During my 'research leave' period in the aftermath of the TCD Applied Research and Consultancy episode, I edited the 1970s Irish Times material into a draft of a book called 'In Search of Techne', for a publisher Tycooley who serviced the UN third world development market. Unfortunately they got into financial trouble and the project lapsed. It is however relevant to reproduce it here, in association with the 1970s module.

The sun as an energy source had become of interest subsequent to the energy crises of the 1970s and in Ireland the Solar Energy Society was thriving, running regular seminars. I supported this as best I could, and in August 1983 I visited a project in Fota which had been initiated by Gerry Wrixon in UCC. This involved a solar-powered milking parlour, which was roofed with solar cells, feeding storage batteries. An inversion system generated ESB-compatible alternating current. John Montague wrote a poem in its honour, which I have somewhere, and if I find it I will reproduce it.

The choice of a milking parlour for this pilot project was prompted by the solar-related seasonality of milk supply, which however is part of the pathology of the Irish agricultural production system. I have not heard that this project was influential in promoting the use of photovoltaics in relatively large-scale situations. They are useful in applications like parking meters. This project perhaps is an illustration of the difficulty of promoting the importance of the 'science and society' linkage. The Solar Energy Society covered all technologies: wind, wave, photovoltaics, solar water heating, mini-hydro, architecture etc and most of these have gone their separate paths, with wind generation of electricity currently being in the lead. I also became involved, from about 1984 onwards, in the production of a chapter on the Irish influences on the life and times of JD Bernal FRS, which finally surfaced as a Verso publication in 1999.

Some of the consultancy work which I have treated in the socio-technical channel has also a 'science and society' dimension, in that it relates to 'science and public policy'.

I occasionally was asked to review books having an Irish-related science dimension: Hamilton, Tyndall, conference reports etc.

I contributed papers to the Crane Bag and to the Irish Review which relate to this thread.

Systems Modelling in Management Science

I am stimulated to pursue some of the philosophical paths suggested by Richard Gault on October 7 in his (very poorly attended) ORSI seminar in TCD. The need for such a pursuit has suddenly become urgent, if I read correctly the message suggested by the quote from the IFDRS Bulletin 6/1982 in the previous (Sept 82) issue of this newsletter.

The message is one of utter philosophical confusion, overlaid with crises of confidence and identity:

. 'Can OR models be part of a decision support system?'
'Are OR models friendly to microcomputers?'
'Can the man-model-computer system be made to work?'
'Should OR methodology be adapted to the requirements of decision support or,vice verse?'

I assert that the apparent need to ask these self-doubting questions stems from the domination of OR thinking by a false paradigm in the sense hinted at by Richard Gault. but not developed.

Gault asked another self-doubting question: 'Is OR a science?'

He outlined a Kuhn-type philosophical analysis of science, with the three levels: the scientific experiment, the general law and the 'paradigm'; the latter implies the acceptance in the common currency of a complex of general laws within a field of activity, within the constraints of which one tended to plan the next experiment and interpret its results.

(Examples of 'paradigm shift' include the switch from Newtonian to Einsteinian gravitation, the general acceptance of 'continental drift' within a model labelled 'plate tectonics' etc).

Gault searched for OR embodiments of this Kuhnian philosophical structure, suggesting that the first level was the development and application of a decision-model in a specific problem situation. while the elaboration of families of such solutions into methodologies having a 'standard technique' component in common (eg queue theory or linear programming) constituted the second level. Gault however failed to find a third level, and consequently questioned the scientific status of OR.

I now take up where Gault left off, with the following assertions, defining a philosophical structure within which it is will be possible to deal with the IFORS self-doubt syndrome.

(a) OR is scientific, its main thrust is the analysis and synthesis of complex systems involving human beings.

(b) There is no such thing as an 'OR model' as distinct from other theoretical models used by scientists to describe systems and to predict the results of experiments.

(c) There is a paradigm-level in OR, governed at present by a false concept deserving overthrow, namely, that there exists a class of models called 'OR models' which when applied to a problem gives a so-called 'optimal solution', to which the 'decision-maker' (assumed to have an independent external identity) is expected to bow.

