs were a nonsense problem. Nevertheless, his book became the
definitive academic work on the subject during the 1950s and as such
carried considerable weight among scientists.
In 1963 he followed it with a second book entitled The World of
Flying Saucers written with Lyle Boyd.
[12]
He drafted it in the same vein, treating the entire UFO phenomenon
as preposterous pseudoscience. However, Menzel did get closer to
the data, not through personal investigation of cases, but by
gaining access to and explaining away official Air Force UFO
reports from the Project Blue Book files. This book further
ensconced Menzel as the definitive academic word on UFOs.
Consequently, prior to 1966 academics did very little to elucidate
the UFO problem. Two UFO groups, the National Investigations Committee
on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization
(APRO) used some scientists and engineers as investigators,
but no one made a concerted effort to examine the data. Two
possible exceptions to this generalization, however, were J. Allen
Hynek, at Northwestern University, and his protege Jacques Vallee.
Because Hynek began his Air Force consulting with Project Sign in
1948 and maintained that relationship through 1969 he could claim
closer ties to the UFO phenomenon than any other scientist. Yet,
regardless of what he believed about the significance of the
observations during those years. It was not until 1966 that he
began publicly to take the position that the data deserved closer
scrutiny. On the other hand, Jacques Vallee while ostensibly
Hynek's protege wrote considerably more about the UFO phenomenon.
In 1965 he published Anatomy of a Phenomenon
[13]
and in 1966 with his wife Janine he penned Challenge to Science; the UFO
Enigma.
[14]
In both volumes he took a more systematic look at the
UFO problem than had been previously attempted and tried to interest
the scientific community in looking at the data. Nevertheless, for
all practical purposes there was no UFO research taking place in the
academic community prior to 1966.
The response which the phenomenon evoked from the public proved
detrimental to scientific activity in the short run, but if the data
should prove anomalous, will be very important to the scientific
response in the long run. This is because the public in the form of
various authors, UFO groups and charlatans initially helped to frighten
off rigorously trained investigators, yet these same individuals kept
the UFO question alive, chronicled the data, and overcame Air Force
efforts to inter the subject.
Former Marine Major Donald Keyhoe began it all in 1949 and developed
into the most influential layman in the area. He published an
article in True Magazine for December 1949 in which he claimed there
was more to the UFO problem than the Air Force claimed and
hypothesized an extraterrestrial explanation.
[15]
Thus Keyhoe gave extensive exposure to both the extraterrestrial
and conspiracy hypotheses. He elaborated on these ideas in books
which appeared in 1950,
[16]
1953,
[17]
1955,
[18]
and 1960.
[19]
Each one
enjoyed good sales which helped make the UFO problem a topic of
general conversation. Of course, Keyhoe was not alone. Scores of
authors wrote UFO books in the period 1950-1965, but Keyhoe remained
the most authoritative sounding as a result of his "Pentagon
connections," and probably the most widely read.
Many privately funded UFO organizations were formed during this
time, however, only two still survive. The Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization (APRO) began in 1952 under the direction of
Coral Lorenzen, while the National Investigation Committee on Aerial
Phenomena (NICAP) formed in 1956 with Harrison Brown as its
head. Both functioned primarily as repositories for UFO sighting
reports while they attempted to obtain a hearing for the data before
the scientific community. Each recruited individuals on an
international basis to investigate sightings and forward the
ensuing reports to national headquarters; for APRO Tucson, Arizona,
and for NICAP Washington, D.C. The NICAP group reorganized under
the leadership of Donald Keyhoe (1956-69), attacked the Air Force
vigorously and constantly lobbied on
Capitol Hill for Congressional Hearings on the UFO question. On the
other hand, the APRO leadership, recognizing the inadvisability of
trying to attack the Air Force from its remote Tucson base of operations,
concentrated instead on fostering an image of a research-oriented
organization. In fact, neither group did much research other than
that done by the field investigators. Investigators wrote up and
filed reports running into the tens of thousands over the years, but
due to a lack of funds the research endeavor never went much
further. Consequently, the groups developed their data bases,
published newsletters and made very few converts in the scientific
community.
