[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SOCIAL, BEHAVIORAL, AND ECONOMIC
SCIENCE RESEARCH:
OVERSIGHT OF THE NEED FOR FEDERAL INVESTMENTS AND PRIORITIES FOR
FUNDING
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-22
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. RALPH M. HALL, Texas, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
Wisconsin JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland DAVID WU, Oregon
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas MARCIA L. FUDGE, Ohio
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia BEN R. LUJAN, New Mexico
SANDY ADAMS, Florida PAUL D. TONKO, New York
BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona JERRY McNERNEY, California
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN, JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
Tennessee TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan
MO BROOKS, Alabama
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois
CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education
HON. MO BROOKS, Alabama, Chair
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BENJAMIN QUAYLE, Arizona HANSEN CLARKE, Michigan
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi PAUL D. TONKO, New York
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan
RALPH M. HALL, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Mo Brooks, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Research and Science Education, Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 7
Written Statement............................................ 7
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Science Education,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director, NSF Social, Behavioral,
and Economic Science Directorate
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 13
Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Associate Professor, Washington
University in St. Louis
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Dr. Peter W. Wood, President, National Association of Scholars
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 30
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 36
Written Statement............................................ 37
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director, Directorate for Social,
Behavioral, andEconomics Sciences, National Science Foundation. 62
Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Associate Professor of
Organizational Behavior, OlinBusiness School, Washington
University in St. Louis........................................ 69
Dr. Peter W. Wood, President, National Association of Scholars... 73
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute....... 75
SOCIAL, BEHAVIORAL, AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE
RESEARCH: OVERSIGHT OF THE
NEED FOR FEDERAL INVESTMENTS AND
PRIORITIES FOR FUNDING
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THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Science Education,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mo Brooks
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
hearing charter
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND
SCIENCE EDUCATION
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Social, Behavioral, and Economic
Science Research:
Oversight of the Need for Federal Investments
and Priorities for Funding
thursday, june 2, 2011
10:00 am-12:00 pm
2318 rayburn house office building
1. Purpose
On Thursday, June 2, 2011, the Subcommittee on Research and Science
Education will hold a hearing to examine the need for Federal
investments in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences; to better
understand the impact of this type of research; and to assess its value
to the American taxpayer. The hearing will also examine Federal
research funding and priorities for these sciences at the National
Science Foundation, including the fiscal year 2012 budget request.
2. Witnesses
Dr. Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director, Directorate for Social,
Behavioral, and Economics Sciences, National Science Foundation.
Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Associate Professor of Organizational
Behavior, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Peter W. Wood, President, National Association of Scholars.
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute.
3. Overview
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences consist of
a wide array of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, economics,
geography, linguistics, history, neuroscience, political science,
psychology, sociology, criminology and law. Often multidisciplinary in
nature, the social sciences can provide insight into human behavior
that is essential to developing and understanding new technologies and
science.
The main support for basic research in the (non-medical)
social and behavioral sciences comes from the National Science
Foundation (NSF), accounting for approximately 58 percent of federal
support for basic research at U.S. colleges and universities.
Within NSF, the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and
Economic Sciences (SBE) is responsible for the varied research
endeavors that fall under these sciences. SBE has requested $301.1
million for FY12, an 18 percent increase from FY10 enacted funding
levels. SBE supports approximately 58 percent of Federally funded basic
research in academic institutions in the social, behavioral, and
economic science fields.
4. Background
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences focus on human
activity. Historically rooted, evidence of these sciences can be traced
to ancient philosophers, scientific pioneers of their time. The focal
point of social, behavioral, and economic sciences is the analysis of
the human brain, human behavior, and the actions of groups and
organizations. ``The social, behavioral and economic sciences comprise
a number of different disciplines focused on the common goal of
developing a deeper understanding of human beings at every level, from
brains, to individual behavior, to societies.The quest for deeper
understanding of humans is key to managing society's most critical
challenges.'' \1\
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\1\ Social, Behavioral and Economic Research in the Federal
Context, National Science and Technology Council, Subcommittee on
Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, January 2009.
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Anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, linguistics,
neuroscience, political science, psychology, sociology, and statistics
are just some of the diverse fields that fall under the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences. From research about historical
migration patterns to research about speech patterns, these sciences
cross a myriad of issues that have influenced or will affect human
development.
Examples of research in the social, behavioral, and economic
sciences include the study of the human behavior under stress in order
to understand and address the effects of combat tours of duty or
extended deployments; the study of nuclear deterrence strategy during
the Cold War; examining the causes and consequences of criminal
behavior; and economic measurements regarding the effects and
significance of Federal budget deficits. \2\
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\2\ Fostering Human Progress: Social and Behavioral Science
Research Contributions to Public Policy, Consortium of Social Science
Associations, October 2001.
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The Federal Role
Policy researchers and economists tend to agree that public
investment in science can yield high rates of return to society.
``Without the data, research, and analyses that [social, behavioral,
and economic] scientists can provide, there is a greater likelihood of
engaging in ineffective or counterproductive policies.'' \3\ Examples
of scientific progress and policy applications stemming from social,
behavioral, and economic sciences are abundant. Collecting data after
natural or man-made disasters is essential for preparing for potential
catastrophes, training emergency response teams, and planning emergency
procedures. Research on the spread of infectious disease utilizes
statistical models accounting for numerous variables allowing for a
better understanding of how and why disease spreads as well as the
identification of methods to mitigate the spread of disease. Complex
national security missions, which range from counterinsurgency to
security and stability operations, are better served by a security
force that understands and appreciates the individual, tribal,
cultural, ethnic, religious, social, economic, and other aspects of the
local human terrain.
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\3\ Social, Behavioral and Economic Research in the Federal
Context, National Science and Technology Council, Subcommittee on
Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, January 2009, p. 5.
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In January 2009, the Bush Administration released a National
Science and Technology Council Report, Social, Behavioral and Economic
Research in the Federal Context, providing the most recent assessment
of the Federal role and opportunities for the social, behavioral, and
economic sciences in order to ``provide policymakers with evidence and
information that may help address many current challenge areas in
society, including education, health care, the mitigation of terrorism,
the prevention of crime, the response to natural disasters, and a
better understanding of our rapidly changing global economy.'' \4\
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\4\ Ibid, cover letter.
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The report listed three foundational research themes: 1)
Understanding the Structure and Function of the Brain in order to
provide insight into individual behaviors; 2) Understanding the
Complexity of Human Societies and Activities to capture the webs of
interpersonal and interorganizational ties within and across
populations; and 3) Understanding Human Origins and Diversity.
In addition, the report identified four key priority research areas
for the Federal government: 1) Develop specific tools and technologies
for social, behavioral, and economic studies; 2) improve methods for
collecting and managing data; 3) Build more integrated systems to allow
for sharing across data sets; and 4) Focus on scientific questions with
immediate policy implications to ensure that policies generate evidence
of their efficacy.
While calling for ``sustained investment and ongoing dialog among
Federal agencies, academic and private sector researchers, and
policymakers,'' \5\ the report also notes that not all social,
behavioral, or economic sciences ``require or are even appropriate for
government support. For example, consumer behavior and the successes
and failures of commercial marketing campaigns are major targets of SBE
research but are well funded through industry support.'' \6\
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\5\ Ibid, p. 2
\6\ Ibid, p. 6
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Federal Funding
Basic and applied research in the social, behavioral, and economic
sciences is funded out of a number of federal agencies, led by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF). According to research funding statistics compiled by NSF, \7\ a
total of $1.12 billion was obligated to basic and applied research in
all social sciences for fiscal year 2009 (FY09), including economics.
Psychology was counted separately and was funded at a total of $1.86
billion in FY09, of which $1.71 billion was funded by Health and Human
Services (primarily NIH). Federal support for academic research in
particular was $733 million for social sciences and $856 million for
psychology.
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\7\ Preliminary data for FY2009 federal research obligations.
National Center for Science and Engineerings Statistics. National
Science Foundation. Data are based on self-reporting by agencies. In
many cases, especially where there is interdisciplinary work, it is
hard to tally exact dollars spent on one field or another, so these
values are at best an estimate.
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The basic Federal research funded in the social, behavioral, and
economic sciences focuses on understanding why humans think, feel and
act the way they do; the study of interpersonal behavior from small
groups to global forces; how humans relate to the rest of the natural
world; and how we came to possess our uniquely human abilities. The
main support for basic research in the (non-medical) social and
behavioral sciences comes from the NSF, accounting for approximately 58
percent of federal support for basic research at U.S. colleges and
universities. In some fields, including archaeology, political science,
linguistics, and non-medical aspects of anthropology, psychology, and
sociology, NSF is the predominant or exclusive source of federal basic
research support.
The SBE budget request for FY12 is $301 million, an 18 percent
increase over FY10. Approximately 14 percent of SBE's budget is used
not for basic research but to fund the collection and analysis of data
on science and engineering research, education, and workforce trends
(including the data presented here), resulting in the biannual ``S&E
Indicators.''
The National Science Foundation
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences have been funded
since the late 1970s at the National Science Foundation (NSF),
originally as part of a combined Directorate with biological sciences.
In the 1990s, the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic
Sciences (SBE) was established. The SBE Directorate seeks to ``promote
the understanding of people and their lives by supporting research that
reveals basic facets of human behavior; to encourage research that
helps provide answers to important societal questions and problems; to
work with other scientific disciplines to ensure that basic research
and the solutions to problems build upon the best multidisciplinary
science and to provide mission-critical statistical information about
science and engineering in the U.S. and the world.'' \8\
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\8\ http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/about.jsp
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The SBE Directorate supports research that sustains a primary
knowledge of human behavior and interaction, social and economic
systems, and organizations and institutions. To improve the
understanding of science and engineering, SBE provides tools for
tracking human and institutional resources required to build the
nation's science and engineering infrastructure. Furthermore, the SBE
Directorate works to supply evidence and resources to respond to many
of today's challenges, ranging from education to terrorism. SBE funded
scientists, who cover myriad scientific fields, perform
interdisciplinary research that takes advantage of a new set of tools
and holds the promise of providing insights and solutions not otherwise
available. Research conducted through SBE includes efforts to
restructure regulatory mechanisms, assess the impact of economic
policies on economic growth, and understand the implications of tax
policy changes in order to bolster work to strengthen the U.S. economy.
It is important to note that while most of the research currently
funded by NSF in the social and behavioral sciences is not driven by
any one application, the line between basic and applied research in
these fields can often be blurred. For example, a sociologist
interested in the successes and failures of teamwork in a small
business environment might make fundamental discoveries applicable to
other environments, including the military. As a result, much of the
academic research currently funded by NSF may ultimately find
application in national security (or other fields), even when the
research was focused on non-military populations.
The SBE Directorate has requested $301.1 million for FY12, an 18
percent increase from FY10 enacted funding levels. \9\ In total, the
Directorate supports approximately 3,500 senior researchers, 2,500
graduate students, 1,330 undergraduate students and 700 postdoctoral
researchers and other professionals at U.S. universities and research
institutions. Currently, SBE funding accounts for 3.6 percent of the
entire NSF budget.
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\9\ All budget details come from the National Science Foundation
FY12 Budget Request to Congress, Social, Behavioral and Economic
Sciences Section.
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The SBE Directorate participates in a number of crosscutting and
NSF-wide projects. The Directorate is organized in four parts:
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
The Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) supports
research and related activities to advance scientific knowledge about
humans, spanning anthropology, geography, and cognitive and behavioral
sciences. Fields of study include cognitive neuroscience, language and
culture, origins and evolution, and the environment. The FY12 budget
request for BCS is $105.9 million, a 12 percent increase from FY10
enacted funding levels.
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
The Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES) works to improve
the understanding of human, social and organizational behavior and
economic, political and social institutions. Research conducted through
SES includes projects preparing for and mitigating the effects of
natural disasters and projects focusing on human cognition and
behavior. The FY12 budget request for SES is $113.8 million, nearly a
15 percent increase from FY10 enacted funding levels.
Office of Multidisciplinary Activities
The Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (SMA) is a central
location for SBE activities that work across disciplinary boundaries.
SMA works to develop infrastructure support for interdisciplinary
activities and helps to seed future multidisciplinary activities.
Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPRF), Research Experiences
for Undergraduates (REU) Sites, Science of Science and Innovation
Policy (SciSIP), and agency-wide Science of Learning Centers (SLCs) are
funded out of SMA. The FY12 budget request for SMA is $43.4 million,
over a 60 percent increase from FY10 enacted funding levels.
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES)
collects, interprets, analyzes, and disseminates objective data on
science and engineering, including the widely used biennial Science and
Engineering Indicators. NCSES data collections include those related to
U.S. competitiveness and STEM education. NCSES is required to supply
information that is useful to practitioners, researchers, policymakers,
and the public, and as such releases nearly 30 reports annually. The
FY12 budget request for NCSES is $38 million, nearly a 10 percent
increase from FY10 enacted funding levels.
Major investments in the FY12 SBE Directorate budget request include:
$57 million, a 174 percent increase, for clean energy
research in the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability
(SEES) portfolio (NSF priority investment). In addition to supporting
the SEES Sustainability Research Networks, Sustainability Energy
Pathways and Postdoctoral Fellowships, funding will also strengthen
``existing climate research and energy investments, and [support] both
existing and new investments in understanding energy use and in
decision making, coastal communities, and vulnerability and
resilience.''
$12 million in new funding for the NSF-wide
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and engineering
(CIF21) to fund Observation Data network Pilots, Research Data on
Innovation, research on understanding and designing the 21st century
networked society, and improved access to the large surveys supported
by SBE.
$12 million in new funding for research on cybersecurity,
economics and society as part of NSF's commitment to research in the
area of cybersecurity. SBE's specific role will be to support the Cyber
Economic Incentives theme within Comprehensive National Cybersecurity
Initiative (CNCI).
Chairman Brooks. The Subcommittee on Research and Science
Education will come to order. Good morning. Welcome to today's
hearing entitled, ``Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science
Research: Oversight of the Need for Federal Investment and
Priorities for Funding.'' In front of you are packets
containing the written testimony, biographies, and truth in
testimony disclosures for today's witness panel.
I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening
statement.
Good morning and welcome to all of our witnesses. Today's
hearing presents us with an opportunity to better understand
the research being conducted in the social, behavioral, and
economic sciences and to take a closer look at the federal
funding of such research.
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences are those
that focus on human behavior and interaction. Often termed the
soft sciences to distinguish them from the physical and life
sciences, these sciences run the gamut from geography and
sociology to linguistics and political science. In fact, we
have four different disciplines represented at the witness
table today: history, psychology, anthropology, and economics.
The Federal Government invests in social, behavioral, and
economic sciences through several agencies in order to better
understand issues such as how children learn, how soldiers
think, and how humans react to disease.
The National Science Foundation, whose oversight falls
within the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee, is the largest
federal supporter of the social, behavioral, and economic
science research, funding close to 60 percent of basic research
for these sciences at academic institutions. It is my
understanding that in several disciplines it is either the
predominant or exclusive source of federal basic research
support.
The goal of this hearing is not to question whether the
social, behavioral, and economic sciences produce interesting
and sound research, as I believe we all can agree that they do.
Rather, the goal of our hearing is to look at the need for
Federal investments in these disciplines, how we determine what
these needs are in the context of national priorities, and how
we prioritize funding for these needs, and only, excuse me, not
only within the social science disciplines but also within all
science disciplines, particularly when Federal research dollars
are scarce.
As with all of the hearings I have chaired or co-chaired
this Congress, I am particularly interested in understanding
the NSF investments in these sciences, including the amounts
asked for in the fiscal year 2012, budget request and how those
priorities were made. In an effort to be responsive to the
American taxpayer, Congress needs to ensure that all Federal
funding decisions are wise and produce significant value for
this Nation.
I look forward to a healthy discussion with all of our
esteemed witnesses today, and I thank you for joining us.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Brooks follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Mo Brooks
Good morning, and welcome to all of our witnesses. Today's hearing
presents us with an opportunity to better understand the research being
conducted in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences and to take
a closer look at the Federal funding of such research.
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences are those that focus
on human behavior and interaction. Often termed the ``soft'' sciences
to distinguish them from the physical and life sciences, these sciences
run the gamut from geography and sociology to linguistics and political
science. In fact, we have four different disciplines represented at the
witness table today: history, psychology, anthropology, and economics.
The Federal government invests in social, behavioral, and economic
sciences through several agencies in order to better understand issues
such as how children learn, how soldiers think and how humans react to
disease. The National Science Foundation, whose oversight falls within
the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee, is the largest Federal supporter
of the social, behavioral, and economic science research, funding close
to 60 percent of basic research for these sciences at academic
institutions. It is my understanding that in several disciplines it is
either the predominant or exclusive source of federal basic research
support.
The goal of this hearing is not to question whether the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences produce interesting and sound
research, as I believe we all can agree that they do. Rather, the goal
of our hearing is to look at the need for federal investments in these
disciplines, how we determine what those needs are in the context of
national priorities, and how we prioritize funding for those needs, not
only within the social science disciplines, but also within all science
disciplines, particularly when federal research dollars are scarce.
As with all of the hearings I have chaired or co-chaired this
Congress, I am particularly interested in understanding the NSF
investment in these sciences, including the amounts asked for in the
FY12 budget request and how those priorities were made. In an effort to
be responsive to the American taxpayer, Congress needs to ensure that
all federal funding decisions are wise and produce significant value
for the Nation.
I look forward to a healthy discussion with all of our esteemed
witnesses today, and I thank you for joining us.
Chairman Brooks. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lipinski from
Illinois for an opening statement.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Chairman Brooks. As a former
social scientist this is a topic of particular interest to me.
In the 110th Congress when Congressman Baird chaired this
Subcommittee, he held a series of three hearings examining the
role of social, behavioral, and economic sciences in helping
develop solutions to some of society's most pressing
challenges.
There was a focus of these hearings on energy, national
security, and health. During these hearings we heard testimony
from 13 witnesses, all of whom agreed with little or no
reservation that the SBE sciences provide significant benefits
to the society and a good return on taxpayer investments.
Now, a few years before that when Republicans held the
majority and my friend Bob Inglis chaired the Subcommittee, he
held a hearing on the role of social science research in
disaster preparedness and response. I want to elaborate a bit
on that topic in particular because I believe that with the
severe floods, tornados, wildfires, hurricanes, and oil spills
that hit many of our communities in recent years and the loss
of life and property we have witnessed from some of these
events, especially just in the last few weeks, this will
resonate with all of us.
The Geography and Spatial Sciences Program within the SBE
Directorate has been instrumental in advancing the use of
geographic information systems or GIS. These tools have helped
us visualize and understand the vulnerabilities of communities
to natural disasters, and they have helped policymakers make
better decisions on where to site the critical infrastructure.
Science funded by the SBE Directorate also helps us
understand how to plan for and respond to emergencies. I would
particularly like to mention the Decision, Risk, and Management
Science Program which aims to increase understanding and
effectiveness of decision making by individuals, groups,
organizations, and society.
Now, I am probably a little biased because I received my
Master's degree in a somewhat related field, but I think this
is an absolutely critical area of research. We saw the need in
the BP oil spill with organizational and decision making
problems compounding technological ones. We also are seeing
evidence of human and regulatory failure at the Fukushima
reactor in Japan. SBE research can help us better quantify and
evaluate risks, build resilient organizations, and help
emergency management planners develop the most effective
strategies for keeping members of the community safe.
And then once the immediate danger has passed, science
funded by the SBE Directorate helps us understand the short-
term and long-term implications of how individuals and
communities respond to these events.
Now, there are some who would presume to be able to
determine whether a research proposal is important enough to
society to merit support based solely on the title of the
grant. I think a story from a few years back would be
instructive and stands as a warning to those who try to judge a
grant by its title, be it in SBE or any other field.
Forty years ago Senator William Proxmire created the Golden
Fleece Awards long before Taxpayers for Common Sense
appropriated the term. Senator Proxmire famously gave one of
these awards to E.F. Knipling for his research on the sexual
behavior of the screw-worm fly. The Senator did not know it at
the time, but the screw-worm is a parasite that kills livestock
and occasionally humans, and this particular line of research
helped save the lives of millions of livestock and as a result
saved the cattle industry $20 billion.
That was a $20 billion return on a $250,000 grant. On top
of that consumers enjoyed a five percent decrease in the cost
of beef at the supermarket. Dr. Knipling earned--ended up
winning the 1992 World Food Prize for his work on parasites,
and the Senator ended up apologizing for his attack.
Now, I tell this story not because I want to pick on
Senator Proxmire or because I think the NSF is perfect.
Reasonable people might disagree about priorities within the
SBE Directorate, and it is our job to be vigilant and to make
sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely. And in spite
of my own background or maybe because of it I question the
value of some social science research that I read sometimes out
there.
I am going to paraphrase our former colleague, Dr. Baird,
in saying that in today's hearing as in the previous four
hearings I mentioned, I hope we are all prepared to have a
rational discussion about the value of social, behavioral, and
economic sciences overall to our society and to the taxpayer.
And so I thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today.
As I said, I think it is always important that we do make sure
that the taxpayers' money is being used wisely, and I want to
thank our witnesses for being here this morning. I look forward
to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ranking Member Daniel Lipinsky
Thank you Chairman Brooks. As a former political science professor
this is a topic of particular interest to me. In the 110th Congress,
when Congressman Baird chaired this Subcommittee, he held a series of
three hearings examining the role of the social, behavioral, and
economic--or SBE--sciences in helping to develop solutions to some of
society's most pressing challenges. The themes he selected were energy,
national security, and health. During these three hearings, we heard
testimony from 13 witnesses, all of whom agreed with little or no
reservation that the SBE sciences provide significant benefits to
society and return on taxpayer investments.
A few years before that, when Republicans held the majority and my
friend Bob Inglis chaired this Subcommittee, he held a hearing on ``The
Role of Social Science Research in Disaster Preparedness and
Response.'' I want to elaborate a bit on that topic in particular
because I believe that with the severe floods, tornadoes, wildfires,
hurricanes, and oil spills that have hit many of our own communities in
the last few years, and the loss of life and property we have witnessed
from some of these events just in the last few weeks, this will
resonate with all of us. The Geography and Spatial Sciences Program
within the SBE Directorate has been instrumental in advancing the use
of geographic information systems--or GIS. These tools have helped us
visualize and understand the vulnerabilities of communities to natural
disasters, and they have helped policy makers make better decisions on
where to site critical infrastructure.
Science funded by the SBE Directorate also helps us understand how
to plan for and respond to emergencies. I would particularly like to
mention the Decision, Risk, and Management Science program, which aims
to increase the understanding and effectiveness of decision making by
individuals, groups, organizations, and society. Now I'm probably a
little biased because I received a master's degree in a related field,
but I think this is an absolutely critical area of research. We saw the
need in the BP oil spill, with organizational and decision-making
problems compounding technological ones. We also are seeing evidence of
human and regulatory failure at the Fukushima reactor in Japan.
SBE research can help us better quantifY and evaluate risks, build
resilient organizations, and help emergency management planners develop
the most effective strategies for keeping members of their communities
safe. And then, once the immediate danger has passed, science funded by
the SBE Directorate helps us understand the short-term and long-term
implications of how individuals and communities respond to these
events.
Now there are some who would presume to be able to determine
whether a research proposal is important enough to society to merit
support based simply on the title of a grant. I think a story from a
few years back would be instructive and stand as a warning to those
trying to judge a grant by its title, be it in SBE or any other field.
Forty years ago, Senator William Proxmire created the ``Golden Fleece
Awards,'' long before Taxpayers for Common Sense appropriated the term.
Senator Proxmire famously gave one of these awards to E.F. Knipling for
his research on ``The Sexual Behavior of the Screw-worm Fly.'' Now the
Senator didn't know it at the time, but the screwworm is a parasite
that kills livestock, and occasionally humans, and this particular line
of research helped save the lives of millions of livestock and as a
result saved the cattle industry $20 billion. That was a $20 billion
return on a $250,000 grant, by the way. On top of that, consumers
enjoyed a 5 percent decrease in the cost of beef at the supermarket.
Dr. Knipling, ended up winning the 1992 World Food Prize for his work
on parasites, and the Senator ended up apologizing.
Now I tell this story not because I want to pick on Senator
Proxmire or I think the NSF is perfect. Reasonable people might
disagree about priorities within the SBE Directorate, and it is our job
to be vigilant and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent
wisely. And in spite of my academic experience, I myself question the
value of some of the social science research out there. But I am going
to paraphrase our former colleague, Dr. Baird, in saying that in
today's hearing, as in the previous four hearings I mentioned, I hope
we are all prepared to have a rational discussion about the value of
the social, behavioral, and economic sciences overall to our society
and to the taxpayer. I want to thank the witnesses for being here this
morning and I look forward to your testimonies.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski, for your remarks
and your insight. If there are Members who wish to submit
additional opening statements, your statements will be added to
the record at this point.
At this time I would like to introduce our witness panel.
Dr. Myron Gutmann is the NSF Assistant Director for the Social,
Behavioral, and Economic Science Directorate. Prior to his
appointment at NSF he chaired the Inter-University Consortium
for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan
and specializes in historical demography and population,
environment relationships, with a focus on Europe and the
Americas.
Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, have I pronounced that
correctly? Okay, thank you--is Associate Professor of the Olin
School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. She
holds a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Harvard and
specializes in emotion in the workplace research.
Dr. Peter Wyatt Wood is President of the National
Association of Scholars. Prior to this position, he had a
distinguished career as Professor of Anthropology at both
Boston University and at Kings College as well as provost at
Kings College.
Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth. Did I get that one correct?
Okay, thank you--is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center
of Employment Policy at the Hudson Institute. Prior to her
current employment she was Chief Economist for the Department
of Labor.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each, after which the Members of the Committee
will have five minutes each to ask questions.
I now recognize our first witness, Dr. Myron Gutmann,
Associate Director, Directorate for Social, Behavior, and
Economic Science, National Science Foundation.
STATEMENT OF DR. MYRON GUTMANN,
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, NSF SOCIAL, BEHAVIORAL,
AND ECONOMIC SCIENCE DIRECTORATE
Dr. Gutmann. Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Lipinski, and
Members of the Subcommittee, good morning. Thank you for
inviting me to testify today about the important research that
the National Science Foundation supports in the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences and how that research is
contributing to the Nation's benefit.
NSF is the only agency in the Federal Government that
supports basic research in the social and behavioral sciences.
It does so in an environment that encourages transformative
scientific process, progress that crosses all boundaries.