(d) The new paradigm which will overthrow it is one which has been consciously developing in the writer's mind since about 1962, when he first started doing work which was recognisably within the OR canon. It is that there exists a triad: human being, model, system. The model exists in the mind of the human as a perception of the way the system works. The model is step-wise refined, as regards the quality of its prediction of system performance, by a series of experiments, often unplanned, sometimes planned. The model itself does not 'optimise'; the human/model/system complex strives to achieve a goal, which is survival(see Stafford Beer). Any attempt to 'optimise' a particular parameter is likely to divert attention from the primary goal (survival) and undermine the robustness of the system (this concept is developed with the label 'catastrophe theory'). There is more to be said here, books-full, but enough for the problem in hand.

Let us return now to the IFORS questions. Drop the prefix OR from the word model. The answers are:

1. Not only 'can' models be part of a decision-support system, but every decision-process involves a model at some level of approximation to a valid description of the system.

2. Minicomputers enable predictions based on models of systems to be produced rapidly, provided the model is structured and the inputs specified. 'Friendly' is an irrelevant concept at this level; it refers merely to the quality of the programming.

3. The triad is wrong; it should be 'human/model/system'. The computer has no standing except as an information-processor, for predicting with the model, and comparing the predictions with the actual performance of the system. Of course the (correctly specified) triad will work; it is working all the time. The 'wrong triad' ('human/model/computer') will work if and only if it correctly reflects and interacts with some system outside itself, of which it constitutes the human controlling interface.

4. Of course OR methodology must be adapted to the needs of the decision support process, but it can only so adapt if it throws out the concept that 'OR is about optimising' and that 'OR models' are in some way special. It must shift its paradigm as suggested above.

The above deserves expansion in scholarly mode by someone with the time to develop an approach to OR within the canon of the philosophy of science. The writer would be willing to interact critically with any such person, with a view to injecting it into the international literature, which, it IFORS is anything to go on, appears to be badly in need of philosophy.

The Bernal Memorial Seminar, Dublin, Sept 20 1985

Irish Neutrality, Disarmament and the 3rd World: the Bernal Message

Introduction

I propose to take the basic ideas of the thinking of John Desmond Bernal(2) as outlined in his 1958 book 'World Without War' and to relate them to contemporary Ireland, both as regards the development co-operation process itself and the global political problem of disarmament.

I intend to begin with some insights drawn from Bernal's own early encounters, on his home ground in Ireland up to 1921, with the problems of transforming science into technology appropriate to the needs of the independent economic development of a small ex-colonial State. These early insights based on his Irish background undoubtedly gave Bernal a 'feel' for technology and economics unusual in a basic scientist, enabling him to gain acceptance subsequently among technologists and administrators in the development of applied science during the 1939-45 war, in his capacity as a basic thinker who knew how to ask the right questions. He went on to develop the same type of approach to the emerging 'world peace problem' in the 50s, the culmination being the 1958 book; unfortunately however the political atmosphere was poisoned by the Cold War and the Bernal approach received little attention.

I then go on to pick the key themes from 'World Without War' and try to relate them to the contemporary situation after a quarter-century, adding the necessary degree of hindsight. There will emerge an interesting organisational principal from Bernal's thinking, which will be seen to constitute an opportunity for contemporary Ireland to influence global politics significantly.

Before developing this opportunity, I first summarise the current state of Irish development co-operation activity, including an embryonic example of the diversion process which is a perfect illustration of the Bernal thesis within the Irish context.

I then conclude by suggesting an enhancement of the Irish role in global development co-operation, by means of an internationally funded 'Diversion Agency', an aspect of which could be labelled with Bernal's name and based on principles set out in 'World Without War', forming part of a system already beginning to take shape as the United Nations University.

The Early Bernal

Bernal lived on the family estate near Nenagh from his birth in 1901 to 1921 when he went to work on crystallography with Sir William Bragg in Cambridge, beginning his career as a physicist on which his scientific reputation is based. During his Cambridge undergraduate years he spent his vacations at home in Ireland. He kept a journal; this is now in the archives in Cambridge and I had the task of going through it with a view to making sense of the Irish entries, as a contribution to an omnibus biography currently being prepared for publication(2).

