Tobacco Documents Online

• • . nC Ssaftu1etIto:BCe taory sim.a aes.drd a ros yaw ^%U UetxAX+++r,.ros }s7 r.u oxktcWtbn..atxo~.~~ tsasims ¢FUNoRMoaAtr++r.arr+crr+imsWt wiu.f8lP.rotE9..elat tiDS•IYN CJERIOCtKt'a+r.pr, rmbIM f1tIMoRV FAVHE. .raM..abr PE't~t BdsUO, .Abr W pnp. ab RWW RJ.MMtiJM4R A crisis that wasn't n the late 1980s, it became an artide of faith at the National Science Foundation -that America w00-running out of scientists Iattd engineers. By the year 2010, the agency predicted, there would be a shortfall of 675,000 of these valuable specialists. NSF'a chief administrator in those days, ;Erich Bloch, tirelessly repeated that gloomy forecaat to academic leaders, the media and especially to Congress when NSFs budget 'came up for review. His claims in turn were kited as further proof of the failure of Ameri- kaait educational institutions and of our in- "ity to keep paoew with Japan in an in- kteaeingly competitive world economy. ;Out as a recent congressional investigi ion makes dear, Bloch's shortfall never ma- Instead, the General Accounting ice reports that there'o a surplus of aaien- iata and engineers, that unemployment tee in some disciplines far exceed the na- ~bonal average and that beginning salaries for newly minted PhD's in many of these `,f'ietds are way down. NSFs faulty prediction turns out to have " the product of its own Policy and Re- hearch Analysis Division. The original re• port proclaiming the shortage was itself so iladly flawed and drew so much criticism xrom the statistical experts who reviewed it that NSFs Office of Legislative and Public Affairs refused to publish it at all. But that didn't atop Bloch from circulating thousands of photocopies and computer printouts far and wide. T he author of the report, Peter House, told a congressional hearing that he never really intended to influence public pol- icy and that he had no idea that his study had so much impact. The chairman of the in- vestigating subcommittee then read back to him passages from one of House's own books in which he extolled the considerable influ , ence his report had exercised over scienoe policy and how it had been assiduously dis- tributed among decision-makers. Bloch him- self made 55 speeches between 1987 and 1990 warning of the impending shortfall. Congress and much of the scientific com- munity have joined in expressing dismay at this tawdry chapter and the blot it has left on NSF's claim to scientific integrity. There may be some relief in finding that at least one of the threats to the nation didn't turn out to be so bad after all. But it's quickly dis- sipated by the thought that now we need to start worrying about what to do with all those unemployed scientists and engineers. 0