The contactees referred to above, along with various charlatans and
hucksters, did much harm to the attempt to acquire scientific
legitimacy for the UFO phenomenon. The relatively quiet, by and
large non-sensational, efforts of NICAP and APRO took a back seat to
the bizarre tales of those individuals only interested in making a
fast dollar from the excitement generated by UFO reports. As a
result as time passed the first thought that crossed people's minds
when the subject of UFOs arose was "little green men." This
was obviously the last thing on the minds of the few serious researchers
in the field, but it is representative of the type of image that had
to be altered if the scientific community was going to consider the
subject a legitimate topic of inquiry.
Therefore, we can see that between 1947 and 1965 there were a number
of factors working to keep UFO data from undergoing scientific
scrutiny. The Air Force had consistently written the matter off for
18 years. With these assurances, as well as those from Donald
Menzel of Harvard, most scientists found no need to delve further
into the problem. Moreover, this conclusion was additionally
reinforced by the conspiracy claims of Keyhoe and various contactee
and charlatan assertions which most reasonable men viewed as
fraudulent.
Briefly elucidating these salient aspects of pre-1966 UFO lore
prepares us to embark on our case study in the strategy and practice
of borderland science. I suspect what is observed in this instance
is a slightly exaggerated version of the manner in which "science as
usual" is conducted. This exaggeration appears to have two causes.
The first concerns the perquisites of the scientific profession
which are at stake. That is, if UFO data achieved respectability
the scientists responsible, particularly if the extraterrestrial
hypothesis (ETH) were assumed, would never have to go begging for
research funds again. The second cause for exaggeration involves
the restructuring of world views necessary to accommodate the
hypotheses generally advanced to explain UFO data by those who
believe it has significant scientific and social import. In other
words, the ramifications of accepting UFO sightings as new
observational data are much greater than those customarily
encountered by the scientist in his daily work. Viewed as a
political problem it is concerned with how scientists interact when
confronted with a potentially anomalous phenomenon and at the same
time it raises the issues both of how knowledge grows and of who
gets what, when, where and how in the scientific community?
The term "anomalous phenomenon " is used here for lack of a better
one. Ordinarily an anomalous observation is one which does not fit
into existing theories or frameworks of analysis. What is denoted
here is a special case within this class. It is an observation
which, according to Kuhn, is potentially a cause of a paradigmatic
shift in whatever discipline it occurs.
[20]
To accommodate it, entire world views must be revised, it is not
enough to "fudge a little" or extend already extant
conceptions of reality. These conceptions must undergo extensive
revision or be shelved entirely. This distinction between the
routine and the revolutionary discovery is made explicit by
Blackwell. The routine discovery is made within the confines of
previously established knowledge, while the revolutionary
discovery is made outside these confines and results in a genuine
upheaval of scientific thinking.
[21]
When the possibility of such an event is in the offing the politics
of science associated with it tends to become more visible.
Political scientists generally conceive of the politics of science
in terms of the relationships between government and science. The
areas of principal emphasis have been the impact of government on
science, the scientist as decision-maker, and the scientist and
foreign policy. A few examples should serve to illustrate this.
A number of studies speak to the question of government impact on
science. Price discusses the problems arising from the growth of
the federally funded post World War II scientific
establishment,
[22]
while Reagan examines the funding policies of the federal
government with respect to scientific research.
[23]
In the same area Knorr and Morgenstern address themselves to policy
questions related to the management of military research and
development in the United States.
[24]
Several authors treat the scientist as a decision-maker. In this
respect Wohlstetter considers the effect scientists have on
decisions concerning national and international security
[25] and
Schilling explores President Truman's decision to pursue development
of the H-Bomb.
[26]
Gilpin directs his inquiry to the dispute which developed in the
scientific community over the nuclear test ban treaty,
[27]
while the influence of scientists on policy-making in the executive
branch is appraised by Schooler.