In his journal he displays a keen interest in the technology available to local industry, particularly its energy sources: a water turbine with standby oil engine at a local mill, a horizontal beam steam engine at the Shalee mines, the hydraulic ram that supplied the farm with water. He was depressed by the drudgery of the hand-loom weavers, and enthused by a machine-tool exhibition in London which he visited in 1920. Thus in his early background he had first-hand experience of the factors involved in the transition from subsistence to modern industrial economy, and he appreciated the importance of the energy source. It is not surprising therefore that he found the time to visit Ardnacrusha in 1928, when the Shannon hydroelectric scheme was commissioned; he met the German engineers who were involved and discussed it with them, observing at first hand what would now be recognised as a major development co-operation project, with Ireland in the 1920s as the leading emergent 3rd-world State. The German firm involved, Siemens-Schuckert, was engaged in the process of recovery from the disaster of the first world war, and the arms race for the second had not yet begun.

So we see in the young Bernal of the 1920s the seeds of the global view which subsequently matured into his writings on science and society. I won't here go into the political insights from Bernal's Irish period, except to stress that he grasped the significance of the Irish national-democratic revolution in terms of the Marxism which he was absorbing in Cambridge, and was able to relate it creatively to other more remote national liberation struggles.

World Without War(3)

In the introductory chapter on 'nuclear war' all the arguments that have now become familiar are dealt with: the totally destructive nature of nuclear war, the complete futility of 'civil defence', the illusion of 'limited nuclear war' (this concept had already been introduced by Kissinger), the increasing instability of 'deterrence', the danger of accidental war, the disparity between the military budget and development aid (a US loan to India of $300M contrasts with the then global military expenditure of the order of $100B). The 'anti-missile missile' concept, then on the table, he dismisses a pure Munchausen. This concept has surfaced again as 'Star Wars' and is, regrettably, being taken seriously by some scientists who ought to know better. I have heard academic physicists in Ireland discussing seriously how best to land 'Star Wars' contracts for their laboratories. This is an aspect of the problem to which I will return. The computer people are more realistic(4), in that they dismiss 'Star Wars' as intrinsically impossible to debug or test, and requiring a totally computer-based decision system, human intervention being too slow. The thinking of military planners has progressed from Munchausen via Alice in Wonderland to its present Disneyland location.

Missing from Bernal's 'nuclear war' chapter is any appreciation of the climatic effects: he speaks of survivors in places like Tristan da Cunha. The 'nuclear winter' concept, which is well proven with good computer models based on quantitative results from forest fires and volcanic eruptions, and on which Soviet and US scientists are in substantial agreement regarding methods of analysis and results, was unknown to him. He would undoubtedly have taken it on board, and contributed to its analysis by asking a few well-chosen questions.

Bernal then goes on to give an intelligent scientist's guide to development economics, in which there emerges the germ of what would now be recognised as a conservationist approach, particularly in relation to energy, despite the then cheap energy environment, and naive confidence in the future of peaceful nuclear energy, which Bernal shared. There is a prescient catalogue of the areas of industrial activity likely to be transformed by electronic computing (then in its infancy). With hindsight one wonders if Bernal realised the importance of the link between nuclear electricity and the production of military plutonium, and if he had, would he have totally rejected nuclear fission as a globally-useful power-source, or would he perhaps have campaigned for more investment in developing the possibilities of the thorium cycle, there being in this case no military by-products? Nor is he more than marginally alive to the possibilities of solar energy. However the key idea comes out clearly: global food-stocks must be diverted to feed famine-victims not simply as charity, but in such a way as to enable them to organise co-operatively to ensure their future food-supply.

Bernal then goes into the role of basic scientific research and its relation to the productive process, identifying it with the '3rd differential', the 'first differential' being run-of-the-mill technical improvement and the 'second differential' being inventive innovation based on applied-scientific research and development. The overall strategic problem in science is the achievement of the right mix of manpower and skills devoted to 'first, second and third differentials', and ensuring their dynamic interaction. This approach is now beginning to be understood, in Europe, in both global superpowers and in the 3rd world, although the mix is seldom if ever optimal, due to the pace of innovation, development and obsolescence, and to political, social and ethnic factors.

