The authors of Physics Through the 1990s do not order priorities. They endorse all the worthy proposals put forward by the many interest groups into which physicists fall. These proposals range in cost from the $6 billion supercollider, which is of central concern to the relatively small and disproportionately powerful brotherhood of high energy physicists, to a doubling over four years of the $280 million that now supports small-group research, which turns out more than 70 percent of the science doctorates in the United States.
As the report avows, physicists cannot order their priorities themselves. The considerations in setting priorities must go beyond the criterion of "cutting-edge research," as the current catchword runs. Among those whose views might profitably be taken into account in formulating national policy for physics and other major sciences are historians and sociologists of science and technology (hereafter "historians" for short).
Twenty or 30 years ago ...