Through the SBE Directorate, the NSF funds more than half
of the university-based social and behavioral sciences research
in the Nation and almost all of the transformative basic
science research that our society requires. The American people
can take great pride in our record of achievement, which
includes support for 43 Nobel laureates in economics. Among
them is the first woman to win the economics award, Dr. Elinor
Ostrom.
Our sciences are concerned with human actions and decision
making at every level and at every scale. Researchers study
everything from the cells and structures of an individual brain
to individual behavior to the actions of social groups and
organizations. Our mission in research and training encompasses
the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, geography,
economics, anthropology, political science, sociology, and
linguistics.
In addition to the two research divisions, the social and
economic sciences division and the behavioral and cognitive
sciences division, the SBE Directorate houses the National
Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, which produces
data about science and engineering that are widely used in
higher education, industry, and government.
Through partnerships with other NSF Directorates and
federal agencies the scientists we support bring their unique
expertise to the scientific and societal problems of today and
tomorrow. We have recently partnered with the Department of
Defense to fund research that will help understand the
challenges of terrorism and national security and advance
democracy around the world.
In terms of the allocation of funding, our largest
commitments are to economics, to neuroscience, psychology,
learning, and language, to inter-disciplinary science related
to decision making, and to our statistical programs. We also
allocate resources to smaller programs based on the needs of
the science, and the quality of the proposals we receive.
Thousands of scientists assess the merit of the 5,000
proposals we receive annually, leading to some 1,100 awards.
Our basic research is transforming areas of science ranging
from crisis management and response to the organization of the
brain and ways that the brain converts thought to action. This
is a body of work with potential implications for understanding
autism, PTSD, and other cognitive disorders.
In one example, a team composed of SBE scientists,
biomechanical engineers, computer scientists, and others built
a brain computer language interface for an individual with
complete paralysis. He learned to communicate using an
artificial speech synthesizer controlled by his mental efforts.
U.S. taxpayers have already seen measurable gains, SBE-
supported fundamental developments in geographical information
systems. These technologies have resulted in a multi-billion
dollar U.S.-based industry, jobs for our citizens, and great
societal benefits.
In another notable example, researchers supported by SBE
apply economic matching theory to develop a system for kidney
transplants that shortened waiting times and has the potential
to save thousands of lives.
Most dramatically for our Nation's spectrum auctions also
based on theoretical research supported by SBE generated more
than $50 billion for the U.S. Treasury between 1994 and 2007.
There is much more that our scientists can and will do in the
future with our Nation's support.
Thank you for the opportunity to share some of our research
with you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gutmann follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director,
NSF Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Directorate
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Lipinski, and Members of the
Subcommittee, good morning. Thank you for inviting me to testify today
on the important work that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is
supporting in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences and their
contribution to the nation's future. Let me briefly describe the
Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) before
talking specifically to the innovative research we support and the ways
it benefits the lives of the American people.
1. What is the mission and organization of the NSF Directorate for
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences?
The social, behavioral, and economic sciences--familiarly known as
the ``SBE sciences''--increase fundamental understanding of human
social development and interaction and of human behavior, as
individuals and as members of groups and more formal organizations. Our
sciences contribute knowledge that has societal relevance and can
inform critical national areas such as job creation, health care,
education, public safety, law enforcement, and national security, among
others. NSF's SBE directorate is unique in that it houses a mosaic of
related programs enabling fundamental research in cross-cutting topics
by combinations of economists, political scientists, sociologists,
psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, and other
social and behavioral scientists. This focus on fundamental research
allows us to collaborate effectively with our colleagues in other
directorates and federal agencies to address problems that range from
coastal flood response to the needs of an aging population, to
preparing our military with the insights they need to understand
behavior in a changing world.
Through the SBE directorate, the NSF funds approximately 57 percent
of the university-based social and behavioral sciences research in the
nation. The American people can take great pride in our record of
achievement, which includes, for example, support for 43 of the Nobel
laureates in economics since the award was first given in 1969. Among
them is the first woman to win the award in economics, Dr. Elinor
Ostrom, who shared the prize in 2009 with Dr. Oliver E. Williamson.
The directorate is organized into three divisions: Social and
Economic Sciences (SES); Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), and
the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES,
formerly known as Science Resources Statistics). NCSES is one of the
major statistical agencies of the U.S. government and works with other
federal and international statistical agencies to develop baseline
statistical data on the science and engineering enterprise that is
heavily used in higher education, industry, and government. This
innovative unit has pioneered changes in survey design and new ways of
presenting publications and data online to enable their broader access
and use, and expects to pilot the Microbusiness Innovation Science and
Technology survey and the Early Career Doctorates Survey in 2012. NCSES
is the unit within NSF that provides the data and analytic support
required by the National Science Board for the development and
production of its biennial report on the U.S. and international science
and engineering enterprise, Science and Engineering Indicators.
The Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES) comprises eight
programs that support research to develop and advance scientific
knowledge focusing on economic, legal, political and social systems,
organizations, and institutions. SES also supports research on the
intellectual and social contexts that affect the development and use of
science and technology and invests in research that advances
statistical and survey methodologies and measurements. This difficult
methodological work is central to reliable social science research and
undergirds a range of studies from public opinion polls to studies of
how Americans balance work and family life. SES cooperates with other
federal agencies to fund three major national surveys that form the
backbone of much social science research and teaching. For example,
about 400,000 students per year use the General Social Survey (GSS) in
their classes to study ways that American society has changed since
1972, and to learn research methods of social and statistical analysis.
\1\
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\1\ The General Social Survey, http://www.norc.org/projects/
General+Social+Survey.htm. The other two surveys are the Panel Study of
Income Dynamics (http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/) and the American
National Election Studies (http://www.electionstudies.org/).
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The Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) encompasses
ten programs that support research to develop and advance scientific
knowledge, focusing on human cognition, neuroscience, child
development, language, social behavior, and culture as well as research
on the interactions between human societies and the physical
environment. Understanding the brain and its development and learning
how to deploy that understanding require research that spans a huge
range, from the study of intricate cellular and molecular mechanisms at
the neuronal level to the network activities of the entire brain to the
physical and social context in which brains process information. A
dramatic example is the demonstration of a brain-computer interface by
which an individual with complete paralysis due to a brain-stem stroke
was able to learn to communicate using an artificial speech synthesizer
controlled by his mental efforts. \2\
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\2\ NSF Award Number 0542013, ``The Temporal Dynamics of
Learning,'' Garrison Cottrell, Ph.D., Principal Investigator,
University of California, San Diego, California.
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Finally, my office, the Office of the Assistant Director, also
houses several research programs through the SBE Office of
Multidisciplinary Activities (SMA). These include support for cross-
disciplinary activities, many of which partner with other directorates,
as well as support for undergraduate and graduate students on whom
future science depends. For example, Baruch College has developed a
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) pipeline program that
attracts and prepares students from diverse backgrounds to be
competitive for entry into graduate programs in psychology and other
scientific disciplines. Twelve of the 32 students who completed the
program between 2007 and 2010 have applied to graduate programs in
psychology (10) and medicine (2), and all have been accepted. \3\ Other
REU programs have been designed to engage undergraduates in
understanding research problems in disaster mitigation, preparedness,
response and recovery, warnings and technology, and disaster
vulnerability and resilience and the effects of fatigue on
physiological, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, health, and social
performance in military, medical, and law enforcement personnel. As the
Baruch College experience shows, not only does this participation
contribute to the nation's knowledge base but it also helps guide
students into careers in these fields.
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\3\ NSF Award Number 0648859, ``Basic and Applied Dimensions of
Scientific Psychology: Research Experience for Undergraduates at Baruch
College--CUNY''. Charles Scherbaum, Principal Investigator. CUNY Baruch
College, New York.
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In addition, the directorate co-sponsors and leads STAR METRICS, a
multi-year, multi-agency partnership with research institutions to
measure the effects of research investments on innovation,
competitiveness, and science. STAR METRICS brings together
participating universities who voluntarily provide financial
information. With these data, the program--for the first time--will be
able to describe job creation from NSF investments at the county level
for each participating university beginning with data supplied in the
first quarter of this year.
In keeping with the insights that flow from interdisciplinary
collaborations, there is substantial formal and informal cooperation
among programs, both within and between the divisions as well as with
programs in other directorates and agencies. For example, both SES and
BCS support neuroscience research. In addition to research supported in
the Cognitive Neuroscience program, the Perception, Action and
Cognition program (SBE/BCS) supports neuroscience research across a
range of topics, including cognitive flexibility, the neural basis for
reading in deaf individuals, and visual attention, and the Decision,
Risk and Management Sciences program in SBE/SES supports research on
the neural basis for decision making and risk assessment.
SBE has longstanding partnerships with the NSF Directorates for
Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Biological Sciences,
Geosciences, and Engineering, as well as with the NSF Office of
Cyberinfrastructure. These partnerships are critical to understanding
science in its human context and to developing effective new
technologies that will be used by Americans and will contribute to jobs
and economic development. In the past, SBE has had programs with the
Department of Defense, to assist them in understanding factors
underlying conflict and cooperation. This year, we are again
contributing to the multi-agency, international Digging into Data
Challenge, led by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and will
also contribute to the National Robotics Initiative. These partnerships
bring SBE's expertise in understanding human behavior to the important
national challenges of developing and using new technology and dealing
with the flood of data confronted by our scientists and citizens. \4\
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\4\ David Lazer et al., ``Computational Social Science,'' Science
323, no. 5915 (6 February 2009): 721-23; Gary King, ``Ensuring the
Data-Rich Future of the Social Science,'' Science 331, no 6018 (11
February 2011): 719-21.
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2. How are awards made and how are funding priorities established?
Approximately 5,000 research proposals are submitted to the
directorate each year and about 1,100 awards are made after proposals
are reviewed by competitive merit review advisory panels. Merit review
is a critical element in the nation's research enterprise, which has
been a key to America's track record in scientific innovation,
something that will fuel American competitiveness in the next century.
NSF's review processes remain, in the words of the National Academies,
among ``the best procedures known for insuring the technical excellence
of research projects that receive public support.'' \5\ All research
proposals are evaluated by a combination of written reviews,
discussions by advisory panels, and consideration by scientific program
officers before awards are made. Overall, in the 2010 funding cycle,
many thousands of scientists from the U.S. and overseas wrote reviews
and participated in SBE panels and advisory committee meetings to
provide independent advice on individual applications and the
directorate's programs. The divisions, major programs, and research
offices are regularly reviewed by external Committees of Visitors, and
an Advisory Committee to the directorate meets twice a year.
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\5\ Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, Major
Award Decisionmaking at the National Science Foundation (Washington,
DC: National Academy Press, 1994), p. 1.
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Funding priorities are established by the merit review process,
with guidance from advisory groups and after discussions among the NSF
leadership. Eighty to eighty-five percent or more of awards made by SBE
are submitted to the programs described above in BCS, SES, and SMA and
reviewed by program officers and panels before decisions are made. The
remaining fifteen to twenty percent of awards are the result of cross-
disciplinary competitions in which SBE is a participant. These
competitions are generated by discussions among staff at the program
officer, divisional leadership, and assistant director level, in order
to arrive at broad scientific discoveries. Recent successful examples
of specialized competitions include our Decision Making Under
Uncertainty program; Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation; Water,
Sustainability, and Climate; and the Digging into Data Challenge.
In the broadest sense, SBE makes use of multiple mechanisms to
consult with the public, the scientific community, and other agencies
to understand scientific priorities and make plans for the future. NSF
was one of several agencies that contributed to the 2009 publication,
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science in the Federal Context a
publication of the NSTC's Committee on Science's SBE Subcommittee. \6\
Over the past year NSF's Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral
and Economic Sciences has been at work on a report on future areas of
scientific development in the SBE sciences, which we expect to be
produced in fall 2011. I have also led an effort called ``SBE 2020'' to
collect ideas from individuals and groups about how to plan for SBE
science a decade from now. We received many suggestions in response to
this request. I have begun discussing our conclusions from this
activity, and we expect to issue a formal report this summer. All these
efforts help us to build on the successes of our existing programs
while we plan and set funding priorities for the future.
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\6\ National Science and Technology Council, Subcommittee on
Social, Behavioral and Ecomomic Sciences, Social, Behavioral, and
Economic Science in the Federal Context, 2009. http://
www.whitehouse.gov/galleries/NSTC%20Reports/
SBE%20in%20the%20Federal%20Context%20(for%20NSTC)%204-21-09.pdf
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Assessment and evaluation is an important element in this process,
and it requires a science of its own. That's why SBE developed the
Science of Science and Innovation Policy Program (SciSIP), why we took
the lead in the STAR METRICS activity, and why we continue to find
innovative ways to spur the science of innovation and to evaluate our
own work. \7\ That is also why we invest so heavily in the National
Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, and in its publications.
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\7\ Comparative Assessment of Peer Review (CAPTR) Workshop, April
22-23, 2010, http://scienceofsciencepolicy.net/event/comparative-
assessment-peer-review-capr-workshop
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3. What are the benefits to the U.S. taxpayer?
The National Science Foundation is unique in its support for
fundamental research across all of the fields of science and
engineering together with the educational programs that sustain them.
As NSF Director Dr. Subra Suresh said in his congressional testimony
earlier this year, the foundation ``advances the frontiers of all
scientific disciplines and it develops the human capital to forge the
next generation of breakthroughs.'' \8\ SBE scientists study topics as
diverse as the developmental psychology of children as young as five
months and the causes and consequences of terrorism. Our sciences have
the potential to offer an integrated view of a single broad topic
across multiple scales, and our findings lead to fundamental insights
and point toward solutions that affect job creation, health care,
public safety, education, and other shared national and international
challenges. In the last year, for example, SBE supported neuroscience
researchers at Stanford University who used functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the anatomy of the human visual
cortex and its response to images of faces and limbs. Their findings
overturned two prior theories of the brain's organization and may have
application to autism and other cognitive disorders. \9\
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\8\ Dr. Subra Suresh, Remarks on the NSF's 2012 Budget Request to
Congress, February 14, 2011, http://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/suresh/
11/ss110214--nsfbudget.jsp
\9\ NSF Award Number 0920865, ``Face Perception: Mapping
Psychological Spaces to Neural Responses,'' Kalanit Grill-Spector,
Principal Investigator, Stanford University, California.
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This example plus ones mentioned earlier suggest the range and
complexity of the SBE sciences. I would like to take the rest of my
time to talk in more detail about some of the work that has had
immediate benefit while illustrating some of the long-term research
challenges.
3.1 SBE research has resulted in measurable gains for the U.S. taxpayer
Matching markets and kidney transplants. Researchers in economics
at Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Boston College
have applied economic matching theory to develop a system that
dramatically improves the ability of doctors to find compatible kidneys
for patients on transplant lists. Organ donation is an example of an
exchange that relies on mutual convergence of need. In this case, a
donor and a recipient. This system allows matches to take place in a
string of exchanges, shortening the waiting time and, in the case of
organ transplants, potentially saving thousands of lives. \10\ Similar
matching markets exist in other contexts, for example, for assigning
doctors to residencies.
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\10\ NSF Award No. 0616470, ``Collaborative Research: Kidney
Exchange,'' Tayfun Sonmez, Principal Investigator, Boston College,
Massachusetts; NSF Award Number 8908696, ``Coordination and Operation
of Two-sided Matching Markets: Theory and Evidence,'' Alvin Roth,
Principal Investigator, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; NSF
Award Number 9121968, ``Jumping the Gun: Intertemporal Instability in
Two-sided Matching and Related Markets, Theory and Evidence,'' Alvin
Roth, Principal Investigator, Harvard University, Massachusetts.
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Spectrum auctions. Spectrum auctions have generated $54 billion for
the U.S. Treasury between 1994 and 2007 and worldwide revenues in
excess of $200 billion. Researchers at Stanford University and the
California Institute of Technology, supported by grants from SBE,
developed the simultaneous ascending auction mechanism as a technique
for auctioning off multiple goods whose values are not fixed but depend
on each other. The mechanism was then tested experimentally and further
refined before being implemented by the Federal Communications
Commission. In this auction, all of the goods are on the selling block
at the same time, and open for bids by any bidder. By giving bidders
real-time information on the tentative price at each bid stage, bidders
can develop a sense for where prices are likely to head and adjust
their bids to get the package of goods they want. This process enables
``price discovery,'' helping bidders to determine the values of all
possible packages of goods. These auctions not only raise money, but
ensure efficient allocation of spectra so that the winners of the
auction are indeed the individuals who value the spectra the most.
Applied with great benefit for the U.S. taxpayer in the FCC spectrum
auctions, this method has also been extended to the sale of divisible
goods in electricity, gas, and environmental markets. \11\
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\11\ NSF Award Number 9207850, ``Topics in Price Theory and Game
Theory,'' Robert Wilson, Principal Investigator, Stanford University,
California; NSF Award Number 9320733, ``Complementarity: Comparative
Statics, Coordination and Change,'' Paul Milgrom, Principal
Investigator, Stanford University, California; NSF Award Number
9512394, ``Development of Instrumentation for Institutional Process
Design and Laboratory Testing in Economics and Political Science,''
Charles Plott, California Institute of Technology, California.
3.2 SBE investments in innovation have improved disaster and crisis
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response
Geographic Information Systems (GIS). SBE has supported development
of Geographical Information Systems technologies, which have produced
both great societal benefits and the creation of an extremely valuable
industry. In the mid-1980s NSF made a commitment to fund the National
Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) at three
universities, the University of California, Santa Barbara, the
University of Maine, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The research supported there contributed significantly to the
development of the multi-billion-dollar Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) industry. These systems are now applied by states, counties, and
localities for many purposes, from planning to disaster response,
evidenced in New York City during the September 11, 2001 attacks. GIS
also became the backbone of crime mapping activities such as CompuStat
that have played such an important role in the crime reduction America
has experienced in the past two decades. These GIS systems are also
used by the private sector to improve delivery systems and to plan for
the locations of stores and other businesses. The NCGIA continues to
this day, now as an independent body, exploring ways of making GIS
better and helping to educate new users.
The earthquake and tsunami in Japan together with our own
experiences in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, recent tornados
in Alabama and Missouri, and flooding along the Mississippi River
amplify the importance attached to understanding how people behave in
time of crisis, which enables better advance planning and improves
first responses. SBE has supported science in these areas by funding
researchers who explore and simulate human evacuation behavior, as well
as teams of researchers who conduct fieldwork in the immediate
aftermath of a disaster in Louisiana (2005), \12\ Chile (2010), \13\
and the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010). \14\ SBE
also funds constructing computational simulations to detect subtle
changes and behaviors under different conditions. For example,
researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of
Delaware simulated a building's collapse in order to observe people's
reactions to the physical disaster, in order to better understand how
to prepare for similar events. \15\ Investigators at Arizona State
University and the University of Central Florida built models of
pedestrian behavior that could be used to compare and predict behavior
under both calm and emergency conditions, leading to more effective
evacuation strategies, disaster planning, and assistance for first
responders. \16\
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\12\ NSF Award Number 0552439, SBER: Cooperation among evacuees in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Rick Wilson, Principal
Investigator, Rice University, Houston, Texas
\13\ NSF Award Number 1036354, ``RAPID: Collaborative Research:
The Political Costs of Natural Disasters: Democratic Support,
Authoritarian Attitudes, and Blame Attribution after Chile's 2010
Earthquake,'' Gregory Love, Principal Investigator, University of
Mississippi, Mississippi.
\14\ NSF Award Number 1042786, ``RAPID: Social Context and
Emotional Response to Disaster,'' Christopher Kenney, Louisiana State
University & Agricultural and Mechanical College, Louisiana
\15\ NSF Award Number 0824737, ``Collaborative Research: Project
IBORC: Interaction between Building and Occupant Responses during
Collapse,'' Serif El-Tawil, Principal Investigator, University of
Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan.
\16\ NSF Award Number 0643322, ``CAREER: Exploring the Dynamics of
Individual Pedestrian and Crowd Behavior in Dense Urban Settings: A
Computational Approach,'' Paul Torrens, Principal Investigator, Arizona
State University, Arizona; NSF Award 0527545, ``DHB--Modeling in Social
Dynamics: A Differential Approach,'' David Kaup, Principal
Investigator, University of Central Florida, Florida.
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Two findings that weave through much of this research are the
importance of protecting social networks--evacuees after Hurricane
Katrina and the Gulf oil spill fared better when their families and
social networks were retained--and the importance of sustaining trust.
Indeed, those evacuees whose social contexts were preserved were more
cooperative and willing to trust the government. \17\
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\17\ NSF Highlight ID 22702, ``Preparing for the Aftermath of
Crisis''; see also NSF Award Number 0728934, ``DRU Modeling
Communication Response and Economic Impacts of Risk Amplification
following a Terrorist Strike,'' William Burns, Principal Investigator,
Decision Science Research Institute, Oregon.
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Engaging citizens. One of the outcomes of these studies is a
changed view of citizen involvement. Rather than seeing residents as
passive observers or as victims, new findings show ways in which
individuals actively participate in managing and responding to crises.
Scientists at UC-Santa Barbara, the University of Washington, and Texas
A&M University are in the second year of a three-year award to study
the phenomenon of volunteered geographic information, which is part of
a larger trend of user-generated content enabled by contemporary
information and communication technologies. We have already witnessed
how the wide distribution of handheld and mobile devices together with
access to fast connections and the ease of uploading information have
contributed to this year's Arab Spring. Closer to home, citizens have
contributed real time, highly detailed, local observations that take on
special significance in responses to crises, like floods or wildfires
where conditions can change rapidly. Citizen-supplied real-time
information about the location of a wildfire can save lives and dollars
by allowing first responders to do their job more effectively. We have
already witnessed outpourings on Twitter and other social media during
crises. The point of the study is to go beyond anecdotal information
and to test accuracy and quality of the data, examine methods for
synthesizing and analyzing it, and understand motivations for
participation. \18\
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\18\ NSF Award Number 0849910, ``Collaborative Research: A
GIScience Approach for Assessing the Quality, Potential Applications,
and Impact of Volunteered Geographic Information,'' Michael Goodchild,
Principal Investigator, University of California-Santa Barbara,
California.
3.3 SBE's long term investment in fundamental research enables
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
breakthroughs in key areas
Decentralized decision-making and shared resources. Rich traditions
in sociology, political science, economics, and psychology have
explored models of individual and group conflict, competition, and
cooperation, resource allocation, and markets. Nobel laureate Ostrom,
who now holds appointments at Indiana University and Arizona State
University, has done fundamental work with her colleagues over the last
30 years in so-called ``common pool resources.'' A ``common pool
resource'' is a naturally occurring or human constructed system, like
fishing grounds, water, forests, pasture, or irrigation systems, that
is typically shared and is vulnerable to overuse, congestion, or
potential destruction.
Ostrom combines fieldwork, observation, and laboratory studies to
articulate formal models about trust, behavior, and cooperation that
show the conditions under which groups will cooperate to manage shared,
vulnerable resources, like forest and irrigation systems, without
outside intervention. For example, when she studied irrigation systems
in Nepal, she found that the farmers' systems were relatively
``primitive'' from the perspective of engineering but the farmers were
able to grow more crops and run their systems more efficiently than
those designed by outside experts. \19\ Ostrom's work, like others,
points to the importance of understanding interactions in a context of
``nested systems'' of local, regional, and national governance and, in
particular, to the importance of understanding local decision making.
In a series of studies of self governing communities, researchers at
the University of Michigan, \20\ UC-Davis, \21\ and University of
Colorado \22\ have continued to identify the importance of local or
municipal decision making and the conditions under which self-
governance is likely to be successful.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Elinor Ostrom, Beyond markets and States: Polycentric
Governance of Complex Economic Systems, December 8, 2009, Slide 24
http://nobelprize.org/nobel-prizes/economics/laureates/2009/ostrom-
lecture-slides.pdf
\20\ NSF Award Number 0961868, ``Collaborative Research: Do
Institutions Affect the Attitudes and Behavior of Constituents?
Evidence from an Environmental Management Program in India,'' Elisabeth
Gerber, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan
\21\ NSF Award Number 0921904, ``Collaborative Research on
Governing Complex Commons: Policy networks in an Ecology of Games,''
Mark Lubell, Principal Investigator, University of California-Davis,
California
\22\ NSF Award Number 0648447, ``Decentralization, Local
Institutions, and Environmental Change: A Cross-Sectional Time-series
Study of Forest Governance in Latin America,'' Krister Andersson,
Principal Investigator, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado.
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Brain, cognition, and learning. Recent research in the
developmental sciences shows us the importance of engagement in
learning and that this engagement can begin at a very young age.
Several separate but converging lines of research have enhanced our
understanding of cognitive and social development from infancy to
adolescence and, in particular, the importance of being an active and
engaged learner. For example, scientists at the University of Delaware
developed a type of joystick mechanism that enables infants to drive a
small motorized robotic device, which showed that children's general
language and motor development are improved through the enhanced
mobility experience with the driving device. \23\ This suggests that
infants who are able to control their movements through the environment
are stimulated and learn about their world in a way that has a direct
and lasting influence on their cognitive, social, language and motor
abilities. \24\Researchers at Indiana University have also found that
children learn words for objects more readily when allowed to hold the
object rather than just seeing the object held and labeled in front of
them. \25\ Finally, a stream of collaborative research has looked at
the influences of television, videos, and computer games on children
from infancy to 6 years old, suggesting that young children may face
limitations in ability to understand information contained in these
media. One set of studies even found that slower language development
was associated with use of a popular early childhood video that is
advertised as being educational. However, the findings also suggest
that when children are actively engaged in viewing television or videos
with an adult who can label the content and ask questions and provide
narration, children's ability to learn the content provided in the
video is enhanced. \26\
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\23\ NSF Award 0745833, ``Robot Enhanced Mobility: The Capacity
for Your Infants to Learn Real World Navigation, and its Effect on
Perception, Action and Cognition Development,'' James Galloway,
Principal Investigator, University of Delaware, Delaware.
\24\ NSF Award Number 0745833, ``Robot Enhanced Mobility: The
Capacity for Your Infants to Learn Real World Navigation, and its
Effect on Perception, Action and Cognition Development,'' James
Galloway, Principal Investigator, University of Delaware, Delaware
\25\ NSF Award Number 0924248, ``The Sensorimotor Dynamics of
Naturalistic Child-Parent Interaction and Word Learning,'' Chen Yu,
Principal Investigator, Indiana University, Indiana; NSF Award Number
0544995, ``Grounding Word Learning in Multimodal Sensorimotor
Interaction,'' Chen Yu, Principal Investigator, Indiana University,
Indiana.