The central point in the book is the quantification (in 1957 dollars) of capital formation ($180B) and military expenditure ($80B) for the 'five great powers'(5), and its comparison with the $1.2B development aid. The comparable figure for 1981 is in the region of $17B, which just about matches the inflation rate. A currently quoted military expenditure figure is $650B; I am not certain how comparable either figure is is to those of Bernal. The point however is that the military budget is eating up about a third of the potential capital budget, and development aid is only 1-2% of the military budget. The basic quantitative allocation of global resources is certainly no better than it was in Bernal's time, and it is probably worse. It therefore seems reasonable to take Bernal's projected re-allocation figures as they are, thinking in 1957 dollars, and remembering that if you add a nought you bring it more or less up to date.

In Bernal's projected reallocation, he reduces the military budget by 25% to increase development aid to $20B, with the implied possibility of further reductions being used to increase simultaneously both capital formation and social welfare in the developed countries. This, one would think, is objectively a win/win/win situation in a tripartite non-zero-sum game: even the defence contractors would still make money producing advanced technological equipment for industry, while the third world would enjoy the possibility of rapidly achieving a sustainable level of independent prosperity over a couple of decades.

The proposed transfer method is the long-term low-interest loan; this would provide the third world with the means of paying for the capital equipment and knowhow it needs to bring its economic life above the threshold of viable independent growth.

With hindsight we can see the positive effect of Japan being forbidden (by MacArthur's constitution) to have a military budget: the money saved has been very efficiently put into capital formation and the upgrading of Japanese knowhow, to the extent that the US and Europe now feel threatened from that quarter. The US are even putting political pressure on Japan to share the military millstone with them. It is to be hoped that democratic public opinion in Japan will be able to resist this attempt to revive a dying military tradition.

Also with hindsight it can be said that while the 3rd world has had substantial loans via the World Bank, these have been at a crippling interest rate. Many 3rd world countries are now in the position that the bulk of exports are being taken up in servicing these loans. The key issue is the interest rate; this is as high as it is largely because the USA is paying for the arms race by deficit budgeting(6).

Bernal goes into how his proposed reallocation would affect Britain. Re-reading it one realises how disastrously the significance of Britain has declined, and how creative she could have been in the transition process had she listened to Bernal in the 50s. The combined cost of a series of fruitless colonial wars, together with the maintenance of the largest per-capita military budget of any NATO power, complete with independent nuclear deterrent illusion, has landed Britain in a situation where the revenues from the oil bonanza (unforeseen by Bernal) are soaked up paying for 3 million unemployed.

He then goes on to quantify the educational problem involved in the transition to independent 3rd-world technological development. He is critical of the English tradition of early specialisation, calling for a comprehensive approach at second level. He doesn't go into detail as to how the education system should develop in the 3rd-world itself, except to suggest that to master the first generation of technology transfer people would need third-level education who had not had a traditional primary and secondary schooling: some sort of crash-courses might be needed as a short-term expedient.

Bernal then gives some thought to the problem of how to channel the projected 20B 1957 dollars. He produces no blueprint, but the germ of a good idea is there: a neutral agency, independent of either superpower, linked into and making effective use of existing specialist UN agencies. The remainder of this paper is devoted to how the Irish might take initiatives in the setting up of such a system.

Irish Development Aid

Before going into Bernal's 'neutral agency' concept further, it is appropriate to outline what is going on in Ireland as regards development aid. The activity subdivides into 3 main sectors:

1. DEVCO, which involves all the active commercial semi-State agencies (eg transport, energy etc) and markets knowhow relevant to the development of infrastructure: electricity production and distribution systems, aircraft maintenance, peat production etc along with personnel training packages enabling autonomy to be achieved by the client country.

2. HEDCO, which involves the 3rd-level education system and is in a position for example to set up, and train the staff for, a complete university engineering faculty (this has recently been done in Jordan).

3. The CONGOOD group, which is composed of a variety of non-governmental fund-raising agencies, some of which are religious, mostly engaged in project field-work, often with an ongoing educational component, mainly in Africa and Latin America.