[28]
With regard to foreign policy Schilling outlines the recent history
of the scientist in the policy-making process
[29]
and Skolnikoff illustrates the importance of scientific input to
the Department of State decision-making process.
[30]
Lastly, Nelson uses a study of the Pugwash Conference to indicate
the increased sensitivity on the part of scientists to international
politics.
[31]
On the other hand, "the personal politics of science" encompasses
the everyday interaction of scientists. This approach stresses the
interpersonal strategies invoked by scientists in the pursuit of
knowledge. It fleshes out the skeleton of scientific research to
provide insights into the social processes underlying the formal
outcomes which are found in scholarly journals and texts. In so
doing this personal politics of science brings one to a better
understanding of both the context of discovery and validation.
Unlike the traditional politics of science it is concerned with the
micro-analysis of the behavior of scientists. Although governmental
and scientific institutions play a role, the primary actors in such
analyses are the scientists themselves. The point of such endeavors
is to break out of the time-honored myth which portrays the
scientist as a disinterested observer who, with respect to his
research, is neutral both in the laboratory and in the world.
For example, DeGrazia chronicles the treatment given
Emmanuel Velikovsky and his work by the scientific community. He
concentrates on the interactions of Velikovsky with his critics, the
scientific journals, book publishers and other academics.
[32]
This personal approach to the politics of science is also utilized by
Greenberg. He takes advantage of the knowledge he acquired as an
assistant editor of Science to explicate the history of
the politics of what he calls "pure science" in the United States.
He places emphasis on the period just prior to World War II through
1965 in a discussion directed toward which scientists wanted what
projects, where, and why.
[33]
In a similar (personal) vein Barber points out that while literature
exists which explores political, technological, economic and religious
resistance to new ideas in science, virtually none probes resistance to
new discoveries on the part of scientists themselves. He goes on to provide
examples of this phenomenon.
[34]
There is another stream of literature which converges on these same
problems from the perspective of the sociology and history of
science. It is concerned with the manner in which knowledge
grows.
[35]
The building bloc notion has been generally accepted
until quite recently. In essence this hypothesis suggests that
knowledge grows progressively and incrementally, each new idea
following logically from that which has gone before. However, this
is not the only position in the literature. According to Kroeber it
is the exhaustion of ideas in one area of research which leads to
new problems or orientations and the concomitant growth of
knowledge.
[36]
The identical outcome is produced by a series of
"micro-revolutions" if the argument of Toulmin is
accepted. He claims that old theories are not discarded in crisis
periods, as Kuhn would have us believe, but rather changes are made
in the basic assumptions. Later the "so-called" old theories are
reintroduced or surface in other disciplines.
[37]
The concept of growth accepted by Crane
[38]
and Ziman
[39]
is that of Kuhn
[40]
which was later reinterpreted by Masterman
[41]
and thus accepted by Kuhn.
[42]
Kuhn asserts that periods of
science-as-usual, what he calls "normal science," are interspersed
with periods of crisis and then revolution. Once a revolution
occurs a paradigm develops in a discipline, or a part thereof, which
attracts scientists to it and permits normal science to continue
again. Crisis is precipitated by problems insoluble within the old
paradigm. Revolution is the "breaking out" of the old paradigm and
the formation of a new one in order to resolve crisis-causing
problems. The definition of paradigm is not clear, but Masterman
presents three usages gleaned from Kuhn's work:
Beyond the range of all of these usages
anomalies may occur which could lead to crisis within a discipline
and eventual revolution. The growth of knowledge, then, is
portrayed as a cyclical process.
An aspect of this process which the proponents of all of these
hypotheses fail to entertain is the political component. Although Crane
comes close, by citing the cognitive and social constituents of knowledge
growth,
[43] and
Kuhn even uses the revolutionary analogy to describe
his paradigm shift,
[44]
they nonetheless neglect the political.