\26\ NSF Award Number 0623871, ``IRADS Collaborative Research:
Influences of Digital Media on Very Young Children,'' Sandra Calvert,
Georgetown University, Washington, DC; NSF Award Number 0623856,
``IRADS Collaborative Research: Influences of Digital Media on Very
Young Children,'' Elizabeth Vanderwater, Principal Investigator,
University of Texas at Austin, Texas; NSF Award Number 0623888, ``IRADS
Collaborative Research: Influences of Digital Media on Very Young
Children,'' Daniel Anderson, Principal Investigator, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, Massachusetts.
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One of the remarkable features of this research is the very young
age of the subjects. Other studies show that infants take in a
surprising amount of information in the first months of life. A team at
UCLA found that the ability to distinguish between languages develops
between the ages of 5 and 7 months, \27\ and a second team at Yale
showed that infants as young as 6 months could begin to interpret
social interactions. In their experiments, an infant who sees one
puppet helping another puppet is likely to exhibit a preference for
that helper in the future. Conversely, infants will then avoid a puppet
that ``hinders'' the goals of another. Even many developmental
scientists were surprised that children this young have the ability to
reason about complex social behaviors like ``helping'' and
``hindering''. \28\
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\27\ NSF Award Number 0951639, ``Development of Native Language
Preference: Behavioral and Physiological Indices,'' Megha Sundara,
Principal Investigator, University of California-Los Angeles,
California; NSF Award Number 0957956, ``Development of Phonotactic
Knowledge in Infancy,'' Megha Sundara, Principal Investigator,
University of California-Los Angeles, California.
\28\ NSF Award Number 0715557, ``Social Evaluation in Infants and
Toddlers,'' M. Karen Wynn, Principal Investigator, Yale University,
Connecticut.
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Understanding learning is a key that helps unlock important
questions in education, learning, and parenting as well as the
interaction between individuals and their environment. NSF's role in
this area is unique because of the ability to support basic cognitive
science, neuroscience, and social science about learning. Consider just
one example: A psychologist at Boston University is investigating how
emotion enhances memory, and how it interferes with memory.
Understanding how memory and emotion interact may have important
implications for evaluating eyewitness testimony, including the
influence of biases and stereotyping (which an anthropologist at Emory
University is studying). Together, these studies of how neural
mechanisms of encoding and recall are affected by emotion may yield
better understanding of the biological basis for memory deficits that
accompany mood disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),
depression, and anxiety. NSF does not fund clinical research, but the
basic research it funds yields knowledge of cognitive deficits and
affected brain regions can inform studies of specific neurotransmitters
and pharmacological interventions and the development of more accurate
diagnostic tools.
Relevance to national security. In recent decades, research
supported by NSF has produced new understandings of human development
and social dynamics; of perception, memory, linguistic, and reasoning
processes; of how people behave as individuals and collectively; and
insight into economic systems, all topics that bear upon understanding
the threats to our national security and crafting robust interventions
and responses. For example, a recent project found that intermediate
levels of political freedom and geographic factors contribute
significantly to causes of terrorism, challenging the common view that
terrorism is rooted primarily in poverty.
NSF also supports significant levels of fundamental research in the
major research areas identified in the National Research Council's
``Human Behavior in Military Contexts'' 2008 report. Here are a handful
of examples: Investigators at the University of Michigan studied
ethical and religious motivations in political and economic choices.
This work not only challenges conventional models of decision making
but is particularly important for understanding regional conflicts and
local cultural and political systems heavily influenced by differing
ethical and religious values. \29\ It has direct application to helping
warfighters and humanitarian aid workers develop essential
intercultural competences. Another team at Miami University (Ohio) is
studying group behavior in problem solving under different conditions
and ways in which problem solving may contribute to group cohesion,
which is a common set of social dynamics in the armed services. \30\
Finally, a number of projects look at the role of emotions in social
interactions and verbal and non-verbal communication. These projects
contribute to our ability to detect deceptive behaviors and speech as
well as facilitate interactions in cross-cultural contexts or contexts
in which verbal communication may be insufficient, for example, when
managing a crisis involving non-English speakers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ NSF Award Number 0527396, ``Sacred Values in Decision Making
and Cultural Conflict,'' Scott Atran, Principal Investigator (lead),
Douglas Medin (Co-Principal Investigator), Jeremy Ginges (Co-Principal
Investigator), Jessica Stern (Co-Principal Investigator), University of
Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan.
\30\ NSF Award Number 0744696, ``Coordination in Small Groups:
Matching and Mismatching,'' Susanne Abele, Principal Investigator,
Garold Stasser (Co-Principal Investigator), Miami University, Ohio.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ultimately, the goal is to integrate findings across necessarily
specialized research areas so that we eventually will unpack the
relationships between brain and behavior, among individuals, and
between individuals, groups, and their social and physical
environments.
Thank you for the opportunity to share some of our research with
you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Dr. Gutmann.
Next the Chair recognizes our second witness, Dr. Hillary
Anger Elfenbein, Associate Professor, Washington University in
St. Louis.
STATEMENT OF DR. HILLARY ANGER ELFENBEIN,
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR,
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
Dr. Elfenbein. Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Lipinski,
and distinguished Members of the Committee, it is an honor to
appear before you today. I have been asked here to speak about
my basic research in the social and behavioral sciences and how
that work is being used by the military, business, and medicine
to create a valuable return on investment for the U.S.
taxpayer.
My core research is in the area of emotion recognition,
that is our ability to recognize another person's facial
expressions, vocal tones, and body language. This is a skill so
fundamental that its absence is a warning sign of serious
disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, which is a growing
epidemic in our country. Basic research to understand topics
like this serves as a foundation for later applications that
can sometimes be years down the road.
The Army Research Institute took the initiative to use my
research showing that emotion recognition accuracy partially
breaks down across cultures. To quote them, ``The course of
events in Iraq and Afghanistan has emphasized the role of human
rather than technological solutions in influencing the outcome
of conflicts, making interpersonal skills an increasingly
important set of tools for the war fighter.''
In some cases errors in non-verbal communication have been
tragic. For example, at checkpoints in Iraq where soldiers have
been involved in needless escalation of conflict with civilians
because they could not tell who did versus did not wish them
harm. I recently served as a consultant for the Army's efforts
to incorporate non-verbal communication training for our men
and women going overseas.
My work is also used by industry as businesses increasingly
focus on emotional intelligence and other related skills in the
workforce to achieve a competitive edge. Our U.S. economy is
increasing service-oriented, collaborative, and global.
My work also has applications in medicine, given that the
link between emotional skills and emotional disorders is so
strong that some researchers use emotion recognition tests as a
way to monitor the effectiveness of their medical treatments.
As a business school professor I cannot help but point out
the unusually high rate of return that we receive from
investments in the basic sciences. America's support of
cutting-edge basic research is an engine of innovation that
creates university-level opportunities, attracting the best
minds from all over the world. Education is a large export
industry. Top scientists often stay in the U.S., start
companies here, and pay taxes here, repaying the federal
investments many times over.
Only the public sector can make these investments because
industry support is for research that has advanced closer to
commercialization. Agencies like the NSF are in the best
position to prioritize federal funding for SBE research because
they draw from groups of scientists across a range of
disciplines and perspectives rather than to rely on any one
person's expertise.
The social and behavioral sciences in general are important
because technology, health, industry, and politics are
ultimately in the hands of people who behave rationally and
irrationally. A critique often leveled at social scientists is
that our research is obvious. Although findings can seem
intuitive, the scientific process has demonstrated that many
intuitions are wrong.
For example, strange behavior is no more common at the full
moon, people do not blindly follow suggestions under hypnosis,
and people with schizophrenia do not have multiple
personalities. These findings are useful beyond their mere
curiosity value in addressing real problems.
For example, the stigma and misunderstanding around mental
illnesses such as schizophrenia prevents many people from
seeking treatments that are readily available for the benefit
of their families and for economic productivity.
In addition to intuitions that are wrong, some intuitions
are also contradictory. For example, ``too many cooks spoil the
broth,'' and yet ``many hands make light the work.'' When
staffing a team, we need to know which one is right.
Ultimately in supporting basic research the nature of the
scientific process is such that you cannot predict in advance
where each project will go. That is why it is important to fund
a portfolio of projects with the expectation that some may pay
off but some may not.
From my own experience I can tell you that I did not
anticipate the military applications at the time that I did my
work. Indeed, in the spring of 2007 a first year member of
Congress proposed canceling my NSF grant because he thought the
title sounded silly. Ironically, this occurred just as the Army
identified this same basic research as having applications for
training our war fighters, and they issued a call for applied
research that extended these basic findings.
This experience highlighted for me the relationship between
basic and applied research; and how basic--how applied research
uses basic research as its foundation. The NSF funds basic
research. Some people might ask at a time of fiscal crisis
whether we can afford to fund the social and behavioral
sciences. I believe that we can't afford not to.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak today, and I would
be glad to answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Elfenbein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Associate Professor,
Washington University in St. Louis
Introduction
Chairman Brooks and distinguished Members of the Committee, it is
an honor to appear before you to discuss the important topic of federal
funding in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) sciences.
I've been asked to speak about my own basic research in the social
and behavioral sciences, and how that work is being used by the
military, business, and medicine to create a valuable return-on-
investment for the US taxpayer. In addition, I have been asked to
answer a number of questions relating to why it is in the taxpayer's
interest to fund the SBE sciences, and how these funds should be
prioritized.
Overview of my work in SBE
The request for written testimony asked: ``Please provide an
overview of your work in the social, behavioral, and economic (SBE)
sciences, including how your work has been funded, how it is being
used, and by whom.''
My core research is in the area of emotion recognition--that is,
our ability to recognize another person's emotions via nonverbal cues
that include facial expressions, vocal tones, and body language.
Emotion recognition is a skill so fundamental that its absence is a
warning sign of serious disorders such as schizophrenia and autism,
which is a growing epidemic in our country. In daily life, we often
realize just how important emotion recognition is when we lose it
temporarily through the use of email and text messages without access
to nonverbal cues. For example, a member of Congress might use Twitter
or a Blackberry to send messages to staff members or constituents, and
find that some messages were misinterpreted with potentially harmful
consequences.
Although this research topic may first seem a bit obscure, it is
worth pointing out that I first became interested in emotion
recognition while working in industry as a management consultant. It
became clear to me in my day-to-day work that people were attempting to
read each other's emotional expressions--not in an attempt to be social
friends, but rather to get the crucial feedback they needed to get
their jobs done. For example, formal performance reviews were time
consuming to conduct and as a result occurred only infrequently, and
between these reviews colleagues depended largely on supervisors'
implicit reactions to the quality of their work. Likewise, in the
absence of parliamentary procedures, turn-taking in meetings can be
very implicit, and many times people are unsure whether they have the
floor to speak--or whether they need to keep their good ideas to
themselves. In the consulting industry, one speaks of ``managing client
expectations,'' for which recognizing the emotion of surprise loomed
large as a sign that expectations were being violated in some way. As
another example, it often took attention to subtle cues in order to
know whether a colleague was being sarcastic versus sincere. Without
catching the certain tone of voice, it was possible to disagree about
whether a colleague meant what he had said--or whether he meant exactly
the opposite. In becoming fascinated with these dynamics, it was clear
to me not only that real people were making these kinds of judgments on
a regular basis, but also that they were frequently getting them wrong.
In getting these judgments wrong, their workplace, productivity
suffered.
Having become interested in this topic, and reading about what
scholars already knew, I found that questions about emotion recognition
in the workplace were at the cutting edge of our scientific
understanding. It also became clear that the importance of these and
related emotional abilities was an idea resonating far outside of
university walls. Notably, Daniel Goleman's books on Emotional
Intelligence were runaway best-sellers--as of 2002 out-selling all but
one of Forbes' 20 Most Influential Business Books of the previous two
decades.
It was in this context that, after undergraduate training in
Physics and Sanskrit language, I returned to Harvard to pursue a Ph.D.
in the joint program in Organizational Behavior that combined graduate
training in Psychology and Business. During these studies, I also
earned a M.A. degree in Statistics and completed the required
curriculum of the Master's in Business Administration (MBA). My
graduate education was supported by a scholarship from the National
Science Foundation.
Since that time, I have published a range of papers in
internationally-respected academic journals in business and psychology.
My three primary streams of research address in different ways how
individuals navigate the social environment of their workplace. The
first stream examines how co-workers' accuracy in understanding each
other's emotional expressions contributes to individual and team-level
workplace effectiveness. The second stream examines the impact of
cross-cultural differences on the ability to understand emotions. Taken
together, these two lines of research contribute not only to our
understanding of basic science, but also hold promise for applications
to the challenges faced by today's firms and non-profits, which are
more demographically diverse and global than ever before. My third
stream of research addresses the dynamics of social interaction within
workplace settings, including areas such as the role of personality on
negotiation performance. The consistent thread running through my
research is that it focuses primarily on how individuals interact with
and judge other individuals.
I attempt to work as a basic scientist and also a boundary spanner,
drawing on work across SEE and other domains to understand
organizations and the people working in them. My 27 peer-reviewed
articles and 8 invited chapters include publications in the Academy of
Management Annals, the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of
Applied Psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Organization Science, Psychological Bulletin, and Psychological
Science. The researchers who cite this work in their own research are
even more diverse--with a count of over 575 citations spread across
academic publications in business management, organizational behavior,
social psychology, and personality psychology, as well as other areas
ranging from cognitive neuroscience to clinical psychology, medicine,
artificial intelligence, and developmental psychology.
Funding
In chronological order, I have been the recipient of three federal
grants:
1. National Science Foundation (NSF), Graduate Research Fellowship
(GRF), $75,000, 1998 -2001.
This was a three-year scholarship that paid for tuition in graduate
school as well as basic living expenses. Awarded through a competitive
process, these scholarships are intended to allow high-potential
scientists to focus on their coursework and research. In my case,
having scholarship assistance in graduate school allowed me to conduct
the particular work described below that was singled out by the Army
Research Institute.
2. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Behavioral Science
Track Award for Rapid Transition (BSTART) Grant, ``Effective Behavior
through Understanding Emotion,'' R01MH071294-01, $72,792, 2004-2006.
This grant was part of an early-career program by the NIMH, with
the intention to provide start-up funds for high-potential new faculty
members doing research related to mental health. In my case, the link
is a strong one, given that serious mental illnesses such as
schizophrenia, autism, and alexithymia are characterized by deficits in
emotion recognition among other symptoms. Thus, emotion recognition has
been an area of intense collaboration and interchange among social
psychologists, clinical psychologists, and physicians. The work funded
by this grant has produced 3 academic publications, 1 paper in
progress, 6 conference presentations, and contributed to the training
of 3 doctoral students and numerous undergraduates.
3. National Science Foundation (NSF), Social Psychology Program
Grant, ``Accuracy in the Cross-cultural Understanding of Others'
Emotions,'' BCS-0617634, $205,517, 2006-2012.
This grant has been instrumental in expanding my stream of research
on cross-cultural differences in the non-verbal communication of
emotion. To date, the work funded by this grant has produced 2
publications, 8 papers in progress, and 11 conference presentations. In
total, this work has contributed to the training of 1 post-doctoral
fellow, 8 doctoral students, and numerous undergraduates, and has also
involved 4 early-stage faculty members other than myself--from 10
different institutions around the world.
How the work is being used and by whom
The primary applications of my research have been in the military,
business, medical, and educational settings.
Military Applications
The Army Research Institute took the initiative to use my research
showing that emotion recognition accuracy partially breaks down across
cultures. To quote them: ``The course of events in Iraq and Afghanistan
has emphasized the role of human rather than technological solutions in
influencing the outcome of conflicts, making interpersonal skills an
increasingly important set of tools for the warfighter.'' (See the
Appendix)
In many theaters of war, we have too few translators and soldiers
rely heavily on nonverbal communication. Even with sufficient numbers
of translators, the initial moments of interacting with an enemy
combatant or civilian can be too brief for conversation. This means
that proper interpretation of nonverbal communication is an important
aspect of determining who is a friend versus foe in high-stakes
situations. In some cases, mistakes are tragic, for example at
checkpoints in Iraq where soldiers have been involved in potentially
avoidable escalation of conflict with civilians because they could not
tell who did versus did not wish them harm. Soldiers now know that the
raised fist means nothing in Iraq and the upheld hand, if anything,
means that it is safe to approach.
I recently served as a consultant for the ARI's efforts to
incorporate nonverbal communication training for our men and women
going overseas.
Business Applications
My work is also used by industry, as businesses increasingly focus
on emotional intelligence and related skills in their workforce to
achieve a competitive edge. The US economy is increasingly service-
oriented, collaborative, and global.
For example, foreign auto companies build manufacturing plants in
the United States, with the need for managers from abroad to
communicate clearly with their American workers and vice versa. My
research on training shows that biology is not destiny--that is, we can
learn to recognize emotional expressions from a foreign culture with
sufficient practice. Surprisingly, however, we do not learn these
skills effectively from the traditional classroom setting that is
effective in teaching most other topics.
As part of my focus on real-world business settings, I have been
conducting workshops with business executives with guidance on how they
can improve their emotional skills. Also relevant to business
applications is the need to develop testing emotional skills, which can
ultimately be used in hiring, training, and promotion. This is an area
in which additional basic research is desperately needed, to keep up
with the clamoring of interest from the public and industry to develop
comprehensive tests of emotional skills.
Medical Applications
My work also has applications in medicine, given the link between
emotional skills and emotional disorders. Many serious medical
conditions involve an inability to identify and produce socially
appropriate emotional expressions. One of these disorders is
schizophrenia--a debilitating disease that is overrepresented in
Veteran's Administration hospitals because its age of onset corresponds
approximately to the age of men and women joining military service.
Another one of these disorders is autism--a condition affecting both
children and adults in our country. Autism is a growing epidemic so
worrisome that many parents risk exposing their children to infectious
disease out of an erroneous belief that vaccinations are linked to
autism. Given these links, emotion recognition has been an area of
intense collaboration and interchange among social psychologists,
clinical psychologists, and physicians.
My recent NSF -funded basic work has revealed an opportunity to
save scarce health- care dollars. Given the links described above,
doctors and medical researchers have often used emotion recognition
tests as a way to monitor patients' response to treatment. In these
cases, some doctors also use tests of patients' ability to produce
emotional expressions. In my research, I found that these two distinct
tests produce results that are similar enough that it may not be
necessary to use both of them. Given that the emotion recognition test
costs only a small fraction of the expression test, this can produce a
significant savings. Although it may seem intuitive that the same
people tend to perform well on both of these diagnostics, the
authoritative basic research had not previously been conducted--and, in
its absence, scientists had speculated for decades about this effect.
Educational applications
As the US economy becomes increasingly collaborative, educators
have attempted to provide students with the skills they will need to be
competitive. Accordingly, many educational institutions from elementary
schools to MBA programs have incorporated components of emotional
intelligence and social skills into their curricula. In doing so, it
has been important to have a scientific basis for training programs,
for example drawing from research findings showing that we learn these
skills from practice rather than traditional classroom-style
instruction.
Why are social, behavioral, and economic sciences important to the
physical and life science communities, to the Federal government,
and to the American taxpayer?
The social and behavioral sciences in general are important because
technology, health, industry, and politics are ultimately in the hands
of people--who behave rationally and irrationally. The learning and
implementation of all other sciences depends on the human factor.
We need to understand people's attitudes, behaviors, and thoughts--
because it is people who deliver health care, people who save for their
retirements, people who choose their elected leaders, people who fight
wars, people who work in teams responsible for everything from
emergency care to trial-by-jury to scientific research, and people who
make the individual purchasing decisions upon which our entire economy
rests. For example, ``consumer confidence'' is ultimately just an
attitude, which is a psychological construct not necessarily tied
directly to people's objective economic circumstances. Thus, we need to
understand SBE constructs such as optimism and pessimism in order to
understand our nation's prosperity. We need to understand SBE
constructs related to how people learn if we want to have a strong,
educated workforce to maintain American competitiveness. We need to
understand SBE constructs related to how ideas spread from person to
person in social networks if we want to combat terrorism by decreasing
the spread of extremism through these networks.
In discussing the value of SBE sciences, it seems important to
address the metaphorical ``elephant in the room''--namely, the critique
frequently leveled at social and behavioral scientists that our
research findings are simply obvious. After all, why should we spend
scarce resources on ``funny science'' just to prove what anyone could
already have told us?
Although findings can often seem intuitive, the scientific process
has demonstrated that many intuitions are actually wrong. For example,
strange behavior is no more common at full moon, people do not blindly
follow suggestions under hypnosis, and people with schizophrenia do not
have multiple personalities. These findings are useful beyond their
curiosity value, in addressing real problems. For example, the stigma
and misunderstanding around mental illnesses such as schizophrenia
prevents many Americans for seeking treatments that are readily
available. Untreated mental illness creates a toll on the American
family beyond the lost economic productivity of such individuals. Some
intuitions are also contradictory--in many cases, research findings can
seem intuitive, but the exact opposite finding would also have seemed
equally intuitive. We need the scientific method to distinguish these
competing intuitions from each other--again, not for the mere value of
curiosity, but for the real implications of these findings. Finally,
many research results may seem like common sense but, yet, they do not
describe common practice. That is, people may nod their heads in
agreement when hearing the findings, but they miss opportunities by not
actually implementing these findings in their real lives and
workplaces.
In my own research area, one non-obvious finding has been that
traditional classroom -style instruction is of little use for people to
improve their emotion recognition. Instead, people improve readily when
given opportunities for practice--even when they practice without
getting any hints at the right answers. This goes against the intuition
some have that people are ``just born'' with such skills and that, as
adults, there is nothing much we can do to improve. Indeed, we can
improve quite readily with sufficient motivation and practice. This
research finding also goes against the intuition of many educators to
teach students basic rules and let them apply these rules to new
situations-given that learning in emotion recognition requires
individuals to figure out the rules for themselves. This surprising
finding is useful for training our warfighters, and would not have been
possible without federal funding of the basic sciences.
Another non-obvious finding in my research area has been just how
poor the average person is at recognizing another person's emotional
state from their nonverbal communication alone. Our intuitions tell us
that we can read other people's expressions very accurately, but this
intuition is often wrong. For example, in a carefully controlled study,
I created video clips showing facial expressions, vocal tone, and body
language, and viewers accurately chose the intended emotion only about
33% of the time. This was better than random guessing (1 in 5, or 20%),
but not by much. It is a surprise that people just aren't that good at
this fundamental skill, but it makes sense in the context of theories
developed by SEE sciences. Notably, we tend to get information from
multiple converging sources--including words and context in addition to
nonverbal behavior--without typically relying on anyone source alone.
However, our intuitions can lead us astray as we tend to believe in the
accuracy of our interpretations of other people's nonverbal
communication--given that we don't tend to get explicit feedback when
we are wrong--which means that our confidence far outstrips our
ability. In a theater of war, such overconfidence can endanger our men
and women serving in uniform.
How does basic research in the social and behavioral sciences advance
the scientific community? How does it serve the Federal government?
How does this research advance or affect the lives of the
general population today?
As a business school professor, I cannot help but point out the
unusually high return that we receive from investments in the basic
sciences. Our support of cutting-edge basic research is an engine of
innovation that creates university-level opportunities attracting the
best minds from all over the world. Top scientists often stay in the
US, start companies here, and pay taxes here, repaying the federal
investments many times over. From around the world, political and
business leaders send their children to universities here--exposing
them to American culture and improving our diplomatic relationships.
Education is a large export industry for the US; bright young people
are drawn to our universities for access to cutting-edge research-based
instruction. In terms of research grant dollars themselves, the
taxpayers' funds are used for equipment and also towards salaries for
professors, students, and research participants--and so this money is
itself pumped back into the US economy.
Only the public sector can make these investments. Private
corporations cannot be expected to fund basic research because they
focus on research that has advanced closer to commercialization, when
there is the potential for a patent or other product that can be
commercialized. Basic research is the foundation on which all other
research stands. This is the case not only in the SBE sciences, but
also in the physical and life sciences, in which government sources are
critical for the basic underlying science that is needed en route to
developing specific applications. These applications may be soon or
they may be years down the road, but eventually the taxpayer investment
is repaid as the science advances.
Basic research in the SBE sciences also advances the scientific
community by improving our ability to educate--both educating
scientists and educating our population more generally. For example, in
the business school I teach students in the Master in Business
Administration (MBA) program, who go on to help run the businesses,
non-profits, and other organizations that employ our American
workforce. There is no doubt in my mind that conducting, reading, and
reviewing research in the SBE sciences makes me a more effective
educator.
As mentioned earlier, ultimately, SBE research touches essentially
every sector of American life. Human factors are implicated in topics
as broad as childcare and eldercare, innovation, and knowing whether to
trust someone else to ''have your back.''
Why is it in the American taxpayer interest for the Federal government
to
fund all disciplines within the social, behavioral and economic
sciences?
How should the Federal government prioritize funding for SBE research?
How should NSF, specifically, prioritize funding for SBE research?
It is the nature of the scientific process to rely on data, and
scientists are generally reluctant to make firm statements in the
absence of relevant data. Accordingly, although I wrote above about the
value of social and behavioral sciences in general, it would be outside
of my expertise to discuss all of the SBE disciplines one-by-one.
From the outside, certainly some of the disciplines may seem less
important than others. However, my own personal experience with the
political review of federal grants highlights the importance of not
judging a book by its cover. In the spring of 2007-several months after
the Army Research Institute took interest in my work on emotion
recognition across cultures-a first-year member of Congress proposed
canceling the grant because he thought it sounded silly. My
understanding is that he based this judgment solely on the title of the
grant--``Accuracy in the Cross-cultural Understanding of Others'
Emotions.'' To me, the moral of this story is that there is often more
value to federally-funded science than what might appear from a title
or a sound-bite.
It can be harmful to judge a book by its cover. A well-intentioned
member of Congress advocated elimination of a program that had been
singled out for its practical applications for the military, with other
applications to business, medicine, and education.
Based on this experience, I would be reluctant from an outsider's
perspective to identify a discipline within SBE that could be deemed
entirely unworthy of funding. Agencies like the NSF are in the best
position to prioritize Federal funding for SBE research because they
draw from groups of scientists across a range of disciplines and
beliefs, rather than rely on anyone person's expertise.