On top of this, the 'Live-Aid' global enterprise has generated a substantial Irish response, comparable to the funding already flowing via the CONGOOD group, which places Ireland at the top of the league in per-capita response to the Live-Aid message. The folk-memory of the Irish famine of 1846-48 is clearly still with us.

This all adds up to Ireland being a source of independent development aid, unconstrained by bloc politics (insofar is it can assert independence of the other EEC States in foreign affairs); the aid is administered in the field by people for whom the Irish struggle to emerge from the British colonial system is a living memory. Seen from the angle of the 3rd world, Irish development aid is unsullied by any imperial record, and carries the prestige of pioneering liberation experience. This prestige will persist for as long as Ireland asserts her independent nationhood via the UN diplomatic network, and does not allow herself to be submerged in a European superpower via the European Political Union process (now on the agenda), or railroaded into NATO membership.

Diversion Agency

Before returning to Bernal and the 'neutral diversion agency' concept, I want to refer to an Irish engineering firm in which this diversion process is already taking place. The Timoney Technology Group of companies employs 100 people and has a #3M turnover: small fry by arms race standards. It has emerged from research and development in the mechanical engineering department of University College Dublin, and is perhaps best known for the Timoney Armoured Car. This has been licenced out for production in Belgium for NATO forces; it has been a bone of contention in the Irish neutrality debate. The Timoney response has been to diversify towards other types of specialist vehicle, where the unique Timoney suspension is advantageous, in particular, airport crash tenders, fire engines and forestry service vehicles. The latter is now the subject of a technology transfer agreement with Tanzania, and arrangements are being made for its production there, with training of Tanzanian personnel. I quote the Group Marketing Director, Bill Evans: '...there is a high acceptance of Ireland as a place for technology transfer. We don't have the colonial aspect of other countries. We see a future for the development of this area.' (7)

Let us now return to Bernal: what better way to copper-fasten Irish neutrality than by locating in Ireland a powerful and prestigious UN-related agency, with the task of stimulating, co-ordinating and monitoring the diversion of global resources from the arms race towards development aid?

I don't propose to specify this 'Diversion Agency' in detail, except to suggest:

*that it might be made to emerge with UN seed-funding as a result of a combined initiative by the European neutral States,

*that it might be linked to the establishment of a network of relevant specialist sources of knowhow in each of the neutral States (eg SIPRI in Sweden),

*that its success might be measured by the extent to which co-ordinated diplomatic activity by the neutral States is able to achieve actual reductions in the arms budgets of the superpowers.

In the event of such reductions, the liberated funding might flow (say) 50% for civilian purposes within the superpowers and 50% into low-interest loans as proposed by Bernal, for delivery to the 3rd world via the proposed 'Diversion Agency'.

An aspect of the activity of the 'Diversion Agency' might be set up as a 'Bernal Institute', to take care of Bernal's '3rd differential' of the development process; in other words to act as a source of funding for scientists at the frontiers of research alternative to 'Star Wars' contracts, and as an interface between frontier science and relevant innovative applications and systems (the '2nd differential'), of genuine utility to the activists engaged in the field-work of the development process.

A Bernal Institute along these lines, located in Ireland, would constitute a high-prestige node in the network of the United Nations University, in which the Irish State has begun this year to participate, the first project being in the field of 'information technology and society', based in Trinity College, as a component of the Systems Development Programme directed by Professor Gordon Foster.

The first step towards a Bernal Institute could be taken with non-governmental funding, provided it came visibly from both eastern and western sources. Once in existence, its first task would be the development of support within the network of European neutral States, with a view to upgrading its status and defining its role as suggested above within the UN system..

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, may I say that ideas along these lines have been common currency at international peace conferences since the early 70s. What I have tried to do is the give them a focus, and to link them with a specific neutral State, Ireland, which happens to be the birthplace of a significant internationally recognised scientific thinker in this field, Bernal. This combination can be creative, if we choose to make it so.