It is at that point where this research takes advantage of both the
personal politics of science literature and the growth of knowledge
hypotheses to suggest how scientific growth, of a revolutionary
nature, occurs, not only at the abstract level of theory, but also
at the real world level of the scientific arena. The Kuhnian model
of growth seems potentially the most appropriate to the UFO
phenomenon. It has an appeal regardless of which conception of
paradigm one chooses to adopt. For it is a paradigm shift which is
necessary, if the UFO phenomenon is truly anomalous, to transform
the scientific climate of opinion toward the subject and foster
interest in it. Either a change in world view, a critical
experiment, or some application of new, or heretofore unused,
instrumentation for observational purposes, is required to change
the research picture vis-a-vis the subject. This is necessary
because research cannot go forward as long as the subject is deemed
illegitimate.
To understand the efforts which have been made in this direction
it is constructive to conceive of the scientific process as a
political process. While this is heresy to the positivist, it
is fundamental to bridging the gap between paradigms. As Kuhn
points out there is always resistance to new ideas from the old
guard. In some instances it is overcome, in others the younger
generation of scientists is forced to wait for the older generation
to die off before acceptance of the new ideas can occur. However,
Kuhn does not give much consideration to the nature of the struggle
to obtain acceptance. The struggle results from the
incommensurability of the old and the new paradigm. Each carries
with it a set of criteria for evidence claims and acceptable methods
of validation. Unfortunately, the criteria and methods of the new
paradigm may not be admissible under the standards of the old.
Since the latter has proven itself many times in the past and its
adherents, who are legion, have world views and careers securely
anchored within it, resistance to the new paradigm develops. Yet,
because the standard bearers, of each do not accept one another's
basic assumptions about the world and/or how to do research they can
only talk at, not with, one another; intersubjectively verifiable
claims are not possible because the followers of each approach speak
different languages. When such a situation exists the outcome
becomes a matter of persuading those of the old school to accept the
new. Kuhn is cognizant of this and points out that proponents of
the new paradigm try to make their case by showing that their
paradigm solves the problems which had previously caused a crisis,
predicts further unexpected solutions to other problems and is more
aesthetically pleasing than its predecessor. However, Kuhn does not
see this as a political process and does not elaborate on it.
In fact, he admits that the research which could throw
light on the conversion question has not been done. I believe
this attempt to gain acceptance can usefully be viewed as
politicking, often in a revolutionary way, for purposes of securing
an assenting constituency. These behaviors, and those related to
them, constitute the personal politics of science of this study.
We are well under way to grasping this concept if we define
the scientific process as any and all behaviors engaged in by
scientists to further their science-related interests. This is
a considerable embellishment of the concept of scientific method
which is usually used interchangeably with scientific process.
When traditionally used it consists of an objective scientist
hypothesizing an outcome, doing an experiment, collecting the
resulting data, interpreting the outcome and writing up the findings
for publication. The result of the above expanded definition, on
the other hand, is to suggest that science consists of much more
than what scientists do in their labs or report in books and journal
articles. The scientific process viewed as a political process
does not conceive of the scientist as neutral, but rather as an
advocate. He has a position with respect to the problems he
studies, possibly to a greater extent on controversial issues, and
he desires to promulgate this position. Therefore, he engages in
behaviors which he believes will foster his substantive findings,
argumentation and other research ends. These behaviors are
political and constitute the tactics of the strategy which he feels
will best serve to resolve the issue which is at stake. This view,
then, enlarges the repertoire of activities which comprise the
scientific process and makes it possible to speak of the scientist
as a political actor.
This orientation has certain distasteful aspects to some.
For instance, it makes the behaviors associated with the scientific
method, namely those enumerated above, a subset of the behaviors
included in the scientific process. The figure which appears
below serves to illustrate this. The schematic itself is the
scientific process. It consists of the scientific method represented
by the behaviors in the inner box and the associated political
activities shown peripherally outside the inner box. The latter
are not intended to be all inclusive, but should serve as a useful
heuristic.
Another difficulty with this enlarged conception of the
scientific process is that it permits individuals other than
scientists to participate. This implication should not be
interpreted as a covert means of legitimating as scientific the actions
of those who take part in the scientific process, but who are not
scientists; for this is not the intention of the definition. An
individual can be a party to the scientific process without the
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