Prioritizing research topics within this review system, I strongly
support the current trend of emphasizing science that is
``transformative.'' This is a matter of enhancing the peer review
process by emphasizing particular criteria to the reviewers, rather
than taking scientific review out of the hands of subject matter
experts. There can be a danger in subjecting scientific review to
political oversight regarding the topics that are deemed important,
because of the possibility of misjudging books by their cover,--however
well-intentioned the process.
Peer review and science funding
A lot of questions are raised about the process of scientific peer
review. I will take a stand and say that research studies need to be
reviewed by people with sufficient background to understand them fully.
This is not to say that the public does not have a role in guiding the
priorities of scientific research but rather that, from the outside,
the goal and importance of a research study may not be obvious.
The Coburn Report made clear the potential harm that could result
from judging the book of scientific research only by its cover. Knowing
just a headline might make a project seem wasteful when it has the
potential for great benefits to American society. Scientists typically
break down large problems into lots of smaller problems and, viewed out
of context, these smaller problems may seem like poor uses of our
nation's scarce resources. For example, putting shrimp on a treadmill
would be a waste of money if the goal were merely for shrimp to get
some exercise. However, it makes sense to develop a measurement of
shrimp health if the goal is to examine the effect of environmental
stress on the American food supply and fishing industry. We need to
break down a large problem like this into smaller problems because,
clearly, it would not be ethical or cost -effective to dump bacteria
into the Gulf of Mexico and then study its effect. Another example that
the press covered extensively from the Coburn Report was about a robot
folding laundry. If the goal is to commercialize a laundry-folding
robot tomorrow, then a machine taking 25 minutes to fold one towel is
silly. However, if the goal is to train machines to conduct the kind of
tasks that can help keep senior citizens living independently for as
long as possible--at enormous savings to the American taxpayer--then
developing the technology for a robot to fold one towel could be the
first step in a long but very worthwhile journey.
A scientific problem can look unimportant from the outside, which
is why it is valuable to have sufficient background and context to
judge the work's potential merit. The peer review of science is
certainly not perfect, and scientists are typically the first group to
point out the various flaws in peer review. However, debates about its
merit typically end with both sides conceding that it is the best
option we have. (One is reminded of Winston Churchill's famous quote,
``Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that
have been tried.'')
The ridicule of research when judged only by its cover highlights
not the folly of peer review, but the responsibility of scientists to
educate the public about their research and the scientific method more
generally. In the current fiscal climate, we need our federally-funded
researchers to do much more outreach to help the American taxpayer
understand the relevance of their work. In addition to the one-page
summaries that are currently published by the funding agencies, richer
media could communicate the content of research and its broader impact
for American society. Scientists should get into the habit of viewing
their work the same way that it might look from the outside, in order
proactively to explain their work from the outside in. There is an
increasing trend of media coverage for the Social, Behavioral, and
Economic sciences--suggesting that the public takes an interest in this
work and values it--and most serious scientists welcome this chance to
communicate and thank the public for its support.
Conclusion
Distinguished Members of the Committee, let me end by emphasizing
the shared goal between members of Congress, the American public, and
researchers in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic sciences. All of us
care about building the basic knowledge that will ultimately lead to
improving the effectiveness of the warfighter, the competitiveness of
American industry, and the health and welfare of American citizens.
My own story is just one example of basic behavioral research that
has practical applications for the military, business, medicine, and
education. My research has benefited from federal research funding, and
I am grateful for the chance to give back to the public that has
supported this work. I also appreciate the opportunity to speak with
you about the importance of this work. My hope is that this experience
is the beginning of more productive dialogue with scientists--to speak
to members of Congress about their work, why the work is important to
this country, and why the NSF should fund it.
Appendix: Evidence of the U.S. military's interest in nonverbal
communication across cultures
Army Research Institute OSD07-T004
TITLE: Training Soldiers to Decode Nonverbal Cues in Cross-Cultural
Interactions
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: Develop a computer-based training tool to improve Soldiers'
ability to decode nonverbal behavior in cross-cultural interactions.
DESCRIPTION: The course of events in Iraq and Afghanistan has
emphasized the role of human rather than technological solutions in
influencing the outcome of conflicts, making interpersonal skills an
increasingly important set of tools for the warfighter (Scales,2006).
Counterinsurgency, information operations, and stability operations
require a high level of interaction with the local population, and in
order for these interactions to yield useful intelligence or to
facilitate identification of insurgents, Soldiers must have effective
communication skills. As a result, greater resources have been
allocated to developing proficiency in Middle Eastern languages.
However, much of communication occurs through nonverbal channels,
especially when language skills are minimal or absent. Recognition and
accurate interpretation of others' nonverbal behavior is needed is
needed to identify opportunities to influence an individual or
situation, such as civil affairs units seeking the cooperation of local
leaders, or to discriminate hostile from friendly or neutral intent,
such as infantry units operating security checkpoints. The cross-
cultural nature of these interactions increases the likelihood of
error, due to lower accuracy in cross-cultural emotion recognition
(Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002a) and the tendency to apply ethnocentric
interpretations of behavior.
The training goal is to prepare Soldiers to interpret and predict
behavior more accurately in cross-cultural environments. Training
should address the role of culture in nonverbal communication,
identifying aspects of nonverbal communication that are universal, such
as expression of emotion (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002b), and aspects of
NYC that are culture-specific, such as display rules, emblems,
illustrators, and regulators (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). The culture-
specific aspect of training should target a culture in the Middle East.
Training should include nonverbal cues in multiple channels (e.g.,
vocal cues, kinesics) and describe circumstances under which certain
channels are more reliable than others. Training should be computer-
based and interactive, requiring student response and feedback.
Training should not only identify reliable nonverbal cues, but also
identify behaviors that may be commonly misinterpreted due to cultural
differences. Particular attention should be paid to cues that can be
observed from a distance, as observing facial expression may not always
be practical when assessing a target for hostile intent and such
behaviors are less consciously regulated than facial expressions (Ekman
& Friesen, 1974). All training software/systems must be ADL/SCORM
compliant.
Book: Sociocultural Data to Accomplish Department of Defense Missions:
Toward a Unified Social Framework
ISBN-I0: 0-309-18516-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-309-18516-5
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record id=13077
Sociocultural Data to Accomplish Department of Defense Missions:
Toward a Unified Social Framework summarizes presentations and
discussions that took place on August 16-17, 2010, at a National
Research Council public workshop sponsored by the Office of Naval
Research. The workshop addressed the variables and complex interaction
of social and cultural factors that influence human behavior, focusing
on potential applications to the full spectrum of military operations.
The workshop's keynote address by Major General Michael T. Flynn,
U.S. Army, provided critical context about the cultural situation and
needs of the military operating in Afghanistan. Additional
presentations were divided into four panels to address the diverse
missions encountered by the U.S. military worldwide. The workshop
concluded with a final panel to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of
different methods of acquiring and using relevant data and knowledge to
accomplish these missions. The panel topics and presenters are listed
below:
Conflict Is Local: Mapping the Sociocultural Terrain
David Kennedy, Hsinchun Chen, and Kerry Patton
Bridging Sociocultural Gaps in Cooperative
Relationships Robert Rubinstein, Alan Fiske, and Donal Carbaugh
Building Partner Capacity with Sociocultural
Awareness Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks and Shinobu Kitayama
The Art of Sociocultural Persuasion Jeanne Brett,
James Dillard, and Brant R. Burleson
Tools, Methods, Frameworks, and Models Mark Bevir,
Laura A. McNamara, Robert G. Sargent, and Jessica Glicken
Turnley
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Dr. Elfenbein.
The Chair next recognizes our third witness, Dr. Peter
Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars.
STATEMENT OF DR. PETER W. WOOD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF SCHOLARS
Dr. Wood. Thank you, Chairman Brooks and Ranking Member
Lipinski.
The National Association of Scholars stands in a somewhat
different position than representatives of the NSF or an
esteemed researcher in the field of emotions. I represent
roughly 3,000 faculty members, a great many of them social
scientists and a great many who have been recipients of NSF
funding over the years.
We are primarily concerned with the integrity of the
research enterprise in higher education, but we also recognize
that higher education is not an island, and that the academy
has to play its role in the retrenchment of the federal budget,
and that what we are facing with deep deficits in this country,
and the overall need for financial stringency is something that
the social sciences will have to bear as well as everybody
else.
So the question that I would like to address in these few
minutes is how we can do this with the least harm to our basic
scientific enterprise. The National Science Foundation is not a
profligate element in the government. Its review of proposals
is notoriously very strict. The proposals that win funding are
seldom trivial, and it has been pretty good in resisting
appeals to short-term thinking and politicization. Not that
those things have been totally absent; but in my view that once
we have reviewed the NSF budget and other parts of the federal
budget for the trivialities, there still is going to be a need
to make cuts in areas that will affect some basic research.
So I think what the Committee needs, what Congress has to
have in hand is some approach to triage; some way to figure out
among a lot of very good proposals and well-intended funding
which cuts can be made that will produce the least harm.
In my written testimony I suggested six principles that
might guide that. The first is that a great deal of attention
needs to be placed on where funding is available from outside
the academy that might substitute for loss of NSF funds. There
are numerous foundations in this country that do support basic
research. As a university administrator I know that roughly
half of our funding in research universities has come from non-
governmental sources.
We can, if we devote ourselves to that task, probably make
cuts in the federal budget that will do little harm to
important basic research if outside funding is available, but
those cuts need to be made strategically and tactically to be
sure that they are in areas where there is private support.
The second consideration is that the NSF is a major player
in the production of new PhDs in this country. It uses its
funds, rightfully so, to support both graduate students who are
in graduate programs and those who are finishing and working on
their dissertations. But we produce way too many PhDs in the
social, behavioral, and economic sciences. We know that because
many of them end up forced into the market for contingent
faculty members, they work as adjuncts for extraordinarily low
wages, or they are forced out of the academic world altogether.
We need to be thoughtful about this that we can probably
find ways to cut the budget that takes account of actual labor
force needs. Economics plays a double role here.
Finally, well, not finally, but in a group of
considerations I think the Committee needs to be aware that the
social sciences have been to a lamentable degree infected by
anti-science methodologies and anti-science ideologies.
In my own field of anthropology, recently the key
association, the American Anthropological Association, has been
floating the idea of eliminating science from its mission
statement. I don't know that that is going to go through. There
is pretty stiff opposition from those of us anthropologists who
think our field is a science, but nonetheless, this anti-
science element usually called post-modernism is broad and is
part of what goes on in our fields.
Now, when I review the proposals that have actually been
funded by the National Science Foundation, I see the little
direct evidence that this ideology is present, but I am aware
that anthropologists and other social scientists are very
clever about disguising their real intentions, and that is
something to pay attention to.
And finally, we are in an era in which higher education
overall is in the midst of a deep restructuring, and it is
important that the Committee take into account that just the
rise of for-profit education and online education is going to
change the market for social scientists. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wood follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Peter W. Wood, President,
National Association of Scholars
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Subcommittee on
Research and Science Education on the question of why social,
behavioral, and economic sciences are important to the physical and
life science communities, to the Federal government, and to the
American taxpayer.
I am speaking today both as a social scientist who has benefitted
from National Science Foundation funding and as the head of the
National Association of Scholars, an organization whose membership
includes more than five hundred social and behavioral scientists and
economists, most of them senior scholars at colleges and universities.
A few years ago, I resigned from a tenured position teaching
anthropology at Boston University, and I am no longer pursuing funded
research in my discipline. But as president of the NAS, I work with
many people who are active in social science research and who depend to
varying degrees on federal funding to carry their work forward.
The National Association of Scholars takes a broad view of the
relationship between the academy and society. Our members are aware of
the federal government's deep deficits and the overall need for budget
cuts. We expect that the social sciences will have to bear their share
of the financial stringency. The national interest in closing the gap
between federal revenue and federal spending is rightly the priority of
this Congress, and we know that will mean cuts to some important
programs.
Our major concern--my major concern--is that these cuts be made
shrewdly. The social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences should
not be x-ed out completely from the budget of the National Science
Foundation or other federal agencies. I will speak mainly of NSF
programs, which I am more familiar with than programs run by other
agencies. A great deal of NSF funding in the SBE disciplines goes to
projects that are intellectually worthy. Only a small portion, in my
judgment, is diverted to trivialities or is channeled to programs on
the basis of their political appeal rather than their scientific merit.
Of course, if funding for the SBE disciplines is to be trimmed, the
place to begin is with those trivialities and politicized programs. But
even if all these could be properly identified and statutory language
could be written and passed that prevented similar abuses in the
future, cutting them would probably fall short of what is needed. I
expect Congress will have to go further and cut NSF funding for SBE
research that has substantial merit. What we need is a principle for
triage. Among all the worthy projects in the SBE disciplines, which
ones stand out as most in need of NSF funding?
I have six suggestions. But before I get to those, I would like to
offer a brief statement of my overall view and I would like to tackle
the questions with which Chairman Brooks framed his invitation to me.
My overall view is this: the National Science Foundation was
created to advance basic research. That was a good idea for the United
States at the time and it remains so today. We need basic research not
least because it is the deep source of almost all our technological and
economic progress. The greatest advances have come not from researchers
looking for better ways to build mousetraps but from researchers who
are, so to speak, more interested in the mice. When Watson and Crick
discovered the structure of DNA, they knew they had achieved something
intellectually big, but its practical implications were invisible and
it took decades before that discovery led to the miracles of genetic
engineering we have today.
Examples of the long-term benefits of basic research in the natural
sciences are more familiar than examples in the SBE sciences, but there
too the liberal arts approach of pursuing the answers to the hard
intellectual questions rather than the tempting practical ones has paid
off. My discipline, anthropology, grew largely out the amateur
investigation of an upstate New York lawyer, Lewis Henry Morgan, who in
the mid-19h century took an interest in the kinship terminology of the
local Seneca Indians. From Morgan's work grew the whole enterprise of
studying kinship and marriage patterns as the key to understand social
structure in all human societies. Or to take another example, Adam
Smith was not looking for ways to improve the manufacture of pins when
he observed how the division of labor in pin factories led to
efficiencies unavailable to the solo worker. Smith's observations
presented in The Wealth of Nations, however, led to the very practical
discipline of economics.
If we take the long view, investing in basic science pays off, even
in the softer-seeming social sciences. And if we stick with that longer
view, it is the near-term practical research that typically proves to
have a short shelf-life.
Let me turn to Chairman Brooks' questions. He asked me:
Why are social, behavioral, and economic sciences important to
the physical and life science communities, to the Federal
government, and to the American taxpayer? How does basic
research in the social and behavioral sciences advance the
scientific community? How does it serve the Federal government?
How does this research advance or affect the lives of the
general population today?
To start, the social, behavioral, and economic sciences are
important to the physical and life science communities because they
illuminate the human condition. The life sciences are especially
intertwined with the SBE sciences. Humans are a complex social animal.
Our social complexity and our biological complexity are inextricable.
We are equally biological and social organisms, and neither one side
nor the other can be understood in isolation.
I realize how abstract this sounds. To bring it down to earth,
think of transnational adoptions, which are now quite common in the
United States. A little further on in these remarks I will have
something to say about an NSF-funded research project that deals with
transnational adoptions, so this is by no means a hypothetical case. We
know from practical experience that infants adopted from abroad become
culturally American with no special effort on the part of the adoptive
parents. To the contrary, many adoptive parents try hard to give their
adoptive children some sense of the culture and heritage they left
behind, and it is not uncommon for these children as young adults to go
abroad in search of their birth relatives and some sense of their
cultural heritage. Biology matters to them; so does culture; and yet
these sought-for links often prove very disappointing. The longed for
connection just fails to materialize.
We are a species that thrives only in families, but families are a
social reality that the social, behavioral, and economic sciences bring
into focus. Our in-grained ability to form stable pair bonds between
men and women requires social form, as does our need to provide
nurturing mothers and fathers to our offspring, who in comparison to
all other animals, require an extraordinarily long period of dependent
immaturity. That period of dependency is when we acquire most of what
we call culture, and it is nearly impossible to un-do it, though we can
add layers on top.
The complexity of these phenomena lies in the combination of
necessity and fluidity. We cannot thrive without family and parents,
but biology doesn't supply us with a single answer. Robins build their
nests the same way every time. Human families differ dramatically from
culture to culture. If we want to understand who we are, we have to
achieve the stereoscopic view that captures the biologically
essentially and socially contingent, and we have to grasp the power of
that contingency.
Studying contingency might be the very definition of the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences. I start with the example of the
family because kinship is one of my anthropological specializations.
But the stereoscopic vision is required in almost everything in the
human condition. Our bodies have amazing capacities to develop and
adapt, as well as all manner of frailties and susceptibilities to
disease. Body mechanics and medicine can illuminate some of these
strengths and weaknesses, but the full picture requires us to see how
strengths flourish in response to social incentives and how our
susceptibilities grow out of lifestyles. We gained susceptibility to
tuberculosis because our ancestors domesticated cattle. We get sick
with the flu because our ancestors domesticated chickens. Diseases that
jump the species barrier are a biological fact, but these jumps occur
in social contexts. The SBE sciences help us understand that context.
The NSF's Ecology and Infectious Disease Program provides necessary
funding to pursue this science.
Our frailties and diseases illustrate one of the intersections
between life sciences and social sciences, but so does our positive
capacities for complicated divisions of labor and our skill in creating
mutually profitable exchange. We need the science of economics to trace
out the complexity of specialization and exchange, but we need
neuroanatomy and cognitive science to understand how specialization and
exchange are even possible. No other animal has more than the barest
rudiment of these abilities. Understanding them requires the SBE fields
as much as it does physical and life sciences.
Finally, our capacity for language, our ability to form
communities, and our susceptibility to breaking communities apart are
at the center of this zone where social scientific investigation meets
human biology. The NSF's program ``Documenting Endangered Languages''
is one way in which we rescue key knowledge in this area from
historical oblivion.
I have ventured an answer to the first part of the first question,
``Why are social, behavioral, and economic sciences important to the
physical and life science communities?'' But Chairman Brooks also asked
why SBE sciences are important ``to the Federal government, and to the
American taxpayer?'' Clearly some matters may be important in their own
right but not important to the Federal government or to the taxpayer.
The usual defense of the social, behavioral, and economic sciences is
that they offer practical benefits. I am not going to pursue that
argument any more than in my suggestion that seminal research--such as
the research of Watson and Crick, Lewis Henry Morgan, or Adam Smith--
often proves fruitful in the long term. The SBE sciences may indeed
produce some shorter term practical benefits, but I don't think that is
why the Federal Government should fund NSF programs in these areas or
what the taxpayer should expect from research in SBE. If we wanted
those practical benefits and are convinced that social science can
deliver them, it would be better for Congress to appropriate funds
specifically for applied social science.
The better reason to fund the SBE sciences through the NSF is to
sustain scientific excellence. Science of course is not a single
enterprise. Astronomers, chemists, biologists, physicists, geologists,
etc. use dissimilar methods and count successes in different ways. Add
in the SBE sciences and the picture is still more various. But behind
all this variety is the shared quest to understand nature and our place
in it. In that sense, we can have only one real standard. We need
science that advances us towards seeing the world at every scale as it
really is. A science that looks at only large things like galaxies or
only at tiny things like DNA would be drastically incomplete. We need
to keep humanity in the picture, and we fall far short of the mark if
we treat the quest for understanding our own species as merely a
hitchhiker on the physical sciences. We need excellence in the SBE
sciences too. Without a national commitment to such excellence, we will
end up with a hollow civilization: one that values knowledge of the
mechanics of things disconnected from our knowledge of ourselves.
Moreover, a major retreat from the SBE sciences on the part of the
NAS would simply accelerate the politicization of these fields. But I
will have more to say on this below.
Chairman Brooks also put to me the questions, ``Why is it in the
American taxpayer's interest for the Federal government to fund all
disciplines within the SBE sciences? How should the Federal government
prioritize funding for SBE research? How should NSF, specifically,
prioritize funding for SBE research?"
By way of answer to all of these questions, I want to offer the six
suggestions I alluded to before. But I want to be clear from the
outset. I don't believe that it is in the interest of the American
taxpayer for the Federal government to fund all disciplines within the
SBE sciences. We face the need for cuts and we have to find intelligent
ways to make them. That may mean suspending funding in some
disciplines.
First, Congress should pay attention to non-governmental sources of
funding. Some areas of research already attract substantial financial
support from international agencies, foundations, private-donors, and
for-profit enterprises. There is no reason to think that these funding
sources have been exhausted.
Scholars who work in the areas could, if faced with a decline in
funding through the NSF, potentially find substitute sources of
support.
Second, Congress should pay attention to the oversupply of SBE
Ph.D.s in the labor force. Each year our universities award advanced
degrees to many more people in these fields than there are
opportunities for employment that require such credentials. One result
of the surplus is that colleges and universities rely more and more on
adjunct faculty members, part-timers who are typically paid
extraordinarily low wages and whose relationship with students is
transitory and transactional. The oversupply problem has a cascade of
other negative social consequences, but I'll limit myself to just one:
producing this surplus of specialists is a tremendous waste of
resources. And NSF is one of the culprits. It supports graduate
students in SBE fields through its graduate fellowships, and again in
grants to support the writing of Ph.D. dissertations. I would by no
means recommend cutting these entirely, but it is clear that NSF
currently incentivizes people to pursue careers in fields in which
there are meager opportunities.
Third, Congress should pay attention to the rise of anti-scientific
ideologies within SBE disciplines. In my field of anthropology, for
example, a recent controversy has highlighted this division. The
weekend before Thanksgiving, at the closing of the annual convention of
the American Anthropological Association (AAA), the organization's
Executive Board discussed a long-range plan that would alter the AAA's
mission statement. The new mission statement deleted the idea that
anthropology is a science. It also blurred the intellectual boundaries
of the discipline and, ironically, inserted a stronger warrant for
using anthropology to engage in public advocacy.
In the weeks and months that followed, as word reached the rank and
file, a heated debate ensued. One section of the AAA, the Society for
Anthropological Sciences, took strong objection to the jettisoning of
``science'' from the organization's mission and many individual
anthropologists seconded that dissent. The AAA's leadership back
peddled to a degree and declared that its purposes had been
misunderstood. But the incident was not an innocent misunderstanding. A
substantial number of anthropologists do not regard their discipline as
a science. They see ``science'' itself as a label or at most one path
to knowledge among many that anthropology should avail itself of.
The kerfuffle over the AAA's mission statement has its counterparts
in many other social sciences. We have lived through an era in higher
education in which the social sciences have been profoundly influenced
by ideological and philosophical developments that are at odds with
science. Post-modernism brought into the social sciences the view that
truth is just a social construct. Different people have different
truths, and that claims that something is true mostly reflect efforts
to dominate and to exercise power. This view is inimical to genuine
scientific research but it lends itself handily to more free-form
styles of investigation and it is comfortable with research tied to
political goals.
I hasten to add that I am not saying that views such as these
should be blocked or that the scholars who promote them don't have the
right to express their views. They of course enjoy academic and
intellectual freedom. But academic and intellectual freedoms don't come
with a presumptive right to Federal funding.
Looking at actual awards granted by the NSF over the last few
years, I would say NSF generally steers clear of funding research that
openly embraces postmodernism or its equally anti-scientific variants.
But it isn't always easy to tell. Researchers who seek federal funding
from a science agency usually know enough to present their work as
scientific in spirit even if at a deeper level it is not.
For instance, I see that the NSF granted $200,000 last year for a
project titled, ``Transnational Adoptees and Migrants: From Peru to
Spain.'' The awardee is looking at Peruvian immigrants to Spain, and
Peruvian children adopted by Spanish families. The abstract of the
study claims scientific merit in ``bringing the two kinds of population
movements into comparison with each other.'' And the researcher will
learn from this how ``to elucidate common and differentiating factors
in the countries of origin and destination; how the two may interact,
particularly with regard to integration into the receiving country; and
how the identities and experiences of young immigrants are affected by
being either adopted or part of labor-migrant families.'' The research
is to be conducted through ``participant-observation, semi-structured
focus group interviews, and semi-structured interviews with individuals
and families.''
I do not know the lead investigator, Dr. Jessaca B. Leinaweaver of
Brown University, or anything more about the project than what NSF has
posted. I can imagine that it has genuine scientific merit. Demography
is an important field, and international population movements bear on a
lot of issues we must deal with as a nation. But I must register a
doubt. Though both involve people crossing international boundaries,
transnational adoption and immigration of adults are pretty disparate
topics. The connection between them as stated in the abstract seems
entirely rhetorical, and the method of investigation unlikely to yield
much beyond impressionistic interpretations.
Dr. Leinaweaver's research is by no means outside the mainstream of
contemporary cultural anthropology, but that may be a signal of the
underlying problem. It has become much more difficult to distinguish
scientific investigations in the social sciences from other forms of
research. This is not to say those other forms of research always lack
merit. If a researcher sets out on a program of historical, humanistic,
or interpretive study, however, the NSF is probably not the best source
of funding. Taxpayers of all points of view are being asked to
subsidize the research of those with a particular point of view. If the
particular point of view does not have special standing as a matter of
science, it is hard to see why it should enjoy any special subsidy.
Fourth, Congress should cut funds wherever they are being used by
NSF to advance non-science agendas. This is an area fraught with
controversy that could distract from other points, so I will leave it
as a general principle. The purpose of NSF is to advance science, not
one or another person's views of social justice.
I would, to start with, recommend de-funding the programs that
support ``transforming education'' and ``ethics.'' These are not
scientific endeavors. They are, fairly openly, political undertakings.
For example, the NSF's 2009 grant of $299,000 for a project titled,
``Engineering and Social Justice: Research and Education of
(In)commensurable Fields of Practice,'' is framed entirely within the
perspective of advancing a politicized view of the field of
engineering. To underscore this, I quote the project abstract in its
entirety:
This project, supported by the Ethics Education in Science and
Engineering Cross-NSF program, investigates the relationship
between engineering and social justice. Given the global
challenges of the 21st century, engineering educators are
implementing innovative ways to prepare tomorrow's engineers--
including programs and courses in community service,
sustainable development, and humanitarian engineering. That
engineering students might be enacting various forms of social
justice in these programs and courses raises important
questions. How are engineering students interpreting social
justice? How do those interpretations intersect with their
education as engineers? What might engineering and social
justice have in common? In which ways have these two fields of
practice aligned, clashed, or interfaced in recent US history?
How and why should relevant dimensions of social justice be
effectively taught and disseminated throughout engineering
curricula?