In order to make this choice, certain steps are necessary to enhance the political process whereby Irish foreign policy is influenced by public opinion. At present, the Minister's prime source of information is the Department of Foreign Affairs. There is no direct political channel, through which concerned citizens might have access to the Minister, other than their local elected representatives. The knowledge of, and concern with, foreign affairs on the part of the average TD is however minimal. A small minority of TDs of all parties have however taken an interest; through their efforts public knowledge on issues such as Nicaragua has been enriched. There is a clear need for an Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, which would be alive to issues raised in public debate, channelling them to the Minister in a policy development process independent of the permanent Civil Service in the Department. The latter tend to absorb their information via the diplomatic network of existing EEC and UN contacts, and are therefore only marginally in touch with evolving public opinion on the home ground.

Such an Oireachtas Committee would be in a position to respond to the ideas of meetings such as this, as for example the proposal that Irish initiatives on disarmament and development should be taken via the UN network of European neutral States, and that we should positively decouple ourselves from the European Political Co-operation process in areas where association with NATO and nuclear-armed States is damaging to our national interest.

NOTES

1. The author is a physicist; after taking his degree in 1951 in the University of Dublin (Trinity College) under Professor Ernest Walton, he spent 9 years in high-energy nuclear physics, at the Paris Ecole Polytechnique and the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. From 1960 he has worked in various areas of industrial applied science, including biotechnology and computer applications. He currently works as an applied-scientific consultant and is an honorary research associate in Trinity College. He has been specialising in the development of management structures for applied science at the university-industry interface. His interest in peace questions is expressed in his membership of the Council of the Irish United Nations Association, his sometime vice-presidency of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and his membership of the International Affairs Committee of the Irish Labour Party.

2. Full biographical details of J D Bernal FRS, including an assessment of his Irish roots and influences by the present writer, are contained in a book currently being prepared for publication by Brenda Swann and Francis Aprahamian.

3. Published by Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) in 1958.

4. The weekly paper 'Computing' (published in London) on 18/7/85 printed an article on the US group 'Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility', one of whose leading members Clifford Johnson of Stanford University is currently suing US Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger on the grounds that Star Wars in unconstitutional.

5. In 1957 these were the USA, USSR, UK, France and Germany.

6. A case could be made for the debtor countries concerting a policy of default, to the extent of seeking a retrospective reduction of interest rate, with excess payments to date being deducted from the principal. The bill for this rescheduling should be handed by the World Bank to those countries whose contributions to the arms race are based on deficit budgeting, primarily the USA, with the recommendation that if they insist on participating in the arms race, they should pay for it themselves, rather than inflicting it on the third world via the banking system. The effect on the internal politics of the arms race leaders would be interesting.

7. Technology Ireland, Jan 1985, p38 (article by Gerry Reynolds).

The 'Science in Irish Culture' struggle

The Crane Bag Episode

This however aroused some interest, and it was agreed with the Editor that I should organise a follow-up with a group of papers on related themes. I collected some, including one by James O'Hara in Hamburg on 19th century Irish mathematics, and one by Kieran Byrne in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, on the RDS outreach lectures in the mid-19th century, which attempted to bring science to the Irish outside Dublin, and which interfaced with the Mechanics Institute movement for popular enlightenment. These however never saw the light of day, since after 1984 the Crane Bag folded, and I had to write apologetically to the frustrated authors. I had high hopes that the Crane Bag might have become a beacon for the scholarly integration of the culture of science into the general Irish cultural mainstream, but alas it was not to be.

The redoubtable Derry Kelleher however managed to contribute a follow-up paper in Vol 9 #1, 1985, on The Alienation of Science, in which he followed up on some of the trails I had blazed in 1983, especially on the criticism of the colonial gentleman-amateur tradition. He managed also to put on record some of our efforts via the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society to initiate some critical study of science and technology in the Irish political context, via the Kane-Bernal Society. I have treated this in the 1970s module of this stream. The Crane Bag continued to be marred by sloppy proofing; DK becomes 'Derek', and my name is spelt Johnson.

The Academy Bicentenary

This hiatus was noticed by some activists in the field, and the result was a further conference, which took place the following year 1986 in TCD, of which the proceedings were published by the TCD Physics Department; I got to review them. But there still is no focus of continuity for the systematic study of science in Ireland in the colonial to post-colonial transition. This field is of course of crucial importance in the third world development economics domain, and the Irish as the pioneer nation in this process have a duty to provide the world with a relevant map of the various minefields with which the domain is littered.

