An Experiment in Understanding

An earlier article about the Harvard University Program on Technology and Society described its establishment 1964, and indicated how it was undertaking to inquire in depth into the effects of rapid technological change on the economy, on public policies, and on the character of the society, as well as into the reciprocal effects of social change on the nature, dimension, and directions of scientific and technological developments.1 A forthcoming report on the Program's first two years will give a preliminary account of progress some of the early projects we initiated, and will record a few changes organization and procedure. The more interesting of these, perhaps, are the addition of the Dean of the Harvard Medical School to the Faculty Committee that is responsible for the conduct of the Program, and the enlistment of scholars from outside of Harvard to participate our inquiries.2 In this article, I seek only to describe some new approaches that we have adopted, to evoke their rationale, and to identify particular subject areas that we are concentrating on or trying to think about systematically at the present time. Put another way, I shall discuss some of the answers we are tentatively proposing to the question, posed the earlier article, about how one comes to grips meaningfully with

Psychology · Research, Science, and Academia

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