The main goal of this project is to research these questions
and develop educational resources aimed at relevant connections
between engineering and social justice, allowing for various
interpretations of social justice. To achieve this goal, the
project researches historical and ethical connections between
engineers and social justice. Furthermore, given the surge in
university programs related to community service and
humanitarian engineering, the project contributes by developing
relevant instructional case studies. The project will also
result in a book about Engineering and Social Justice with
chapters exploring the social-justice dimensions of engineering
during the New Deal, radical and non-radical engineers in the
1960s, engineers of appropriate technology, engineers of
sustainable development, and engineering to help. Primary
project partners and audiences include engineering faculty and
students, engineers in organizations actively pursuing social-
justice goals, and a growing network of engineering educators
interested in social justice issues. This project stands to
have a broad impact by increasing recruitment and retention
among US engineering students, particularly women and
underrepresented groups, as students become more concerned with
the social relevance of their careers.
I imagine Congressmen can and will have differing views on the
worthiness of this vision of education for engineers, but it seems
plain that the project is in no way an effort to advance scientific
understanding.
Fifth, Congress should beware funding for projects that slip too
easily into contemporary policy debates. The projects need not be
carrying a political ballast to fall into the realm of questionable
places for the taxpayer to invest resources. The problem is that social
science research all too easily gets dazzled by the prospect of
practical application and researchers find themselves drawn to take
sides in policy debates. Do we want social science that helps us hack
through the thickets of data to clarify complicated social problems? I
think we do--and the place for that research is in policy-oriented
think tanks, commissions, and programs set up for specific purposes. An
agency created to fund basic science is the wrong place through which
to fund work that aims to contribute to public policy discourse.
I realize my view must sound very odd to some members of Congress
who have abundant experience hearing from academic experts about the
potential practical rewards of policy-oriented research. I must re-
emphasize that such research is frequently worthwhile, but that
locating it in the National Science Foundation is a mistake. It is
mistake because it competes with and crowds out research that is more
fundamentally important; it is a mistake because there are almost
always interest groups willing to fund such research without using the
taxpayer's dollar; and it is a mistake because the research itself is
likely to be compromised along the way.
For example, in March of this year NSF awarded $148,000 for a
project titled, ``Out From the Shadows: The Lives of Immigrants Before,
During, and After Legalization.'' The project consists of ``qualitative
research to examine the experiences and outcomes of immigration legal
status change among Mexican immigrants to the U.S.'' The researcher
aims to ``complement macro-level quantitative studies of new legal
immigrants by contributing person-centered qualitative data on legal
stages of naturalization from the point of view of immigrants
themselves.'' And the study focuses on people selected from four
categories: ``immigrants who anticipate changing their legal status
from undocumented to legal permanent resident, those who have recently
changed their status, those who adjusted their status ten or more years
ago, and naturalized U.S. citizens.''
I don't see this research as necessarily politicized. The
researcher has not openly declared a view on whether illegal immigrants
to the U.S. should be granted legal status. The researcher herself,
however, is explicit that the project is intended to be ``a timely
contribution to local and national policy debates about immigration
programs.'' And the thin line between making a contribution to social
scientific knowledge and advocating for an interest group gets even
thinner: ``This study can provide important information for
organizations and agencies that provide support and resources to
legalizing immigrants.'' What about taxpayers who don't want to
``provide support and resources'' for illegal immigrants? Regardless of
one's views on that question, it is hard to see this research as
disinterested. In fact, the research has very thin justification
outside those policy debates. The researcher falls back on what amount
to a series of social science cliches.
This project will advance research in an area that is of
critical importance to wider considerations of nationhood,
citizenship, transnational migration, and globalization.
Furthermore, the research will document the challenges that
immigrants face during and post-legalization, and how these
challenges may be experienced with respect to characteristics
such as gender, ethnicity, and class.
The slope is too slippery to bear more than momentary weight. When
the NSF funds such policy-oriented research, it is on the road to
making policy on its own--in fields far beyond science.
Sixth, Congress should consider the larger picture of the changing
nature of American higher education. The lion's share of science
funding from the Federal government goes to researchers who are faculty
members at research universities. Another large share goes to graduate
students at these universities. I have already pointed out that the
nation has an over-abundance of Ph.D.s in the SBE sciences. We may also
have other excesses. Undergraduate students in larger and larger
numbers are opting to pursue post-secondary education in community
colleges and online institutions that have no commitment to research,
and undergraduate students at four-year institutions have been steadily
migrating to fields such as business, health, communication, and
education. The nation's emphasis on university-based research in all of
the sciences is, at the very least, vulnerable to recalibration. I
would take it as a serious loss for the nation if we recalibrated
ourselves all the way out of a serious commitment to SBE research, but
I do think that we could make cuts that would leave room for the
essential work to continue.
I appreciate having had this opportunity to address the committee.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Dr. Wood.
The Chair now recognizes our final witness, Diana
Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.
STATEMENT OF MS. DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON
INSTITUTE
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee, thank you so much for inviting me to testify here
today. We have a spending crisis in America, and we should only
spend when there is a compelling interest. We have universities
that fund these disciplines, and it should not be the role of
the government.
In my field economics, original seminal works were produced
without government funds by Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes,
Frank Knight, Friedrich Hayek, even Karl Marx; they all
produced their work without any government funding at all.
The social and behavioral scientists abound in the
universities and private businesses, their research products
always interesting and valuable, can be sold to journals and
corporations. Successful SBE research is well supported by
think tanks, private corporations, law firms, and foundations
that can use the results. There are many private foundations
that provide grants for social science research, including the
Kauffman Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the
MacArthur Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
just to name a few.
Even if one believes that the United States has an interest
in producing social, behavioral, and economic research, it is
not clear that the National Science Foundation is always the
appropriate entity. In fiscal year 2010, the NSF spent 255
million on SBE research. NIH alone spent 4.1 billion on
behavioral and social science research in fiscal year 2010, and
why is there a need for NSF to do this funding?
As Dr. Wood just said, having a grant-making agency such as
the NSF in charge of government research funding leads to a
greater possibility of politicization and concentration in
certain areas. This is true even under the Merit Review System
where researchers have to show the scientific and broad effects
of their work. There is a temptation for politics to enter into
the allocation of funds and for research projects to be
allocated with non-scientific criteria, including gender,
ethnic, and geographic criteria rather than the merit of the
research.
Note the comment earlier from Dr. Gutmann about how NSF
funding funded the first woman Nobel economics prizewinner. Of
course, politics enters into government agencies also, but the
bias of politics is less likely to all be in one direction.
For the NSF to argue persuasively that it should continue
funding research on SBE, NSF should demonstrate that the
research is important and that it won't be funded by other
sources. Perhaps these arguments are articulated somewhere, but
they are hard to find. They are not on the NSF website, they
are not in annual reports prepared by NSF. Unless the agency
can clearly make the arguments, there is little, if any, need
for NSF funding to fund much SBE research.
During our time of shrinking Federal dollars when our debt
is over 14 trillion and our deficit this year is projected to
be 1.6 trillion, the NSF should focus on basic physical and
life science research rather than research in SBE.
One exception, and well, one exception and just to draw a
couple of parameters, might be longitudinal studies such as the
University of Michigan panel study on income dynamics, a survey
funded by NSF, which has followed 5,000 families since 1968.
Perhaps these kinds of data sources should receive government
funding, because there might be a public interest in having a
continuous dataset, and a private foundation might be tempted
to drop the funding. But this could also be funded by the Labor
Department as the national longitudinal survey is, which began
in the 1960s.
A couple of other parameters that I might consider
suggesting if the NSF wants to fund research in my field,
economics, to only support projects that create new data that
are made publicly available to other researchers within five
years. Second, only pay for data entry by research assistants
and not by faculty, not faculty compensation, not computer
hardware, not computer software. This would guarantee that NSF
wasn't used to subsidize other purposes within the
universities.
I understand that the Federal Government often has a need
for research, the military as Dr. Elfenbein just mentioned, has
a need for certain kinds of projects. But then the Department
of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, they could put out
a request for proposal and fund that research by itself.
Thank you very much for allowing me the privilege of
testifying today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Furchtgott-Roth follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth,
Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I am honored to be invited
to testify before you today on the subject of National Science
Foundation funding for social, behavioral, and economic science
research. I have been a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute since
2005. From 2003 until April 2005 I was chief economist at the U.S.
Department of Labor. From 2001 until 2002 I served at the Council of
Economic Advisers as chief of staff. Previously, I was a resident
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. I have served as Deputy
Executive Secretary of the Domestic Policy Council under President
George H.W. Bush and as an economist on the staff of President Reagan's
Council of Economic Advisers.
Social, behavioral, and economic science research includes
anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, linguistics, history,
neuroscience, political science, psychology, sociology, criminology and
law. I am most familiar with economic research, having published books
and articles in the area and having served as chief economist of the
Department of Labor.
There is much outstanding work produced every year in the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences. It fills journals and working papers
and is presented at conferences. The question at issue is not the
quality of this research, but whether the Federal Government should
fund it. When research is funded by the government, should it be funded
by the National Science Foundation, or by individual government
agencies?
Economists have devoted much thought to the concept of public
goods. Public goods are those for which the incentive to produce them
is lacking because consumption is nonexcludable, and the producer
cannot capture the returns. The most common example of a public good is
national defense. No individual would have an incentive to set up a
national defense system, because everyone would benefit. Another
frequently-used example is street lighting. With street lighting,
everyone driving on the street would benefit, and the person who put in
the street lights would not be able to collect revenue.
It is generally accepted that the government has to provide public
goods, raising the revenues through taxation.
The question is, does research in the social and behavioral
sciences meet the definition of a public good? Then, if so, is the
National Science Foundation the preferred mechanism for distributing
the funding?
Social, behavioral, and economic sciences research does not fit the
conditions that define it as a ``public good.'' Social and behavioral
scientists abound in the universities and in private businesses; their
research products, often interesting and valuable, can be sold to
journals and corporations. Successful SBE research is well-supported by
think tanks, private corporations, law firms, and foundations that can
use the results.
There are many private foundations that provide grants for social
science research. The Kauffman Foundation, the Smith Richardson
Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gates
Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and many others
fund research in the social and behavioral sciences. Just to give two
examples: the MacArthur Foundation gave out almost $300 million in
total grants in 2009, and the Kauffman Foundation spends $8 million per
year on research into innovation and growth.
Even if one believes that the United States has an interest in
producing social, behavioral, and economic research, it is not clear
that the National Science Foundation is always the appropriate entity.
In fiscal year 2010, NSF spent $255 million on social, behavioral and
economic research. Billions more are spent by the Departments of
Education, Defense, Justice, Labor, Homeland Security, Energy, Housing
and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services, particularly the
National Institutes of Health. NSF estimates that almost $3 billion was
spent on federal basic and applied SBE research in fiscal year 2009,
and individual agencies provide other grants for research in specific
fields.
I was asked to comment on whether basic research in the social and
behavioral sciences advances the physical and life sciences. In my
opinion, it does not do so. Research in the physical and life sciences
is separate from that in the social sciences and should be evaluated
using different criteria.
There are many organizations doing research at government expense,
and there does not appear to be coordination between them to avoid
duplication of effort. One useful role for NSF might be to take a
coordinating role in the funding of government research.
I was also asked to comment on whether research in the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences serves the Federal Government. Such
research does help the Federal Government make decisions about a wide
range of issues ranging from capture of terrorists to the right level
of energy taxes to preservation of archaeological artifacts.
Within the economics field, the Federal Government is constantly
faced with questions about the allocation of scarce resources, the
distributional effects of social programs, and the optimal system of
taxation. Currently Congress and the administration are discussing
corporate and individual tax reform, the housing market, energy policy,
immigration reform, among others, and economics research can shed light
on such policy questions.
However, it does not mean that the Federal Government or the
National Science Foundation has to fund the research. The government
could examine the existing body of research, and invite researchers for
consultation. If this is not sufficient, individual agencies could
commission new research. If the government is interested in how to
organize housing assistance, the Department of Housing and Urban
Development could structure a grant.
The general population is undoubtedly better off with an efficient
system of government with low taxes and efficient provision of
entitlements. It is not clear how NSF funding of social, behavioral,
and economic sciences contributes to that goal.
Having a grant-making agency such as the NSF in charge of
government research funding leads to a greater possibility of
politicization and concentration in certain areas. This is true even
under the merit review system, where researchers have to show the
scientific and broader effects of their work. For example, global
warming might receive priority funding one year, electric cars another.
There is temptation for politics to enter into the allocation of funds,
and for research projects to be allocated with non-scientific
criteria--including gender, ethnic, and geographic--in mind, rather
than the merit of the research.
Of course, politics enters in other government agencies as well,
but the bias of politics is less likely to be all in the same
direction. Private foundations and corporations are not immune from
politics either, but in the private sector these political biases are
more likely to cancel each other out, and they would not directly
affect the taxpayers' dollars.
It is in American taxpayers' interest for Federal Government
spending to be as low and as efficient as possible, including research
on social, economic, and behavioral sciences. If an individual
government agency needs an answer on a particular social or economic
question, that agency can issue a request for a research proposal and
can hire appropriate researchers. In the field of economics, agencies
have a chief economist with a staff which can recommend researchers. In
other fields, such as archaeology, linguistics, and neuroscience, where
a federal agency might have no capability, it could consult with the
NSF for recommendations as to experts.
For the NSF to argue persuasively that it should continue funding
research on social, economic, and behavioral sciences, NSF should
demonstrate that the research is important, and that it will not be
funded by other sources. Perhaps those arguments are articulated
somewhere, but they are hard to find. They are not on the NSF Web site.
They are not in annual reports prepared by NSF. Unless the agency can
clearly makes these arguments, and I am skeptical that it can, there is
little if any need for the National Science Foundation to fund much if
any social, economic, and behavioral research.
During this time of shrinking federal dollars, when our debt is
over $14 trillion and our deficit this year is projected at $1.6
trillion, the NSF should focus on basic physical and life sciences
research rather than research in the social, economic and behavioral
science.
One exception might be longitudinal studies such as the University
of Michigan Panel Study on Income Dynamics, a survey funded by the NSF,
which has followed 5,000 families since 1968. Perhaps these should
receive government funding, because there is a public interest in
having a continuous series of data. But this could be funded by the
Labor Department, as is the National Longitudinal Survey, which began
in the 1960s.
Congress could facilitate SBE research without direct funding by
making it easier for researchers to use federal and state government
data bases, after removing personal identifiers. Governments data
collection includes administrative data on educational records, tax
returns, injuries associated with different occupations, and earnings.
Currently, it is difficult for researchers to use these data due to
privacy considerations, even though such data are a treasure trove of
information. If Congress were to modify some of the privacy regulations
it would be easier for researchers to work with these large databases,
saving time and cutting costs.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity of testifying today. I
would be glad to answer any questions you might have.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Ms. Furchtgott-Roth.
Dr. Gutmann, inasmuch as Ms. Furchtgott-Roth mentioned some
of your prior remarks, would you like to make any response in a
general sense to hers, or should we go into our normal question
session?
Dr. Gutmann. I think you could go into your general
question session. Thank you.
Chairman Brooks. All right. Thank you. Well, I thank the
panel for their testimony.
Reminding Members that Committee rules limit questioning to
five minutes, the Chair will at this point open the round of
questions. Normally the Chair recognizes himself for questions,
but inasmuch as we have a birthday boy here, celebrating his
85th birthday, the Chair at this point defers to my elder
statesman, Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Our country faces some huge challenges in the economic
sector, in the energy sector. They, of course, are related, and
the--how we respond to those challenges is going to be
enormously important, and obviously the social and behavioral
sciences are going to be front and center here in how we
respond to these challenges.
I would like to ask Dr. Gutmann, do you think that our
research, our understanding of the behavioral social sciences
is ahead of or behind our knowledge in the hard sciences?
Dr. Gutmann. Thank you very much for the question, Mr.
Bartlett. It is very interesting. I think that we are on par
with what is happening in other sciences. I am not sure I am
always comfortable with the term hard science and soft science.
That is a discussion we could have, but I think that our
progress is interesting and commendable, and we are in the
areas you are describing, for example, in making progress on
energy, we are looking forward to making significant
investments in research that will help understand how to best
arrive at an appropriate future for energy use.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you. Dr. Elfenbein, 70 percent of all
communication is non-verbal, and you referenced this
phenomenon. Is this an international language, which means that
if you can't speak the other guy's language at all, if you
really understand body language and the non-verbal part of
communications, you can understand 70 percent of what he is
trying to tell you?
Dr. Elfenbein. Thank you for the question. As far as
scientists know, yes, communication being non-verbal cues is a
largely universal language. It does have--and the work that I
have done that has been funded by the NSF shows that although
much of the signal goes--makes it through cultural boundaries,
some of the signal does get lost along the way, but I think our
intuitions are--do serve us well in this case that we can watch
foreign films in a different language and maintain much of the
original meaning or communicate across species boundaries, for
example, with pets and maintain much of the meaning of non-
verbal communication, but something does get lost along the
way.
And for this reason misunderstandings are potentially more
dangerous in the case of non-verbal behavior because if we were
speaking a different verbal language, we would realize that and
get a translator. But if we are--if we have different meanings
involved and viewed into the cues that we use on a non-verbal
basis, we may not realize that, and we may have a
misunderstanding that doesn't get feedback, that doesn't get
corrected.
Mr. Bartlett. Dr. Wood, you mentioned foundations. I regret
that a huge percentage of research is funded by the Federal
Government. In some institutions, medical particularly, more
than 90 percent of all research is funded by the Federal
Government.
The Federal Government can be very arbitrary and
capricious, and I think we put at risk our research, our basic
research if it is funded by the Federal Government. But
lamentably we have forcively taken money from you, and we have
not given you the option of you using your money to support
basic research and then giving you a tax credit for doing that.
And so here we are, and my question is in the behavioral
sciences, which I think are going to become increasingly
important in the future as we face these crises in our country,
is there really enough support, non-governmental support, for
these basic sciences that we could responsibly, drastically
reduce our funding for NSF in this area?
Dr. Wood. Well, I wouldn't favor drastically reducing
funding for the NSF in this area, but I do think that
significant cuts will be made. Will the private sector
foundations be able to pick that up? I believe so, that the
social science research that has real depth and real grip is
appealing to a lot of people besides government agencies.
Now, of course, the transition will be hard, and it will
mean that there probably will be worthy projects that go
unfunded. As my colleague Dr. Furchtgott-Roth has just pointed
out, some of the most fundamental research in the social
sciences going back in her field economics Adam Smith in mind
to the American founder of anthropology, Louis Henry Morgan,
took place without any government funding at all. It was
pursued as a form of research by impassioned amateurs, and
there is a lot of really important research that doesn't
actually take a great deal of funding.
Done strategically and carefully a lot can be done without
really in-depth federal support or even with that much support
from the foundations.
So I am optimistic that, yes, the really important stuff
will get done even if we have to take some lamentable cuts in
Federal funding.
Mr. Bartlett. If you will indulge me just a moment, Mr.
Chairman, our fourth witness I am old enough to have known
Herman Conn. Did your stay there overlap his?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Unfortunately, it did not. No, but we
remember him very fondly and read his work.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett.
The Chair next recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski,
for five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will start out by asking Dr. Gutmann to sort of follow up
on the--Dr. Bartlett's question there about if there were
significant cuts, drastic cuts in SBE funding through NSF what
would the--what do you see the impact as being? Do you think
that this would be picked up by others?
Dr. Gutmann. I think there are really two questions raised
here, and I am happy to briefly answer both of them, Mr.
Lipinski. One question is is it likely that a private sources
could replace a substantial amount of funding that is currently
devoted to the social and behavioral and economic sciences, and
I think the answer to that is no.
The great foundations that have been mentioned earlier are
largely interested in solving relatively specific problems. The
Gates Foundation is very rich. They largely are interested in
certain areas of educational achievement and improving health,
global health. Those are extremely important topics. But their
approach to them is very applied. It is very directed towards
solving the problem today and making investments today. They
are much less interested in the basic science that
organizations like NSF support, and so I don't think, in fact,
that there is a reasonable chance that private foundations are
going to invest more than they are investing today.
The second question that you ask is a question about what
would happen if government support for social and behavioral
sciences through NSF or other agencies would be significantly
reduced, and I think that would have a very serious affect. We
all recognize the budgetary needs today, and we understand that
in these times we may have to accept reductions in what we
spend. That is the reality that we face, and we are not averse
to understanding that reality.
But significant reductions in SBE funding are going to
deprive our society of the kind of basic research that Dr.
Elfenbein talked about. Where we go into problems not knowing
the outcome and where the long-term chain of research
developments really transform our view of the world, and that
is a significant risk. So I don't think that is a good idea,
and I think it will have undue and severe consequences for the
American people.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Dr. Gutmann. There are a lot of
things that Dr. Wood has stated, and I think in general that we
would find some agreement on those. This question of whether or
not if funding would be picked up, I think I agree. A lot of
good research is--does not need much or any funding, but a lot
of--but there is a lot of research that does need the funding
to be able to be done.
I can't at all disagree that there is an oversupply of
Ph.D.s having gone through that whole process myself and having
been an assistant professor, but my experience is usually those
who do have NSF funding are people who do wind up getting jobs,
and NSF, the whole process seems to be a good almost weeding
out of choosing those who are doing good research and those who
are able to work with professors who are doing good research.
One thing I wanted to get back to Dr. Gutmann on is I
understand that the NSF has signed an MOU with the Department
of Defense to do SBE research, and then after one year of
funding both NSF and DOD putting in the funding level, DOD had
then backed out of that and said NSF should just be funding
this research.
Can you give a little background on that?
Dr. Gutmann. Most of those discussions occurred before I
got to NSF, but I have been part of the process since, and my
understanding is that the Department of Defense has felt that
their resources could be better deployed elsewhere. And so we
did have one cycle of making awards. Those awards were made
about a year and a half ago, and those awards have been very
successful. We have had a first PI meeting. There is a lot of
interesting research that is being done in this joint program
between NSF and the Department of Defense in the area of
national security.
But at this time the Department of Defense doesn't seem to
have the resources to commit to it further.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, and I just want to--my time is
almost up. I just wanted to also say I agree, I think, with
what Dr. Gutmann had just said, you know. We know these are
difficult times for the budget, and there are certainly things
that we can all find problems with maybe in some research that
receives funding, but the bottom line is what is the overall
contribution that this research makes, and is it worth the
funding. And I think we generally, you know, that is the
question we want to address, and I think that we have a lot of
evidence that it is worth, the funding is worthwhile, but that
doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking at it.
So I thank you again. I will yield back.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
The Chair next recognizes Dr. Harris.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you very much to everyone on the panel for sharing your morning
with us.
Dr. Gutmann, let me ask you a question. As we look through
the fiscal year 2012 budget, SBE budget, there is the science,
engineering, education, and education for sustainability
portfolio, which got a 174 percent increase over last year, and
now it is nearly a quarter of the SBE, entire SBE budget
request.
What falls under that portfolio? Science, engineering, and
education for sustainability portfolio.
Dr. Gutmann. I respectfully, Mr. Harris, thank you for
asking the question. I respectfully think that that budget is
not as large as that, but it is----
Mr. Harris. The fiscal year 2012 request?
Dr. Gutmann. The fiscal year 2012 request, but it is
significant. I won't deny that. I think it is about, maybe
about 15 or 18 percent of our budget, but in any event, it is a
significant investment, and I recognize that.
These are--in this broad area we have a portfolio of
research that involves the geographic and spatial sciences,
studies that link environmental, environment and society and
studies that bring our--explore the relationship between
consumers and producers of energy and energy technology. So in
this, for example, is our proposed investment in an NSF-wide
initiative to understand how to make the best use of energy in
the future and what are the roles, the research that would be
SBE related would be research that is part of a broad inter-
disciplinary teams that considers markets for energy,
consumption of energy, and how people think about energy use in
order to make the most effective use of our resources.
Mr. Harris. That, you know, just looking at all the
testimony about how basic research, you know, the SBE research
is kind of basic research and not politically motivated,
shouldn't be politically motivated, my first question, why
wouldn't the Department of Energy be funding something that so
fundamentally looks at energy? Why is it stuck in a basic
science area of research funding? Why not the Department of
Energy?
Aren't you wondering into somebody else's bailey with
perhaps a politically-motivated reason? I mean, who made the
decision to increase it by 174 percent, the request by 174
percent?
Dr. Gutmann. Again----
Mr. Harris. Well, you can get back to me.
Dr. Gutmann. --with respect to by increasing it by whatever
it is increased by----
Mr. Harris. That is fine. You can get back to me on the
exact number.
Dr. Gutmann. We will get back to you on the exact number.
Mr. Harris. If you can get that answer to me, I would
appreciate that.
Dr. Gutmann. Yeah, but may I continue with my response?
Mr. Harris. Well, I am sorry. I only have two more minutes.
Dr. Gutmann. Okay.
Mr. Harris. I am going to go onto the next question for you
here, and this is in a similar vein. In a brief review of the
SBE Rapid Grants, and you are familiar with those, the ones
that don't undergo peer review process, a great deal of funding
seems to have been spent on evaluating the results and
effectiveness of stimulus programs and funding.
Now, I got to tell you, I mean, most people would look at
the stimulus and said, you know, unemployment was lower than it
is now, before we spent all that money I am not sure we need a
big expensive grant to figure out what it is. We just have to
watch the unemployment figures and the national economic
indicators.
But can you tell me how much the taxpayers invested in this
and what the results of the--any of this information is? I
mean, I assume since it was a Rapid Grant, you already have
results because that is why you put it through a process that
didn't require a peer review so you could get rapid results I
would take it.
Dr. Gutmann. I will have to respond later to you about the
details of that. I don't have that directly in front of me.
Mr. Harris. But is that true? I mean, were there Rapid
Grants truly awarded to look on evaluating the results and
effectiveness of stimulus programs and funding?
Dr. Gutmann. Yes, there were.
Mr. Harris. And you consider that basic science?
Dr. Gutmann. Those research--that research was done under
the Rapid mechanism because certain research had to be done----
Mr. Harris. Is that basic science?
Dr. Gutmann. Yes, I do believe so.
Mr. Harris. You think that it is basic science that
couldn't be done, couldn't be looked at in other, in more
conventional means that would require bypassing peer review?
Dr. Gutmann. There is a process of review that is
undertaken for those, sir.
Mr. Harris. Okay, and I have got the numbers here in front
of me. The SES fiscal year 2012 request is $56.98 million, $57
million, 174 percent increase over last year's request. Do you
know where that increase originated?
Dr. Gutmann. These decisions were made in the leadership of
the National Science Foundation.
Mr. Harris. Do you agree with those decisions?
Dr. Gutmann. Yes, I do.
Mr. Harris. So you think we need to spend, in an era where
we have a $1.6 trillion deficit, we should be increasing the
funding to that particular segment by 174 percent so that we
can somehow engage in some study of education for
sustainability.
Dr. Gutmann. Well, the parts of that that are within our
directorate are broadly conceived, and I believe that whatever
the number is it is an appropriate investment.
Mr. Harris. Well, it is $56.98 million. I mean----
Dr. Gutmann. Yes.
Mr. Harris. --do you disagree with that number? I mean----
Dr. Gutmann. No.
Mr. Harris. --I am assuming it is written in a budget. So
let's not pretend that it is some made up--it is $56.98
million, 174 percent increase. You think that is appropriate?
Dr. Gutmann. It is the 174 percent that I am questioning.
Mr. Harris. That is what?
Dr. Gutmann. It is the 174 percent.
Mr. Harris. Well, can you get a written response back to me
about exactly what the percent is of the increase?
Dr. Gutmann. I would be happy to do so.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, Doctor.
Dr. Gutmann. Thank you.
Mr. Harris. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Dr. Harris, and Dr. Gutmann, if
you had any other questions that were submitted just then that
you want to supplement your answers to, feel free to submit
them to the Committee.
Dr. Gutmann. We will be glad to do that, sir. Thank you.
Chairman Brooks. Next we have Mr. Clarke.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate you giving me
the opportunity to address this panel. First of all, I want to
thank Dr. Gutmann for your outstanding work at the University
of Michigan. I am a lifelong Detroiter, and I appreciate your
contributions.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, I do hear your reservations about SBE
research funding through NSF, but I do acknowledge your
recognition of the value of longitudinal studies conducted at
University of Michigan.
Dr. Gutmann, I am on the Homeland Security Committee, and
you know, we are concerned about, you know, the risks of
terrorist attack, especially in the area that I represent,
metro Detroit, and then also our country's ability to help
prepare and respond to disasters.
How does NSF ensure that its research that is related to
national security and to disaster response is communicated to
not only Federal officials but state and local government
officials? And that is so important because the first line of
defense in an emergency, whether it is a national--a natural
disaster or a terroristic attack is our first responders that
are hired by our state and local governments.
Dr. Gutmann. So, Mr. Clarke, thank you very much for the
interesting question. I appreciate your comments. Our first
expectation, of course, in the area of basic research is that
researchers are going to communicate through the standard
channels of scholarly communication. That is most of what--that
is our first understanding, but I know in terms of the work
that I did in providing data in various times in my career to
the state and local and federal policy community and that they
read those, that literature assiduously and follow that.
But NSF works hard to get the word out in other ways. We
require our researchers to provide project outcome reports that
are written in a way that a broad audience can understand them.
We highlight in various ways our most important findings, and I
work personally very hard to participate in multi-agency
working groups, the Committee on Science, I co-chair the
Committee of Science, Subcommittee on Social, Behavioral, and
Economic Sciences. We work together in the area of hazards,
very closely with NOAA on hazard communications so that they
can get that out. We work with the National Institute of
Justice in various ways on those topics.
So I think what we try to do is a mix of things that
encourage researchers to communicate directly through scholarly
communications and other communications, and we encourage and
we work ourselves to make sure that the most important findings
that we learn about communicate to the policy area.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you. This is just a follow up on a
different issue to either you, Dr. Gutmann or Dr. Elfenbein,
and this deals with the value of SBE research in terms of
overturning many times our conventional thinking about certain
types of behavior or decision making process.
Can you outline some examples about the potential value of
these findings as a result of this research?
Dr. Gutmann. Okay. Thank you. That is a great question. We
always get asked the question, isn't social and behavioral
science research obvious when we see it? And the answer is, no,
it is not. A lot of behavioral research really doesn't, as Dr.
Elfenbein highlighted in her testimony, a lot of those things
are really not known. I mean, the work that I cited that had to
do with how auctions operate that led to this enormous
production of income to the U.S. Treasury, much more than SBE
has ever cost the U.S. Government, came about when researchers
discovered that, theoretical researchers discovered that
auctions and bargaining were very similar mathematically, and
that if you did that and looked at them carefully, you could
combine auctions and bargaining in ways that produced both
better products for people to use and more income for the
United States Government.
I don't know if Dr. Elfenbein wants to add something to
that.
Dr. Elfenbein. Just that I think that the critique that
researchers are often studying pieces that just satisfy their
own curiosity on a related note, I think that when we find
these applications, we don't, often the basic research has
already been done, and it is difficult, I think, to start in
the other direction so we can think about basic research that
had transformative results, but we couldn't start with the
question that needs transformation and then step backwards and
say, let me go ahead and commission basic research that hasn't
already been done.
And just in my own experience the work that the Army took
an interest in, if they had said, oh, well, we have this
problem now with our soldiers serving overseas, let me go back
and get some basic science to help solve this problem, the work
that I had done that they were interested in had started ten
years prior to that point.
And so I want to just make a point around the
unpredictability of this process so we can look at wonderful
case studies of work that has had transformative impact, but we
can--but as the Monday morning quarterback we can look back at
that work, but in terms of funding that work from now forward,
basic research is a very unpredictable process, and I think it
is important for us to think about this portfolio of projects
that we fund because we can't always predict when an insight
will lead to some kind of application.
Thank you.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Clarke.
The Chair next recognizes Dr. Benishek.
Mr. Benishek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
panel for your testimony. I just have a few questions.
We have people coming before us all the time, you know,
asking for money, and we are spending, for every dollar the
government spends, we have to borrow 40 cents, and everybody
thinks that their project is worthy. I don't really see how we
can be increasing your budget 18 percent in a time of this
fiscal crisis. I think we need to streamline the situation.
I looked at some of the things that disturbed me as a
physician is really the Rapid Grants where there is, you know,
not peer reviewed, and I kind of feel for the minority when
they were saying you can't judge the research projects by its
title, but it concerns me. I am quoting, yes, Dr. Wood's
testimony, he quotes a project with a title like, what is it
here? Engineering and social justice; research and education of
(in)commensurable fields of practice is a $300,000 grant to
study the field of engineering and its, you know, the education
of engineers and their relationship to social justice, and it
has a title, and it has an abstract, and I just don't see how
this is a project that is worthy of funding in a tight economy
like we have.
How do you justify an 18 percent increase in your funding
when we have a situation like this, and I am looking at grant
proposals and an abstract that seems to me like a waste of
money.
Dr. Gutmann. All of our projects are subject to
considerable review. You asked the question about the Rapid
Awards. We made roughly 1,100 awards in fiscal 2010. There were
23 Rapid Awards. They were largely devoted to issues like the
earthquakes in Haiti and elsewhere in response to immediate
circumstances that required researchers to talk with people
soon after the event.
In the case of the Ethics Program Award that you describe,
this is a program designed to increase knowledge about how
ethical processes emerge across all areas of science. It was
made in a competition we have in this area, and it was peer
reviewed. I can't go beyond what you said about it in any
specific way, but I think that it is very hard for--just as it
is hard for you to understand how we make the award, it is hard
for me to criticize the whole program based on a single
project.
Mr. Benishek. Well, I understand that. It is just that we
end up talking about millions of dollars with the sum of all
these projects and I think there has to be some sort of a
prioritizing of spending, and I just don't see how an 18
percent increase is justified when I see, you know, examples
like this.
Dr. Gutmann. But I could show you many more projects that I
think we would agree have great value in terms of basic
science.
Mr. Benishek. Well, that may be true. It is just that there
is no money, and everybody says, well, cut everything else but
don't cut mine. And believe me, we need to fix the budget, so I
think everybody is going to end up taking a cut, and I just
think it is unrealistic to make this request.
Dr. Elfenbein.
Dr. Elfenbein. If I could be recognized, I think that to
justify an increase in funds at a time of fiscal crisis, you
have to believe that this is an investment, not an expense.
Mr. Benishek. Everything is an investment. Okay. I mean,
everybody comes to me with the same answer, and they all, every
department wants everybody else cut but my department is an
investment. So who should we cut to, you know, to make sure
that you get your extra money? That is just unrealistic.
So I think you have an unrealistic expectation as to what
is happening here, and you have to streamline your research.
I yield back.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Dr. Benishek.
Next the Chair recognizes Mr. Hultgren.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
for being here.
Following up, I mean, I think we all recognize clearly that
these are challenging times that we are in, and so much of the
challenge I think we face is there is a lot of good things out
there, but what are the best things? What are the things that
we have to do?
And so I want to just talk a little bit about
prioritization and I would ask each of you, I guess I would
start with Dr. Wood, if I could, and then if each of you could
make a comment, where do you draw the line between national
need and priority research, transformational research, and
research that is simply interesting and intriguing but probably
not really game-changing research? How do we draw that line?
Because I think that is really some of the decisions we need to
make.
Dr. Wood. Well, I would draw the line between basic
research and applied research. That would be one line. I would
also draw lines between basic research and research that has
fairly self-evidently an appeal to the passions of the moment.
In my written testimony I mentioned some other things like a
study of--titled, ``Out of the Shadows,'' $148,000 spent on
looking at the lives of illegal immigrants before, during, and
after legalization. That is not basic research. That is
appealing to something that is going on in the policy arena,
and I think that one should look at the NSF funding with the
question of whether that kind of thing really falls into the
category that Dr. Elfenbein was talking about where we are
likely to get insights that lead to applications down the road.
Well, no, we are really just sort of flattering ourselves that
we can use social science to fill in pictures for us that are a
little bit vague or feed advocacy groups with data that looks
scientific.
That is the sort of thing that I think that the Congress
should be aware of in this sort of funding, and it is not that
the NSF does that all the time, but if you look through those
1,100 awards, you can probably find a segment of them that seem
to be more driven by identity politics by policy debates rather
than basic science.
Is there some sort of linguistic formulation where you
could absolutely draw the line so that the NSF administrators
knew we were going to do this and not that, I think that is
very difficult, but it is certainly possible to push hard in
the direction that what we want out of NSF is true basic
science, not all kinds of politicized stuff dressed up as basic
science.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. I guess I would answer the question by
saying is this the role of government to do, and Dr. Gutmann
just mentioned a big project they had, how to make the best use
of energy in the future. We have companies that are producing
energy, we have consumers who are buying energy, we don't need
the government to figure out how to make the best use of energy
in the future. We just see what consumers are buying and what
they are not buying.
If we think there is a social cost of using certain kinds
of energy such as, gee, we shouldn't be using so much oil. We
can put a tax on oil to encourage consumers to purchase less of
it. This isn't something that we need to devote government
funds to doing.
Now, there are other areas where perhaps we are falling
behind, not in the social sciences, perhaps in the physical
sciences. You see physics graduates of leading universities,
they go off to investment banks on Wall Street rather than
studying physics. There is probably a greater role for NSF
grants in the physics, chemistry, those hard sciences where
graduates don't get jobs.
In my field, economics, corporations, banks, the Federal
Reserve, other government agencies employ economists. There are
no shortages of jobs for economists whether private and other
government sectors pay for this research.
Dr. Elfenbein. In prioritizing research I want to emphasize
the importance of peer review over political review. I think
that it is difficult to see sometimes the value of projects
when looked at out of context, but the science--but scientific,
the scientific method is such that scientists often take large
problems that are difficult to solve and break them into
smaller problems that can be solved, and when looked at out of
context, those smaller problems might seem silly from the
outside. They might seem like the--they might seem like ideas
to ridicule publicly but when seen from the eyes of people who
have expertise in that area, their value can be known.
And so I want to distinguish the importance of having those
with expertise involved in the process and rather than strictly
political review of grants and their value.
But in addition I want to emphasize the lack of
predictability from the time of basic research being done to
know just how valuable and how applicable it is going to be and
the difficulty of taking a look and going through a portfolio
of projects by saying what do you think now is going to be
transformative later. Very often we just don't have that
ability to look into the crystal ball and what we need to think
about as portfolios of projects.
Thank you.
Dr. Gutmann. Is there still time for me to speak?
Chairman Brooks. Go ahead.
Mr. Hultgren. Mr. Brooks? Thank you.
Dr. Gutmann. Thank you. I think these are very important
questions, and the National Science Foundation I assure you
recognizes the financial challenges, the fiscal challenges that
the U.S. Government faces. It is--I think it is fundamental,
though, to say that we feel very strongly, and I feel very
strongly that basic science in the social and behavioral
sciences meets the definition and economics of a public good.
There aren't rivals for it. It is not excludable to use the
formal definitions, and the basic science we support is really
critical to develop over the long term.
We recognize that we are going to have to make choices, and
we believe that our combination of inter-agency discussions,
leadership discussions with NSF, and the peer review process
give us an opportunity where we are going to have to make some
priority decisions, to make good priority decisions in the ways
that Dr. Elfenbein and Dr. Wood discussed that drive us towards
fundamental understandings.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you. My opportunity now to ask
questions.
And I know I might be beating a dead horse to some degree,
but I do want to emphasize the precarious situation that the
Federal Government's finances are in. Our presenter, Ms.
Furchtgott-Roth, being an economist probably has the best
understanding of anyone in this room, but on the chance that it
might be beneficial, 58 percent. That is how much we have
revenue for out of every dollar that we spend. The other 42
cents, give or take a penny or two, is borrowed money.
We are looking at a debt ceiling issue short term. If that
is not raised and if the Secretary of Treasurer's estimate if
correct that we run out of credit on August the 2nd, then all
of the sudden we are having to operate the Federal Government
on 58 cents of every dollar, if that results in across-the-
board cuts, and I don't think that it will, but if it did, that
would be--everyone is having to absorb 42 cents or 42 percent
cuts like that.
Long term we are risking a Federal Government bankruptcy or
insolvency if we continue with this string of unsustainable
budget deficits as Admiral Mullen, a former chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified earlier this year to the Armed
Services Committee, America's greatest threat is our national
debt, not Al-Queda, not the Taliban, not any number of nations
you want to name.
In that context we as a Committee, we are going to have to
prioritize. Now, within Congress you have got a lot of
different attitudes and approaches on how to handle this
financial situation. You have got some who want to say grow the
economy. Well, everybody wants to do that. But then you have
got a group that wants to focus primarily on spending cuts. You
have got another group that wants to focus primarily on tax
increases. You have got another group that wants to have a
hodge podge of spending cuts or tax increases. You have got
another group that just wishes it would go away and doesn't
want to deal with the problem.
And I think you have got a little bit of each in the United
States Congress in different amounts, and so we are going to be
charged with, worse case scenario, is trying to prioritize, and
we understand how each of you have done a good job of
justifying your own field, but this is for each of you to
answer probably to a lesser degree than Dr. Wood because his
remarks focused on prioritization.
But if we are forced to prioritize and if we are forced to
reduce spending 42 percent and assuming we are not going to do
it across the board, that there is going to be some agencies
that don't do as well as others do, but within the NSF
framework, how would you all prioritize cutting 42 percent of
what we are now spending?
You know, if the debt ceiling is not raised and we don't
have the credit, if our credit--if the debt ceiling is raised
and our creditors just decide they don't want to loan us
anymore money, we have to limit our spending to that 58 cents
on the dollar because that is all the money we have to spend.
So each of you if you would volunteer how you would
prioritize within the NSF framework what ought to be cut, and
if you recommend across the board, if you just want to do
across the board, I understand that. Say everybody gets reduced
42 percent if that is the framework you believe, or if you
believe you want to prioritize, what are your criteria?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, how would you guide us?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, in times like this when we have
a fiscal crisis, the role of the government is to have a safety
net for the most vulnerable and to protect our country in terms
of national defense. We have researchers who are definitely not
the most vulnerable among us. We are giving money to Ph.D.s,
many foreign, many who cannot get visas and then go home
afterwards, and I don't think that this should be a priority.
Any SBE funding should be a priority for Congress.
I would say if you have to prioritize you should only
support projects that create new data that is made publicly
available within five years and only pay for data entry by
research assistants. Don't pay for faculty compensation, don't
pay for computer hardware or software.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you. Dr. Elfenbein.
Dr. Elfenbein. I would yield my time to Dr. Gutmann.
Chairman Brooks. Dr. Gutmann.
Dr. Gutmann. I don't--I have a hard time dealing with
hypotheticals, Mr. Brooks. I apologize, so I think I am going
to defer on this one. I really don't----
Chairman Brooks. Well, it is not a hypothetical, Dr.
Gutmann. We are going to face spending cuts. Now, the
question--it might not be 42 percent, it might be 10, 20, 30
percent, but it is not a hypothetical. It will happen, and I
think, Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, do you think it is going to happen
that there will be spending cuts?
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, I very much hope for the sake of
the United States that we don't become like Greece. There will
be spending cuts, and you should consider zeroing out the whole
of the SBE NSF budget in favor of other kinds of----
Chairman Brooks. Yes. I am really disappointed if you are
going to claim that this is a hypothetical. The exact number
may be hypothetical, it might be 45 percent or 40 percent or 35
percent, but if you--and I also have a degree in economics. It
is an absolute certainty that there will be spending cuts. It
will either be voluntary, or it will be forced upon us by the
economic circumstances that we face as a Nation.
And maybe you are right, and maybe I am wrong, and I hope
you are right, and there aren't spending cuts, that it is a
hypothetical, but don't you think we need to plan for that
possibility so that we can have some foresight, some thought
given into it, and thereby make wiser decisions instead of it
being forced upon us where we have to make snap judgments.
Dr. Gutmann. So obviously I am in favor of planning, sir,
and I understand your point. I think that NSF has a good record
of using our merit review process to identify the most
important basic science that needs to--that is available to us
to be done that presents itself. And I suspect that I know that
our first goals will be to protect those things that we do that
are in the broad service of the government. For example, our
statistical activities but also that will use the merit review
process to ensure that the most meritorious, whatever our
budget is, the most meritorious projects in basic science are
supported.
Chairman Brooks. Well, are you suggesting then that we
should have across the board cuts and that if 42 percent
happens to be the magical number, that we should do that for
NSF and let NSF decide within its own hierarchy how to allocate
that, or should we as policymakers be involved in that
decision?
Dr. Gutmann. I think you have as policymakers have a
responsibility to help to make--to help us make wise decisions
about government expenditure, and I think--obviously I am here
to represent the strong need for the social and behavioral
sciences to be supported in NSF. We are the smallest of the
directorates, and we obviously have important research which I
and others have described to you that needs to be done, that
must be done, and it must be sustained over the long term, I
mean, because if we don't do that, it is a form of eating our
seed corn. There is some of this research that is really going
to carry us forward.
Chairman Brooks. Dr. Elfenbein or Dr. Wood, would you all
like to add anything before I recognize Mr. Sarbanes?
Dr. Wood. I would like to add something to that. I would
not favor across-the-board cuts. I would favor zeroing out
particular parts of the NSF budget if that is what it came to.
Not that this would be eliminating just bad work. There is good
work that would be cut, but I think sustainability is mainly an
ideology in this country and not a scientific enterprise. It is
questionable as a scientific enterprise, and that should be
cut.
Economics as my colleague has been saying is a field in
which almost all basic research can be done with funding from
alternate sources. The dissertation support is not a major part
of the NSF budget, but it is almost endlessly deferrable. If
you are a graduate student finishing a dissertation, you can
get a job and work on your dissertation. That is how I did
mine.
There are parts of this program that selectively fund
programs for women and minorities. That really has no
justification in basic science. That is a politicization of the
NSF.
And finally, the use of NSF funds for these Rapid Grants is
almost always a mistake. There is not basic science being done
under that provision. That is rushing in to fill in political
stop gaps, and that could probably be cut with no damage to the
basic enterprise.
Chairman Brooks. Dr. Elfenbein, did you want to----
Dr. Elfenbein. I would look to the peer review system to
help identify specific grants rather than have external review,
and I would take issue with the idea that we could look at
areas within the NSF based on whether there were outside
funding agencies that would fund them.
The NSF is the source for basic research funding. We cannot
count on corporations to fund anything that doesn't have
immediate clear commercialization as an impact, and what we
care about in basic research is for everybody to have access,
and for us to take whole areas and say that because other,
commercial interests may find these areas of interest, that we
should leave funding to those commercial interests, risks
having our basic research be not available for other scientists
to use as a basis.
So I would not cut NSF funding on an area-by-area basis in
terms of whether there are other sources, other commercial
interests, whether they be companies or foundations.
Thank you.
Chairman Brooks. All right. Thank you. Next I am going to
recognize Mr. Sarbanes, but before I do I am going to make this
one note.
If anyone wants to engage in a second round of questions,
they will certainly have that opportunity.
Mr. Sarbanes.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
all for being here and for your testimony.
Dr. Elfenbein, I am glad you made that last point because I
was actually going to ask a question to that effect in terms of
the NSF's role in conducting basic research and the notion that
that cannot be replaced by other entities or funding sources
out there, however much they might be interested in doing this
kind of work.
They may, you know, they may be focused on a different
agenda or set of objectives, and you would leave by the side of
the road some important research that needs to be done.
I wanted to ask both you and Dr. Gutmann along those lines
to speak to the role that these--this basic research can play
in sort of leveraging broader attention to the subjects that
are being researched.
So speak to that kind of foundational role that is played,
the leveraging dimension of it. I think you, Dr. Elfenbein,
alluded to this notion that if you rely solely on outside
groups, many of whom are going to be commercially driven and
that is fair, that the horizons that they are looking at are
shorter and that what the NSF funding can assure is that you
are getting a broader perspective and a longer horizon, and
sometimes that is the most critical thing you can have to think
we stumble on the right kinds of discoveries going forward.
So if you could speak a little bit more into that, I would
appreciate it.
Dr. Elfenbein. Thank you for the question, and I do believe
that that sciences, all of the sciences including the life
sciences and the physical sciences, leverage the basic research
done across fields particularly in the social and behavioral
areas, and one example I would use is medicine because
ultimately any kind of medical treatment involves the
compliance of the patient to be a part of that treatment, and
so we see physicians looking to behavioral research.
And in my case another example is the importance of
understanding the fundamental science of emotions in order to
understand emotional disorders, and this is an area of
particular importance now that mental illness is being
recognized for healthcare coverage at the same level as
conventional medical illness. There is now a need more than
ever to have cost effectiveness in the treatment of mental
illness.
Thank you.
Dr. Gutmann. So I will only add a few words. Thank you very
much for that question.
One way to look at the investments that we make in science
is to think about them in a very direct way about you get money
back or jobs back, and very often the investment by businesses
and research, which has been substantial in the history of the
United States, is really directed mostly towards that, but a
lot of what we support basic science research in the National
Science Foundation for has a value that is non-monetary. Dr.
Elfenbein's work on recognition of emotions has a non-monetary
value even as it has been converted to practical use by the
military.
We have done a lot of--we supported a lot of work that has
been very successful on detecting deception. A lot of that has
to do with how interrogations, criminal interrogations and
other interrogations are done, and those have value to society
that are broader and longer term. The kidney matching examples
that I talked about. Those are healthcare examples that come
from basic science research.
Work that we have been supporting recently and using a
Rapid Award for it was a research project done last year that
did experiments with trying to--using modern technology to see,
to understand the transmission of the H1N1 virus when it was
just happening. These are exactly things that we are using.
What they were using was contact, understanding how ideas and
physical presence converge to understand how something as
important as an epidemic is transformed.
So there is a lot of ways that it happens. It takes a long
time, and even if there is financial value, it might be far in
the future, but very often it has societal value that goes to
health or security or justice.
Mr. Sarbanes. I appreciate that answer, and I have just
five seconds left here, but also Dr. Elfenbein, I appreciate
your alluding to the issue of mental health, and it would be a
shame if at a point in time I think when the society is finally
turning and embracing, you know, how do we address issues of
mental health, that we started to pull away from some of the
basic research that can help us in that area as well.
And I apologize for mispronouncing your name earlier, Dr.
Elfenbein.
I yield back my time. Thanks.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Sarbanes.
Does anyone wish to engage in a second round of questions?
Mr. Lipinski. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brooks. The Chairman recognizes Minority Leader,
Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brooks. Excuse me. Ranking Member.
Mr. Lipinski. I was just going to let that one go.
A couple of quick questions for Dr. Gutmann just so that we
understand a little better some of the things that NSF does.
First of all, the grants are I presume awarded for, generally
for new data to be compiled, and is this data, is there a
requirement that it is made publicly available?
Dr. Gutmann. NSF policy requires that all data be shared.
There are limitations on that that have to do with questions of
privacy, confidentiality, and security, but NSF policy requires
that all data be shared. As of earlier this year NSF policy has
shifted a little bit in order to require in addition to the
data sharing that every proposal we receive includes a two-page
data management plan that shows how the researcher is going to
manage their data and how they are going to make them available
to other researchers.
Mr. Lipinski. I think that is a very good addition there
having done research myself, and I think it is good to have a
plan beforehand about how it is going to be made available.
The other thing I just wanted you to clarify, you said
there aren't that many of these grants done in the RAPID
fashion, but why are they done, why are a few done that way?
Dr. Gutmann. We make a few of those awards every year.
Again, this is an area where we don't--it is not our strategy
to make very many. There were, I think, 23 or 24 of them in the
fiscal year that ended last September 30, but our goal is to
understand that there are times when you have to gather data
quickly, gather information quickly.
Most of those tend to be when there is a physical
emergency, for example, the Deep Water Horizon spill, and we
needed--researchers wanted to get out and talk to people in
communities while the memory was fresh about what was happening
to them. And those are things that you can't do otherwise, and,
again, I just want to remind you how few of these there are.
They are not very big awards, and we don't make very many of
them, and we are extremely careful about how we make them.
There is a special set of documents that are required in
the process when we submit our recommendation, when program
officers submit a recommendation to management of NSF, both
inside the directorate and outside within NSF, a special set of
documents that are required that document the timeliness of the
award. It is really about timeliness.
So we are very careful, and we make them only when there is
a very pressing need, and this arose out of requests from
Congress and others that we have the capacity to respond to
emergencies.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. In my last two minutes I can do my
Dr. Ehlers' impersonation of when I was Chair of this Committee
last time, and Dr. Ehlers sat in this chair. I will not be
nearly as wise as Dr. Ehlers, but he would like to sometimes
end by imparting some wisdom from his experience. I think
listening to all the witnesses, I think we can all agree, first
of all, that these are very difficult budget situations that we
are in, and that we not be funding specific agenda driven,
whether it is political agenda, whatever, other agenda. That
kind of research, that is not the role of the NSF.
But what we do is we have the NSF so that we have what we
hopefully believe is objective research being done. Now we
could all debate on, you know, each individual grant on some of
those things I am sure, but that is the idea there, and I know
that in--I brought up before about some of my background, my
Master's degree. I got an engineering economic systems at
Stanford. It is now management sciences and engineering.
And what I was looking at at the time and a lot of others
in the program were looking at was to be business consultants.
So we studied economics, and then some mathematical ways of
helping make decisions, optimization. So it was sort of a
highly-technical business degree in some ways.
We also looked at this--how people make decisions, decision
analysis to help businesses make decisions. And so one of the
things that I did, many of us did was went to the psychology
department, took a class with Amos Tversky, who is a famous
psychologist, so that we could better understand how people
make decisions and mistakes that people make in what they are
thinking. I remember a paper that he did about the hot hand and
basketball players don't really know if--although I don't know
if I--still don't know if I agree with that, but that is all
part of helping to make better decisions, and it should help us
to better understand.
We want to know the policies that we put in place also, how
are people going to react to that, and that takes better
understanding of human behavior, and it is best to have as much
of an objective view of that as possible, and I think that is
where the NSF comes in, and there is a lot of great research
done by other organizations.
But some of that is agenda driven. Much of that is agenda
driven, and that is what we are trying to get away from with
the NSF, and I think NSF has done a very good job with that,
and it doesn't mean that there aren't issues that do come up,
but I think NSF has done a good job of dealing with a lot of
those.
But as I said before, I think it is our role here and I
know the Chairman agrees with this, to take a look at this, and
so I thank the Chairman for this hearing.
I yield back.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski.
Any other Member--well, I see there is only one now. Mr.
Clarke, do you want a second round?
Mr. Clarke. Yes.
Chairman Brooks. All right. The Chair recognizes Mr.
Clarke.
Mr. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a statement, and I welcome any comments on this. A
couple days ago I happened to meet with the CEO of Ford Motor
Company, and the reason why I mention this is because the auto
industry is ruthlessly competitive, and Mr. Mulally shared with
other freshmen members of Congress how he was able to--he and
his management team was able to turn Ford Motor Company around.
You know, the bottom line is very different in a corporate
company. You know, here in this country as the other side likes
to underscore, we can borrow money to spend money than we
receive in revenues. However, Ford did a couple things. They
dramatically reduced their costs by streamlining their
operations, but also and to paraphrase Mr. Mulally, Ford could
not succeed by cutting alone. At the same time they heavily
invested in safety engineering, in fuel efficiency.
When it comes to the federal budget, we know why we are
spending too much money. We know what the main driver of our
deficit it, and I will tell you one thing, it is not SBE
research. It is healthcare costs because of demographics,
because of the increase in rise of the rate of--the cost of
medical technology, because we don't coordinate care,
especially when we are treating those who are chronically ill.
Essentially it is this. It is because our healthcare system
really is a system of disease management, and it doesn't
promote wellness. Your research into healthcare will help
transform the incentives right now that we are using to
compensate health providers. What you are doing is actually
helping us bring down our debt and deficit, and I wanted to
underscore that fact.
And I welcome any of you who disagree with this, but, you
know, the bottom line point is this. I know Subcommittee Chair
and the Chair, they talked about their academic backgrounds.
Let me tell you about mine. I am trained as a visual artist, as
a painter. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting.
It may not lend me to an obvious understanding and appreciation
of your line of work, but I will tell you what does.
I am a son of a man who risked everything to come to this
country. He was an immigrant just like many of your ancestors.
He came here willingly, though. My mother's people, they were
brought here against their will from Africa, but needless to
say, this country is extraordinary, and it is not because we do
things on the cheap. It is because we recognize the value of
contributions from diverse sources from around the world, and
we give them in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence
the God-given right to liberty, to be able to express our
views.
Now, we are not the unchallenged superpower of the world.
China is right there. They understand the value of investing in
research, and they are doing that heavily. But here is
something what we do have different as a democracy. Because we
value liberty and we value individual freedom, your work, our
funding of your work is absolutely essential. We have got to
promote the intellectual capacity and growth of this country.
That is why we are great. We can't cut back right now. We have
got to do more of that. We have got these countries all around
the world who are competing, but we are the only one in my
opinion that has a true vibrant democracy.
I just don't want you to feel apologetic for asking for
funding. You are helping to ensure the American dream.
I welcome any comments.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. Well, as an immigrant myself I would
say this is my, well, adopted country. I am an immigrant
myself. I received my citizenship in 1987, and I say this is a
wonderful country. This is the land of promise, but it is not
because of government spending. It is because of the
opportunities individuals have.
And I have been very fortunate to get grants for my
research from the Kauffman Foundation, the Pew Foundation, the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation in my
field, economics. It is not just corporations that fund
research. There is federal reserve banks, there is foundations,
and I would--there are, I think, better uses for government
funds than the funding of SBE research, which isn't to say that
it is not good research. It is great research, it is objective,
but just because, for example, a Cadillac is a good product, it
doesn't mean the Federal Government should be buying Cadillacs
for everybody.
It is a question of what is the role of the government and
what is the role of the private sector.
Chairman Brooks. The gentleman's time has expired, but if
he would like an extra amount of time to respond, that would be
fine. Otherwise, we will move to Mr. Tonko.
Mr. Clarke. Well, you know, I just want to say, I mean,
throughout our history we have supported private enterprise in
terms of even though we were the first in flight when France
looked like that they were going to really take over the
airplane industry, we helped, you know, subsidize airmail
routes. The semiconductor industry was because of the military
support of that industry that we have been able to grow and
innovate.
No, I make no apologies. Look, we are great because we
bring our tax dollars together to support our people, to
support our intellectual capacity. We shouldn't shirk that
responsibility, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that. That is
what has made this country strong.
Look, I understand we have the right to disagree on this
issue. This is the taxpayers' money. When we leverage it right,
when we are efficient, we can actually make a difference in the
world, and that is what you are doing every day. I just don't
want us to leave this Committee meeting with the role that the
only way that America can make it is that we have to do it on
the cheap. We have to cut, cut, cut.
No. Government has a vital role in our society, and you
know, Mr. Chair, I think I really said enough here. These
people are doing outstanding research. Their research is not
the cause of our debt and deficit. Actually, it is going to
help bring down our overspending in healthcare and help better
secure our people here in terms of our national security,
goals, and interests.
Chairman Brooks. Mr. Clarke, thank you for your passionate
remarks.
The Chair next recognizes Mr. Tonko. I don't know if you
are familiar with where we are. We are on our second round, but
it is all yours.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize for
joining you late in progress, but it is one of those days of
many conflicts going.
To our panelists, thank you for presenting this morning.
Let me share with you a thought. I worry that political attacks
on scientific research sends a chilling message to young,
aspiring scientists. As an engineer there was a lot of
encouragement in my day and age when I was in high school to
look at engineering and science because of the global race on
space.
But lately there are some chilling messages that impact
young, aspiring scientists, I believe, including some of the
potentially best and brightest, for example, those who
developed the Spectrum Auction Methodology or Geographic
Information Systems.
Just your thoughts on that. Do you share that type of
concern, or do you think that is--we are moving along quite
well? Dr. Gutmann.
Dr. Gutmann. So I will just say a word or two and then
perhaps see if Dr. Elfenbein wants to contribute something
since she is at the moment closer to the community, in the
research community than I am right now.
I think that there is always in my--I have been getting
grants, I came out, I am still a university faculty member, I
am on leave and assigned to the University, the NSF. I have
been getting grants for, you know, for 30 years now, and my
experience as a researcher is that my colleagues take very
seriously the message that they get from funding agencies and
from the public officials more broadly, and that the pace of
entry into scientific fields and the level at which people try
to dream up new ideas is definitely responsive to the public
messages that people get.
And so I would be concerned about that. I think we see a
flow when there is encouragement, we see a flow of more
proposals, we see a flow of more ideas, people are dreaming up
new things, and what we see is especially the notion in the
support we have for our youngest scholars, which is where in my
view as an older guy, the real future lies, we really want to--
it often isn't very expensive to make those small awards that
we make to support dissertations, our famous career awards or
graduate research fellowships as I think Mr. Lipinski was a
recipient of in the beginning of his career.
It doesn't take very much to do that, but we send a message
by doing those things that encourages people to have the kind
of big ideas that down the road lead to important contributions
to our society.
Mr. Tonko. Uh-huh. Dr. Elfenbein.
Dr. Elfenbein. Thank you. I do feel our funding priorities
send clear messages to young people who are considering careers
in science. I finished my undergraduate degrees in physics and
Sanskrit actually at the time that the super conductor, super
collider project was cancelled and saw many classmates rip up
their Ph.D. applications in physics.
Now, clearly priorities change, and we can't help those
changing priorities, but I think what is especially chilling is
when we send a message to scientists that there can be
political review of their work because I think that leads to
censorship, and in my own case the idea that I was doing work
that the military had taken an interest in and that it was
singled out as potentially worthy of being de-funded because of
some kind of view from the outside that didn't take into
consideration the works potential relevance I think was
chilling and is chilling to those who seek federal funding.
And I think there is----
Mr. Tonko. Was that--let me just interrupt you. Was that in
the 2007 action----
Dr. Elfenbein. It was.
Mr. Tonko. --on the Floor with the amendment?
Dr. Elfenbein. It was.
Mr. Tonko. What was the lesson learned coming out of that
experience?
Dr. Elfenbein. Well, for me the lesson learned I think was
to pay a lot more attention to the titles of grants. I think
that the lesson learned I think for the member who made that
proposal was maybe read the abstract as well. I would have to
defer to him. I think, though, actually, for me the lesson
along the lines of titles is that I think that scientists do
need to learn how to communicate more clearly to the public and
to the taxpayers who fund our work and to express not only our
gratefulness but to help them to see the work, and we know our
work, and we I think need to learn how to take a perspective of
looking at it as if from the outside to understand how it is
seem from the outside so that we can explain it from the inside
out.
But I think it is a particular, it is particularly chilling
to me if we are sending messages about the value of science,
the value of research because I see our university, our basic
research based university system as one of the jewels of the
United States. We enjoy a lot of prosperity that is hard to put
into dollar terms because the best from all over the world want
to come and be a part of our university system.
You can look at how many world leaders have U.S. university
degrees, how many world leaders send their children, how many
people send their children, send the best people in their
communities to the U.S. for degrees, and it is because of our
university system, but it has not only financial impact, it has
a huge diplomatic benefit to us as we think about the
relationships we have with countries all over the world that
have this cultural connection to the U.S. through our
university system.
Mr. Tonko. Uh-huh. Thank you.
Ms. Furchtgott-Roth. And the subject of the hearing was
funding in the social and behavioral sciences, and that is what
my testimony is about. If it were the physical and life
sciences, my testimony would be very different. I think we need
such funding to keep it competitive.
I would also say that this funding should go to either U.S.
citizens or people who intend to stay here. We shouldn't be
funding as we are now even physical degrees in the physics and
life sciences for people who then go abroad and go back to
their countries and compete against us. But we definitely do
need more funding in the physical and life sciences.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Tonko.
I would like to thank Dr. Gutmann, Dr. Elfenbein, Dr. Wood,
and Ms. Furchtgott-Roth for your testimony today and the
Members for their questions.
The Members of the Subcommittee may have additional
questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to
those in writing. The record will remain open for two weeks for
additional comments from the Members.
The witnesses are excused, and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I:
----------
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director, Directorate for
Social,
Behavioral, and Economics Sciences, National Science Foundation
Questions submitted by Chairman Mo Brooks
Q1. The 2009 NSTC Report, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research in
the Federal Context, noted that not all social, behavioral, or economic
sciences ``require or are even appropriate for government support.''
Please identify which of the sciences, in your opinion, do not require
or are even appropriate for government support, and which of these
sciences NSF does not provide funding for?
A1. The 2009 NSTC report addressed social, behavioral, and economic
research in the Federal context, that is to say, SBE research that is
conducted throughout all of the federal agencies, which differ in their
mission and in the mechanisms they employ for sponsoring research or
conducting it themselves, either internally or through contract
vehicles. This phrase is part of the first sentence of the second
paragraph of the introduction to Chapter II of this report, ``Federal
Context.'' The passage reads, in full, as follows:
It may be noted that not all the SBE sciences require or are even
appropriate for government support. For example, consumer behavior and
the successes and failure of commercial marketing campaign are major
targets of SBE research but are well funded through industry support.
What, then, is the role of the Federal Government in support of the
human sciences? What does and should it support and what are the
potential benefits of this support to citizens and institutions?
``There are human dimensions of every policy matter, and today's
societal challenges demand that Federal agencies utilize the human
sciences for insights to achieve their missions efficiently and
effectively.''
NSF's mission is to promote transformative fundamental science on
behalf of the American people. NSF/SBE's goal at the directorate level
is to examine fundamental aspects of human behavior at multiple levels,
scales, and contexts. NSF/SBE supports a broad range of high-quality
fundamental research, and the results can have practical implications.
Unlike the market research supported by industry, targeted toward
specific results for specific products or companies, the research
funded by NSF/SBE and other Federal agencies leads to publicly
available results that can be used by many sectors of society. In my
response to Ranking Member Lipinski's question, I also provide examples
of areas in which NSF supports fundamental research but does not
support applied and translational research, because other Federal
agencies support the applied and translational research to translate
NSF-supported fundamental knowledge to agency-relevant mission
capabilities.
A2. The FY 12 SBE budget for the Science, Engineering, and Education
for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio is $57 million, a 174 percent
increase over last year and nearly a quarter of the entire SBE budget
request. What is the national urgency and transformational qualities of
this additionally needed work, and who determined this research to be a
priority? If this research is so critical to our nation, why isn't the
Department of Energy Funding? You mention SBE research on functional
magnetic resonance imaging research that may help with autism, matching
markets and kidney transplants, and ``understanding regional conflicts
and local cultural values'' in the context of national security, to
name a few. What happens to this type of research if SBE is not funded
at the FY 12 request? Will they suffer so that SEES can remain a
priority?
Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) is a
Foundation-wide effort to undertake fundamental research addressing our
advancement toward reliable and sustainable energy resources that will
not degrade essential ecosystems and environmental services, will not
lead to unacceptable social or economic consequences, and will prepare
society to adopt them responsibly. Thus, the SBE sciences are knit into
understanding reliable and sustainable energy uses. Precisely because
energy and environmental issues require an integrated understanding,
NSF/SBE, which is unique in its portfolio covering basic research
across all of the SBE sciences, plays an essential and coordinative
role. We note further that DOE's basic research portfolio does not
include the SBE sciences, making NSF/SBE's role an important one.
Consequently, slightly less than $57 million has been requested in FY
2012 to build new infrastructure in the directorate's research
divisions and Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (SMA) and to
support relevant research in SMA and through the standing programs in
Social and Economic Sciences (SES) and Behavioral and Cognitive
Sciences (BCS). It is important to note that the 2009 NSTC Report,
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research in the Federal Context that
was referenced in the first question lists ``Energy, Environment and
Human Dynamics'' as one of six priority areas for increased emphasis
due to its importance in addressing society's fundamental challenges.
The eventual balance between activities undertaken within the
framework of SEES and the rest of SBE's portfolio will be achieved in
accordance with funding levels in 2012 appropriations and priorities
set by the Congress and the Administration. We expect that future
decisions on funding allocations with NSF and SBE will also reflect the
advice we obtain from the National Science Board and our own science
advisory committees. Actual awards will be made through the merit
review process.
Q3. RAPID grants are not peer reviewed grants, but grant decisions NSF
staff can make in order to get needed funding to the field more
quickly, usually when time not allow for peer-review like in the case
of a natural disaster. You mention several in your testimony related to
Katrina, Chile and the oil spill in the Gulf. The ability to use these
grants when urgency is of essence is useful and important. However,
there are several other active grants that seem questionable on the
surface as being of national importance and urgency. Could you please
explain why the federal government should be spending $197,000 on
``Bridging the Gap: Musical Training and Literacy in Underserved
Adolescents,'' $215,000 on ``Affective and Deliberative Processes
Motivating Charitable Decisions,'' $200,000 on ``Documenting the
Mechanisms of Belief and Attitude Change on Controversial Issues: The
case of Global Warming and Trust in Scientists,'' or $89,000 on ``What
Makes Lay/Expert Scientific Collaborations Succeed'' on non-peer-
reviewed research? Why were those deemed timely and urgent, and who
made the decision to approve and fund them without the merit-review
process?
A3. RAPIDs are subject to rigorous internal scrutiny and review by the
appropriate program officers and require approvals by the cognizant
division directors as well as by other units within the Foundation
(e.g., DGA). A statement of need, documenting the time-criticality of
the request, is required to justify any award made. The research may be
urgent because of the need for, availability of, or access to, data,
facilities, and specialized equipment, including quick-response
research to natural or human disasters and unanticipated events. These
substantive and procedural requirements were met in each of cases
mentioned in the request:
(1) Bridging the Gap: Musical Training and Literacy in Underserved
Adolescents (Award No. 1015615)
Prior research in neurocognitive functioning, speech, language, and
literacy abilities in youth suggests that musical training and literacy
might be an avenue for remediation for students of low as well as high
income socio-economic background. Conducting research in schools can be
challenging, given the requirements of the academic year. As stated in
the proposal (Section II), where the request for RAPID funding is
explicitly justified, the investigators need to test the participating
students within their first year of high school, and the cooperation of
two schools in Chicago, who serve families of low socioeconomic status
and who volunteered to participate in the work, offered an ``uncommon
opportunity'' not only in access to students but also in the potential
to support a full four years of longitudinal study if the work were
launched early in the students' high school careers. Thus, funding to
proceed with the research was time critical.
(2) Documenting the Mechanisms of Belief and Attitude Change on
Controversial Issues (Award No. 1042938)
This is a public opinion research study. Prior work had indicated
that public opinion on political issues changes slowly; sudden shifts
are rare and typically in response to a dramatic event. Public opinion
on climate change, however, seems to defy that model, seeming to shift
quite rapidly in about two years. The project seeks to examine both the
apparent shift and the underlying theory through two new surveys, one
of which would take place in the summer in order to gauge the extent to
which experience of weather affects attitudes toward climate change.
Thus, the data are necessarily time sensitive and ephemeral because the
investigator needs to capture the information as quickly as possible
after the weather event(s). Hence the criteria for a RAPID award were
met and the justification fully documented both in the request for
funding and the review analysis.
(3) What Makes Lay/Expert Scientific Collaborations Succeed
(Awards No. 1049782 and No. 1049807)
This is a collaborative award to two institutions (Tulane University
and Washington State University) to study collaborations between laymen
and experts among environmental scientists, social scientists, and a
community of Vietnamese-American fishermen in Louisiana in response to
the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. The urgency of the research is
justified in the proposal and documented in the review analysis: As the
contaminants disperse, either into more protected Gulf wetlands or
further inland, community impacts would be differentially experienced
and existing hardships intensified, compelling residents to leave the
area. Key sources of experiential knowledge would thus be lost and a
rare opportunity to collect evanescent social and environmental data
would be lost. The urgency arises from both the fragile and changing
nature of the environmental effects together with the social and
demographic responses, potentially resulting in depopulation and loss
of the community.
A question has also been raised about a fourth award, $215,000 for
``Affective and Deliberative Processes Motivating Charitable
Decisions'' (Award No. 1024808). The research mentioned in the question
has not been funded as a RAPID award. The amount is the first year of a
larger award, which was evaluated through the full merit review
process. The proposal received thorough, full panel review, with seven
expert reviewers from outside NSF. The fully-documented award was
approved by the Program Director and the Division Director.
Q4. In your testimony you state that ``These partnerships [with other
NSF directorates]'' are critical to understanding science in its human
context and to developing effective new technologies that will be used
by Americans and will contribute to jobs and economic development.''
What is the role of industry in understanding science in its human
context and developing new technologies? Is industry doing some of this
work? Can and should they be doing more?
A4. We see little interest in industry in conducting basic research in
the SBE sciences. Understandably and appropriately, their focus is on
social, economic, and cultural issues surrounding aspects of their
product development, market research, and public relations and
communication. Moreover, their findings are typically proprietary.
Absent transparency and peer reviewed publication in accepted
professional outlets, their activities do not contribute to advancing
scientific research broadly nor are their objectives necessarily
directed toward addressing shared challenges in areas such as public
safety, disaster response and mitigation, and law enforcement and
national security. Thus, it is essential for the Federal government to
sustain its leading role in basic research in the SBE sciences.
Q5. NSF is essentially the only federal agency that historically does
not receive earmarks. It prides itself on the merit-review process
which, while not perfect, is currently the best we have. Given its
imperfections and the reality that some less than stellar grants are
funded in ALL scientific disciplines, how would you recommend that it
be improved?
A5. The NSF merit review process lies at the heart of the agency's
strategy for accomplishing its overall mission and vision. As such, NSF
is continuously striving to maintain and improve the quality and
transparency of the process. As is noted in the most recent annual
Report to the National Science Board on NSF's Merit Review Process
(http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2011/nsb1141.pdf), during FY 2010,
NSF received and reviewed over 55,000 proposals. The vast majority of
the proposals received at NSF (96%) are subject to both external peer
review by members of the scientific community and internal merit review
by NSF program officers. To ensure that they have substantive reviews
from a variety of perspectives, the program officers reach out to a
broad range of people for input-in FY 2010, over 46,000 external
reviewers provided expert advice to the Foundation. The program
officers (who are subject matter experts in their own right) synthesize
all of the external advice in the context of the overall program
portfolio when developing their award recommendations.
Currently, the National Science Board is reviewing the two Merit
Review Criteria that are used to evaluate every proposal that is
submitted to the Foundation. As part of this process, NSF and the Board
have reached out to a wide range of stakeholder groups for their input
on the strengths and weaknesses of the criteria, and how they might be
improved. Informed by the external input as well as data derived from
reports of Committees of Visitors (external bodies who review all of
NSF's programs for the integrity of the process) and an analysis of
submitted proposals, the Task Force on Merit Review developed a
proposed revision of the criteria. The NSB and NSF have invited comment
from the NSF community (both internal and external) on the proposed
revisions. NSF has already begun internal discussions on how best to
implement revised criteria, which will include a robust plan for
providing guidance to PIs, reviewers, and program officers on how to
use the criteria during the review and decision-making processes.
Q6. In this testimony, Dr. Wood mentioned an oversupply of SBE Ph.D.s
in the labor force. Do you agree with his statement, and if so, why
does NSF currently continue to financially support and encourage SBE
graduate students? Wouldn't this be a good opportunity for savings,
particularly in our current economy?
A6. The health and composition of the educational pipeline for future
scientists is of profound importance to the competiveness of the nation
and is of particular interest to the Foundation and its leadership. In
keeping with its mission as a statistical research unit that provides
neutral and reliable data for use by others and in support of the
Foundation's role in maintaining a robust scientific research
enterprise, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
(NCSES), which is housed within the SBE directorate, conducts two
relevant surveys: (1) Survey of Earned Doctorates that provides the
production of doctorates by field annually (http://www.nsf.gov/
statistics/doctorates/); and (2) Survey of Doctoral Recipients (http://
www.nsf.gov/statistics/doctoratework/) that provides data on career
patterns. Preliminary analysis of the most recent (2009) Survey of
Earned Doctorates (SED) suggests that the proportion of 2009 doctorate
recipients with employment prospects in the coming year was about the
same as reported in 2007, the year before the advent of the recession;
the proportion of SBE doctorate recipients with definite employment
commitments increased from 72.9 percent in 2008 to 73.5 percent in 2009
(http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf11305/, Table 3). In
general, unemployment among scientists and engineers with doctoral
degrees in the SBE sciences remained slightly below the national
average for all Ph.D. scientists in 2008, the year of the most recent
data. That year, the unemployment rate among those who hold U.S.
doctorates in social sciences was 1.3 percent; the unemployment rate
across all fields of science, engineering, and health was 1.7 percent
(http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf11308/, Table 1).
Many factors enter into analyses of employment and career decisions
and paths. Some of the issues relating to definitions and patterns of
employment in higher education and in other sectors are laid out in
Science and Engineering Indicators: 2010 (see especially sections of
Chapter 3, Science and Engineering Labor Force, Scope of the S&E
Workforce, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c3/c3s1.htm, and
Employment Patterns, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c3/
c3s2.htm). Research supported by our Science of Science and Innovation
Policy program suggests that there are strategies during graduate
training to encourage future scientists to identify careers in industry
as well as in higher education and advanced research. The directorate,
through NCSES and the research divisions will, therefore, continue to
support continued analysis of this important topic.
Q7. You have mentioned the report being drafted by the NSF's Advisory
Committee on Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences on the future
areas of scientific development in SBE sciences. Can you tell us more
about this report? Why is it being drafted? How are the future areas of
scientific development being identified? I understand that it will not
be released until the fall but can you tell us anything about what we
can expect from the report?
A7. In June 2010, the NSF/SBE directorate launched a series of planning
activities that have included contributions from the Program Officers
and consultation with SBE researchers. As part of this effort, members
of the SBE Advisory Committee decided to write a report based on their
perspectives as senior scholars. This report would set forth the key
research issues facing the SBE sciences over the next 10-to-20 years.
It is an advisory report and is one source for establishing
programmatic priorities. The structure of this collaborative document
has undergone several iterations and the document is now anticipated
for release later this year.
Questions Submitted by Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski
Q1. During the June 2 hearing, some expressed concern about potential
duplication of efforts across agencies, as well as about NSF
encroaching on the purview of other agencies. For example, one Member
expressed concern that NSF should not be funding social, behavioral,
and economics (SBE) research that is known to have relevance our
nation's energy challenge, because that should be the role of the
Department of Energy (DOE) alone; one witness suggested that SBE
research relevant to national security should be the responsibility of
the Department of Defense (DOD) alone; and so on. Currently, DOE does
not support any SBE research, but DOD does support some through the
Army Research Institute.
The current budget challenge compels us all to seek opportunities to
reduce waste in government, including through reduction of duplication.
How is NSF's support for SBE sciences unique from that of all other
federal agencies? Why can't, or why don't mission agencies such as DOE
and DOD assume responsibility for funding all SBE research relevant to
their respective missions, from basic to applied? If they do currently
support SBE research (or were to establish new programs in the SBE
sciences), how is the research they support different from the research
that NSF supports? In addition to any general responses to these
questions, please provide specific responses to the examples of energy
and national security discussed above.
A1. NSF is unique in that it supports research across all of the
social, behavioral, and economic sciences, which allows the directorate
to identify research that may not fall easily into a single, well-
defined program or discipline and to foster cross-fertilization of
ideas within the directorate and across the Foundation. The work that
we have sponsored in detecting deception is a case in point. There is a
core body of research in the neurological, cognitive, and behavioral
dimensions of deception, deceptive speech, and its detection. However,
deceptive speech and behaviors occur among many different combinations
of individuals and in many settings. For example, the conversation
between a teacher and a student who may be trying to explain his or her
behavior is quite different from the interview between a foreign
service officer at a consulate and an applicant for visa, and both
differ from the exchange between a TSA agent and a possibly suspicious
airline passenger. Each of these applications requires substantial
translational research that might enable the teacher, foreign service
officer, or TSA agent to make a good decision, but that research rests
on a shared core of basic research about deception that can be explored
through controlled laboratory studies and other kinds of systematic
scientific research.
Over the past decade, the SBE Directorate has funded a host of studies
that tested and developed basic social and cognitive psychological
theories of human (interpersonal) deception. Such studies have also
advanced our understanding of factors that distinguish liars and
truthtellers across various social contexts. Relevant awards have been
sponsored by a variety of programs, including Law and Social Sciences,
Social Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Learning
Sciences, Physical Anthropology, and Cultural Anthropology. Studies
sponsored by these programs have examined the complexity of verbal and
nonverbal behavior in dynamic interpersonal communications that involve
deception, the role of social motivation and cognitions in
discriminating lies and truths, and the neural bases of deception. This
basic, theoretical research has been used by other mission agencies for
translational and applied purposes--including the Department of
Justice, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland
Security, and the Intelligence Community. Examples of translational and
applied research from such agencies would include the Screening of
Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) and Future Attribute
Screening Technology (FAST) programs within the Department of Homeland
Security, and related research supported by the National Center for
Credibility Assessment within the Department of Defense.
Thus the NSF's basic research programs allow the mission agencies to
focus on their missions. Burdening them with developing the basic
research could result in duplication, redundancy and possible waste.
Indeed, NSF cooperates with other agencies precisely to foster the flow
of information across agency boundaries. This rich history of NSF's
funding the basic research that mission agencies rely upon for
translational and applied research is a powerful tool for the nation
and one that we will continue to rely upon to fuel the nation's engine
of innovation.
In the following list, we lay out some specific examples of
cooperative work where NSF sponsored the basic research and the mission
agencies provided translational research and feedback. We note further
that DOE's basic research portfolio does not currently include the SBE
sciences. However, we have cooperated with DOE and the final bullet
summarizes our work with this and other agencies.
1. Basic Research in Forensic Science
The National Science Foundation has a rich history of funding basic
research that is relevant to the practice of forensic science. Such
awards span a variety of disciplines, including biology, chemistry,
cyberinfrastructure, engineering, statistics, and the social,
behavioral, and economic sciences. This research generally seeks to
provide a theoretical foundation for the development of forensic
science methods, including (for the SBE Directorate) the influence of
human perception, judgment, and decision-making in this context. This
basic research would not be funded by mission agencies, such as the
National Institute of Justice or the National Institute of Standards
and Technology, though these agencies have relied upon basic research
findings supported by the NSF in translational and applied research.
Dr. Mark Weiss is currently co-chair of the Research, Development,
Testing, and Evaluation Inter-Agency Working Group for the Subcommittee
on Forensic Science (National Science and Technology Council), and Dr.
Christian Meissner also participates as a member of the IWG. The IWG is
charged with identifying the foundational science that underlies
forensic science applications, and NSF staff have assisted in the
identification of basic research that underlies forensic science.
A recent Workshop supported by the Division of Behavioral and
Cognitive Sciences (see Award No. 1048484) examined the potential role
of cognitive/perceptual biases in the forensic evaluation process. This
issue received much attention in a report published by the National
Academies of Science entitled, Strengthening Forensic Science in the
United States: A Path Forward. The workshop brought together basic
researchers in perception, judgment, and decision-making to discuss the
various psychological factors that may influence forensic pattern
recognition. The workshop led to suggestions for basic research in this
area that would address concerns raised by the National Academies
report. This research, given its basic, theoretical focus, is unlikely
to be supported by mission agencies within the federal government,
though findings from such research would likely lead to the development
of interventions and modifications to training that would be further
assessed in translational or applied research contexts.
2. Theories of Spatial Pattern Detection, Geospatial Technologies,
and Crime Mapping
The SBE Directorate has supported basic research on theories of
spatial pattern detection, as well as human interaction with geospatial
technologies in the criminological and epidemiological contexts. For
example, funded research has extended theories and methods of spatial
pattern detection from the detection of prior events to the monitoring
and detection of on-going events (see Award No. 9905900), as well as
developed geospatial theories of crime that account for a variety of
sociological and criminological factors (see Awards No. 0528232, No.
9601764, No. 0080091). This basic, theoretical research has been used
for translational and applied purposes by the National Institute of
Justice's Geospatial Technology program, a program that seeks to
translate geospatial technologies and research to aid various criminal
justice agencies.
3. Social and Behavioral Dimensions of National Security,
Conflict, and Cooperation (NSCC)
This competition was the NSF side of the Minerva initiative in the
Department of Defense. DoD provided NSF with funds ($8,000,000) and
NSF/SBE ran a competition on topics that were of mutual interest. We
understand that DoD was very pleased with our review process and our
selection of proposals to support. There are two important differences
between DoD funded research and that funded by NSF. First, NSF funds
basic research while DoD funds research that tends to be tailored
specifically to their mission. Our funded research, at times, provides
the basis for their funded research. Second, the results of NSF-funded
research is in the public domain. This is not always the case for the
DoD. As such, researchers funded by NSF provide information that can be
used to advance science. Work done for DoD, even in the social and
behavioral sciences, is frequently classified. This means that other
scientists are unable to use that work to advance our understanding of
social and behavioral processes. While many of the NSCC projects are in
their early stages and no results have been reported, there have been
significant results in the areas of conflict over fresh water, the
processes by which terrorist organizations develop, the fundamental
nature of conflict, and the characteristics of authoritarian regimes.
This basic research, supported in partnership with the Department of
Defense, promises to produce promising outcomes for U.S. security
interests.
4. Applications to energy usage and examples of cooperation with
DOE.
NSF/SBE funds research on basic behaviors and motivations, which can
be applied to numerous areas of decision-making, including adopting new
technologies (sustainable or otherwise), building human capital and
subsequent labor market decisions, financial decision-making, and
reactions to natural disasters, among others. In addition, NSF/SBE has
established a cooperative relationship with DOE through DOE's work in
integrated assessment modeling (IAM). The DOE program has inserted
language in its IAM solicitation to encourage applicants to work with
NSF's Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU) centers and the urban
Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) sites. In addition and in
cooperation with NOAA, DOE and NSF have supported a National Academy
workshop (Award No. 1003678, Support for a Workshop on Socioeconomic
Scenarios for Climate Change Impact and Response Assessments).
Responses by Dr. Hillary Anger Elfenbein, Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis
Questions submitted by Chairman Mo Brooks
Q1. NSF is essentially the only federal agency that historically does
not receive earmarks. It prides itself on the merit-review process
which, while not perfect, is currently the best we have. Given its
imperfections and the reality that some less than stellar grants are
funded in ALL scientific disciplines, how would you recommend that it
be improved?
A1. In responding to this question, I would like to highlight four
guiding principles:
1. Peer review, not political review
2. Maintain cross-disciplinary reviews
3. Take a portfolio approach
4. Limit misunderstandings through researcher communication
1. Peer review, not political review
Let me start by echoing strongly the sentiment in the question that
the NSF's current merit-based review process, ``while not perfect, is
currently the best we have.'' As I mentioned in my earlier written
testimony, when thinking about peer review one is reminded of Winston
Churchill's famous quote, ``Democracy is the worst form of government,
except all the others that have been tried.''
Like members of Congress, scientists are committed to democracy.
The NSF's process is already deeply participatory-with literally tens
of thousands of scientists providing reviews of grant proposals for the
agency. Like any democracy, the output of the voting process doesn't
always please everyone, but there is no viable option to democracy.
The alternative-that is, the political review of science-is
chilling, whether we consider it as a replacement or as a supplement to
peer review.
Political review is big government
Moving from peer review to political review is chilling first
because it represents the worst kind of big government intervention to
have politicians and bureaucrats attempt to dictate from the top what
constitutes good science. Specific research projects should be judged
on their merits only by people qualified to understand them thoroughly.
Otherwise, we run the risk of a politicized process fueled by
ignorance of the underlying science. This is not merely speculation-as
I discussed during my earlier testimony, in 2007 a member of Congress
proposed rescinding my NSF grant at the same time that the Army took
the initiative to declare this research valuable for the warfighter. We
do not want a political review process that runs the risk of judging
books by their cover-however well-intentioned the process.
Political review makes us lose the very most talented and early-
stage scientists
A second chilling aspect is that the political review of research
would cause us to lose the most talented and creative scientific minds.
The very most brilliant scientists choose to be paid literally a
fraction of what they could earn in the private sector--and they make
this unusual choice for their love of intellectual freedom. Robbing
them of this freedom through a politicized scientific process would
hurt the U.S. economy. The most creative and curious scientific minds
are particularly chilled by big government constraints on their work,
and they are the most likely to respond to the loss of freedom by
`voting with their feet'--that is, taking higher--paying jobs on Wall
Street and elsewhere. Losing these scientists is a loss for society. It
is the best people who typically have the best options outside of
academic employment. Political review also sends a particularly
chilling message to early-stage scientists, who are young enough to
have their career alternatives salient and open to them. However, these
early-career scientists are often the sources of the most innovative
ideas, which are needed to move science forward.
It is worth noting, in case anyone believes that rescinding one or
two grants will affect only one or two research teams, that the people
who leave sciences may not be the ones directly affected by political
review. Instead, those departing may `see the writing on the wall' and
merely speculate that the same treatment could happen to them.
Political review would unravel the cost-effective volunteer review
system
A third source of chill would be for the peer review process
itself. It is worth noting-although participants of in-person panels at
the NSF are paid an honorarium for their time-that tens of thousands of
scientists around the world contribute review reports without being
paid. To emphasize, it is strictly on a volunteer basis that scientists
each offer several hours of their time nearly whenever asked. At least
in my own case, out of appreciation for the NSF, upon receiving an
invitation I typically drop whatever else I am working on to spend
about half a day volunteering as a reviewer. Even with conservative
assumptions about hourly rates, one can estimate that getting these
peer reviews at no cost currently saves millions of dollars for the
U.S. taxpayer.
This volunteer system works because scientists believe that they
are serving the democratic process. Their time feels well spent for
having a voice in the future of the field. But this volunteer system
would be jeopardized if scientists believed that their voices could be
just as easily overturned by politicians and bureaucrats. As a
metaphor, I used to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings as a
volunteer to cook and serve food at a homeless shelter-and imagine what
it would have been like if someone showed up every now and then to toss
out some of the food. Presumably, people would have stopped
volunteering.
No one minds being given guidelines for their reviews, and ideas
about these guidelines are discussed below in the response to Question
2. In the metaphor of the homeless shelter, no one would have minded
being told that we needed more side dishes or less salt. However, once
the criteria are described clearly and these criteria are followed in
good faith, after that it is not possible to discard volunteers' hard
work without undermining the volunteer system.
2. Maintain cross-disciplinary reviews
In limiting the amount of ``less than stellar'' grants being
funded, it is important to maintain the NSF's current commitment to
including reviewers across multiple scientific disciplines.
As a democracy, peer review is best when it includes perspectives
from different walks-of-life. If research is proposed that is seen as
important only by small groups of people, then such work will
presumably be reviewed less favorably by scientists outside of those
cliques.
This diversity of perspectives could be further enhanced by making
additional peer review invitations to academically qualified
individuals outside of university settings. This includes people
holding Ph.D.s in the relevant field who are now employed in industry,
non-profit, educational, and government settings. This could be
accomplished readily with two caveats. First, when including
professionals from applied settings, an emphasis must be made that they
are still reviewing basic research-not applied research. Second, even
while seeking diverse representation, it is crucial to ensure that each
reviewer has the proper research-based academic qualifications. To
allow anyone with less than a doctoral degree to provide peer reviews
would be like allowing Canadians to vote in the U.S. elections.
3. Take a portfolio approach
I want to take a stand and say that we need to take seriously the
metaphor that the NSF holds a `portfolio' of research investments. It
is simply not possible to avoid entirely ``the reality that some less
than stellar grants are funded in ALL scientific disciplines''.
Successful investors in the stock market know that you need to take
some risks in order to earn a good return.
As I discussed during my earlier testimony, we do not have the
ability to look into a crystal ball and predict with certainty where
each project will lead. This information becomes revealed over many
years. It is tempting to play `Monday morning quarterback,' and to
imagine that we could have known in advance the return on investments.
However, we all know that this does not work for the stock market, and
neither could it work for the NSF.
How do equity investors account for the reality that some stocks
are less than stellar? They fine-tune their selection process with a
sense of acceptance that there is some unpredictability. Investing is
inherently speculative. If you do not want to speculate-and prefer,
instead, safe investments-then you need to stick with bonds or other
instruments that have far lower rates of return. But successful
investors do not look back at their portfolios while ruminating and
punishing themselves for not anticipating the demise of some stocks and
the promise of others. The efficiency of the markets is such that-if
all of this were predictable-then the returns to investors would be
low. The returns are high precisely because we do not know in advance
exactly which investments will succeed.
So what do successful equity investors do to account for this
inherent risk? They hedge the risk by diversifying their portfolios.
The flip side of having some ``less than stellar'' grants is having
some grants that succeed beyond all imagination. Perhaps there are some
people who had the foresight to know that NSF grants for teaching
machines how to recognize the thickness of lines would lead to the
invention of barcodes, or others who knew that NSF grants for digital
libraries would lead to the founding of Google. But, more often,
science proceeds with the likes of Pasteur studying spoiled milk and
Mendel studying garden peas. As with the stock market or a hedge fund,
one expects the portfolio as a whole to yield good returns because
these runaway successes more than make up for the flops.
Taking seriously the notion that the NSF's investments are like a
portfolio, we will not dwell as much on the lack of a crystal ball to
predict the success of individual grants. Imperfect predictability is
woven into the process. We need to follow the same good practices that
stockbrokers use in managing long-term portfolios by casting a wide
net, diversifying our investments, and encouraging risk rather than
punishing it.
4. Limit misunderstandings through researcher communication
Surely it must be true-as implied by the question-that there are at
least some ``less than stellar grants'' funded in all of the sciences.
However, we also know that many examples of the public trivialization
of government-funded research are instead a matter of misunderstanding.
Again, to speak again from my own experience, my NSF-funded
research was singled out for ridicule by a member of Congress at the
same time that the Army declared this research valuable for the
warfighter. Likewise, and as I also mentioned in the earlier testimony,
the Coburn Report provided many examples of misjudging books by their
covers. Scientists typically break down large problems into lots of
smaller problems and, viewed out of context, these smaller problems may
seem like poor uses of our nation's scarce resources. This appears to
be what happened with the two entries in the Coburn Report that
received the most press coverage: shrimp running on a treadmill and
robots folding laundry.
Further, the Coburn Report relied on many news articles written
about NSF-funded research projects, rather than information directly
from the researchers.
If my hypothesis is true-namely, that much of the concern about
``less than stellar'' grants comes from miscommunication rather than
poor science-then one way to increase the apparent value of scientific
research is by communicating effectively about the work and its
importance to the U.S. taxpayer.
Along these lines, the NSF might experiment with enhancing the
mechanisms by which researchers communicate directly with the public.
The question could be posed to each federally-funded investigator:
Given the scarcity of taxpayer dollars, why is your work an important
use of this money?
Currently, after grants are approved, each researcher revises a
one-page abstract that is published on the NSF's website. Other
features could be added. Perhaps one could be a brief video made
cooperatively with the investigator, something like 5-10 minutes
responding to the key question, ``Why should the U.S. taxpayer fund
this research?'' A second feature could be a set of links updated over
time pointing to relevant sources of information that highlight what is
valuable about the work. These could include blogs, journal articles,
and other resources accessible via the Internet, using language that
the interested public could readily understand.
Providing researchers systematically with the opportunity to make
their best case to the public should prevent other people from making
this case-and trivializing it-without them. We could have a good faith
request that any politician who questions the value of a grant at least
to watch the brief video before making a public critique. This would
allow the scientist proactively to provide input into the debate.
Certainly, reasonable people can still disagree about the value of a
research project, but at least the disagreement would be informed and
could proceed on the merits.
If we created resources like this, I firmly believe that well-
intentioned politicians would change dramatically their estimates of
the amount of government-funded research that can be called ``waste.''
Q2. In your testimony, you state that ``Agencies like the NSF are in
the best position to prioritize federal funding for SBE research . . .
'' Besides highlighting ``transformative'' research, how else can NSF
prioritize research? Are there other elements that you would suggest
focusing on to guide prioritization?
A2. In responding to this question, I would like to highlight one
guiding principle: Set universal criteria for impact and value, but do
not weaken science by setting specifics.
Let me start by emphasizing what we should not be doing: as
discussed above, we should not attempt to dictate from the top what
constitutes good science. The history of science suggests that one
cannot predict in advance exactly what agenda scientists should follow-
any more than the planned economies of the former Communist block could
have resulted in flourishing business sectors.
In the sciences, curious minds make connections that can seem
ridiculous to everyone else-until these ideas are proven brilliant,
often much later. After all, outside of the scientific community, who
would have told Pasteur to study spoiled milk? Further, much of
innovation results from mistakes, such as the mold growing on a
laboratory dish that led to the discovery of penicillin.
Accordingly, we need funding for the basic sciences that allows
researchers to develop fundamental principles to understand the world
around us. Any attempt to use a big government approach to impose
specific fields, topics, or other narrow criteria is bound to be the
subject of intense political debate-and to become outdated as the
issues pressing to our nation change over time. Perhaps more
importantly, external constraints can ruin the innovation process,
because the best minds value their intellectual freedom the most, and
they use it to travel in the most creative directions.
Of course, there is also a place for topic-driven research, but to
be clear that is the definition of applied rather than basic science.
NSF is the government source for basic science. As such, any move
towards specifying topics would represent a change to the fundamental
mandate of this agency and its distinct role within the federal
government. However, for applied research-which focuses on specific
topics and specific problems facing the US-researchers can readily
approach the private sector, foundations, and other government
agencies.
So what kinds of elements are appropriate in guiding priorities at
the NSF?
As discussed in my earlier testimony, I strongly support the recent
attempts by the NSF to focus on research that is transformative. Along
these lines, there are a number of criteria that often indicate when
work is particularly likely to be transformative-and examples of these
are detailed below. Focusing on research that has at least some of
these criteria is likely to improve innovation in basic science and to
increase the return-on-investment to the American taxpayer:
Encourage interdisciplinary research
Creativity often happens when path-breakers cross over the
boundaries of traditional academic fields. They bring existing
solutions from one area to solve the problems faced by another area.
(For example, Edison's early light bulbs kept falling out of their
sockets until a lab assistant `borrowed' the solution of screw-top caps
from the makers of kerosene.)
Encourage early-stage researchers
Creativity is enhanced with fresh perspectives from people with
new ideas and new energy. They are less influenced by habits about how
things have always been done.
`Spread the wealth'
Take seriously the idea that NSF investments are like a
portfolio-a winning strategy for high returns is to hedge one's bets by
investing in many different ideas. You never know for certain where the
next big discovery will begin. One strategy for casting a wider net is
to increase the number of smaller grants, and to reduce the turnaround
time to review small grants.
Encourage risk-taking
Again, portfolio managers seek out risky ideas, with the logic
of `high-risk-high-return'. One way to take calculated risks is to
provide riskier ventures with smaller grants, or with grants that are
administered in stages pending milestones.
Look for cross-disciplinary impact
The pattern of scholarly citations can indicate when
researcher's ideas are influential across fields and subfields-
regardless of whether the research team itself draws from multiple
disciplines. This criterion could be applied most easily to senior
researchers.
Encourage adversarial collaboration
When researchers disagree with each other, an innovative
solution that has emerged is for them to conduct a study together.
Typically a mutually respected third-party acts as an arbitrator.
Resolving key scientific debates can help to direct future efforts in
the most productive directions.
Note that what distinguishes these kinds of helpful criteria from
the dangerous specifics is that they are universally applicable across
topics of study.
Even while emphasizing transformative science, the NSF still needs
room to fund normal science that fills the gaps in our understanding of
important research questions. Again, using the metaphor that grants
funded by the NSF are an investment portfolio, every well-balanced
portfolio needs to have some secure investments, such as bonds or money
market accounts.
Responses by Dr. Peter Wood, President, National Association of
Scholars
Questions submitted by Chairman Mo Brooks
Q1. NSF is essentially the only federal agency that historically does
not receive earmarks. It prides itself on the merit-review process
which, while not perfect, is currently the best we have. Given its
imperfections and the reality that some less than stellar grants are
funded in ALL scientific disciplines, how would you recommend that it
be improved?
A8. The NSF's commitment to merit review is commendable, but it leaves
room for improvement. Merit review in general is subject to a variety
of pressures that can thwart good intentions. Among these are ``group
think''-the tendency of people to adjust their opinions to those around
them-; faddish enthusiasm-the tendency of people to overvalue an idea
that has recently received acclaim or an unusual degree of positive
attention-; and intellectual timidity-the tendency of people to stick
with the familiar and to prefer safe, incremental approaches to what
look like long shots.
Reviewers are not immune to group think, fads, and timidity. And since
there is no way to repeal human nature, we have to look for checks and
balances that will keep these ordinary human tendencies from
compromises merit review. The best safeguard against group think is to
make sure that ``peer review'' isn't drawn too narrowly. Proposals
should indeed be reviewed by some experts who understand the
researcher's specialization, but also by people in other fields,
including some who possess authority as ``generalists,'' and who are
specifically tasked to give reviews from perspectives outside the
field. And these outsider perspectives should be given significant
weight.
The best safeguard against faddish enthusiasm is due deliberation. The
NAS should be wary of funding topics that have burst on the scene or
ones that come pre-labeled as having ``scientific consensus'' behind
them. The rush to fund ``sustainability'' research is a good example of
a ``consensus'' being proclaimed where there really is none. Of course,
faced with ardent enthusiasm, deliberation all by itself might not be
enough to prevent expensive over-allocation of funds. Perhaps another
safeguard would be to insist that, when it comes to ideas that are
being pressed as ``urgent,'' the NSF should be restricted to a set and
relatively small amount of funding. ``Urgent'' ideas seldom prove to be
really so. And if they are truly urgent, the research will be funded by
the private sector.
The best safeguard against intellectual timidity is to weed out the
reviewers who habitually play it too safe. The NSF ought to score its
reviewers by matching the results of funding research projects with the
recommendations that initially favored them. Patterns will inevitably
emerge. Reviewers who prove themselves able to spot genuinely promising
research should be encouraged--and perhaps rewarded. Those who, on the
contrary, have a record of recommending h0-hum research should be
excused from further service. The same goes for NSF administrators. We
don't an NSF that takes wild gambles with public money, but NSF's
mission is to advance basic science and that requires some degree of
boldness.
Questions submitted by Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski
Q2. Dr. Wood: In your testimony, you proposed that NSF eliminate its
grant-making mechanism for rapid response research, also known as
RAPID. According to NSF, ``the RAPID funding mechanism is used for
proposals having a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or
access to data, facilities or specialized equipment, including quick-
response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and similar
unanticipated events.'' The typical review and processing time for a
standard grant is six-seven months; in the case of RAPID grants, it may
be as little as 30 days. RAPID grants are made across all of NSF's
research directorates, and account for less than one percent of total
research grant support at the Foundation. In recent years, NSF has made
RAPID grant awards in response to the recent tornadoes, the Japan
earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster; the Deepwater Horizon Gulf
Oil Spill; the 2010 earthquake in Haiti; Hurricane Katrina; and the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC, to
name a few. Some SBE and other examples of the research funded in
response to these particular events include:
Analysis of risk perception and communication in multiple
socioeconomic groups where severe damage occurred during the April 27,
2011 EF-4 tornado events in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in order to understand
the way people think about, and understand, the risk they face during
well-forecasted severe weather events (SBE)
Documentation of the variability in acute responses to a
community trauma (in this case, the Columbine High School shooting and
the 9/11 terrorist attack) among both adolescents and adults, in an
effort to identify early predictors of long-term adjustment to trauma
(SBE)
Collection and analysis of perishable data from the New
Orleans levees immediately following Hurricane Katrina in order to make
a final determination of what caused the levees to fail and how such
failures could be avoided in the future (ENG)
Collection and analysis of data on the impact of the massive
release of oil and methane on deep sea microbes in order to understand
the effect the spill with have on the ecology of the Gulf (GEO).
Do you believe that any of these research proposals should
have waited the standard 6-7 months instead of 30 days? Do you believe
it is in the nation's interest to address scientific questions of
human, environmental, and other impacts in the immediate aftermath of
disasters such as those listed here? If not, why not? If so, do you
believe that NSF should have the ability to respond with urgency to
these disasters? If not, why not?
A2. I believe that the first two examples you cite of RAPID grant
awards represent inappropriate expenditures of National Science
Foundation funds. The projects may have served some humanitarian
purpose, but that is not the purpose for which NSF exists. They sound
like social work interventions and are far removed from the work of
basic science. the third and fourth examples you cite could have a
valid scientific purpose, though surely not one germane to the social,
behavioral and economic section of the NSF. In any case, they do not
appear to be basic research in any meaningful sense. As applied
research, they could easily have been funded and executed by agencies
of the federal government, such as the Army Corps of Engineers in the
case of the New Orleans levees, or the Departmentof Energy in the case
of the Gulf oil spill, that are tasked with work in those areas.
Do I believe that it is ``in the nation's interests to address
scientific questions of human, environmental, and other impacts in the
immediate aftermath of disasters such as those listed here?''
Sometimes. It depends. Calling an intervention a matter of addressing
``scientific questions''doesn't necessarily make it so. Often that's
just a matter of political rhetoric serving the need of public
authorities to be able to say they are doing something useful, when the
scientific merits of the project are tenuous. Ont he whole, I believe
the NSF should stick to basic science and let other agencies deal with
the humanitarian needs that follow a disaster. Chasing disasters makes
for very doubtful science and ends up compromising the quality of
scientific programs and undermining public trust in the NSF.
Responses by Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
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