The Irish Review

'History of Science' Centre

Joe Lee / UCC / 30/6/90

re: S&T in Irish History

Dear Joe

I have been on the phone to your secretary, and left with her a provisional date, namely Monday July 23, which happens to suit another contact I want to make in Cork in the context of  ongoing  applied-scientific interests.

I have seen what purports to be my article in the Irish Review, and I must say the imposed cuts have destroyed the sense of the argument I tried to make. I will bring the uncut version for your record.

The  key points were: (a) science is an imperial weapon, associated with the colonial elite, with the result that national independence movements tend to reject or underestimate it (b) consequently academic analysis of emerging post-colonial nationality has tended to be unaware of science (Dorinda Outram's point as made in IR1, for the Irish case) (c) attempts to bridge science and culture in the abstract (ie outside a nation-building context) may be valid as far as they go, but do not answer the key questions of the post-colonial situation (d) there is a vibrant Irish scientific culture,  but it does not 'sell itself';  one has  to dig for it, and the person who digs needs some sort of 'metal detector'. Once discovered, it could be a good model for post-colonial nation-builders.

In the cut version these points do not come over as I had hoped. I find it very frustrating. They even cut all the notes and references. I had wanted to use the article, along with the earlier Crane Bag article, as  a lever to establish some sort of 'academic standing' in the bid to get the funding necessary to become the 'digger with the metal detector'.

I will bring also with me an edited and bound version of my 1970-76 Irish Times 'Science  and Technology' column. I have organised it within themes, added notes and references, and got an introduction by Tom  Hardiman. I had a publisher lined up (Tycooley) bu  they went under, so it remains on the shelf.  Perhaps it might be of use to Dorinda Outram as an ideas-quarry, or, better, perhaps it might suggest a good starting-point for a campaign to get the history of S&T properly established, with some role for myself.

Can we confirm the date? If it does not suit Dorinda (who I feel should be involved, though I have not yet met her, and she probably doesn't know  me) we can either reschedule or proceed on a preliminary  basis, arranging  a subsequent meeting after you and she have had a chance to absorb some of the material.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

The outline proposal was as follows: 1. Introduction: the Overall Objective:

It is proposed to develop a Centre for the National Heritage in Science and Technology.

The centre would not function primarily as a museum, though it would have museum-like aspects. The core-concept is to bring together in one location a structured entry-point, both for educational and research purposes, to all historical knowledge relating to the processes of discovery of scientific principles, their application in innovative technologies, and their exploitation in the specific Irish context.

In some cases the knowledge may be supported by artifacts, and this would constitute the museum-like aspect. In most cases however the knowledge would be linked to artifacts maintained elsewhere (in some cases where appropriate with the production of replicas), and referenced to libraries and collections in other locations. Thus the project is not intended to usurp existing initiatives in the history of specific sectors (eg the Callan material in Maynooth, the Parsons material in Trinity, the IEI archive etc), but rather to collate their existence into an overall national picture which relates Irish historical development to the global development of S&T.

Before such a concept can be elaborated, however, it is necessary to decide what would be in it: who were the key people, where are the key locations, what are the key scientific principles to illustrate, which key technologies were important in the nation-building process. This in itself is a major task. The process of selection will have to depend on a historical analysis in some depth, in which the global history of science and the history of technology will have to be cross-linked with Irish political, economic and social history.

Once selection has been made, the structuring and display of the knowledge would make appropriate use of modern multimedia information-technology (eg interactive video, hypertext, relational databases etc). During the course of the earlier research phases it would be appropriate to experiment with appropriate computer-based tools; the research itself would lend itself to the development of a relational database system structured around the problem. This could in some cases form the starting-point for both the knowledge-access tools of the Centre (for the research and educational community), and the knowledge display systems (for the lay public).

The organisation of the knowledge would be approached from two perspectives:

(a) key events in Irish history, and how they related to the S&T environment at the time: for example Cromwell and the role of artillery; the problem of position at sea and the 18th century trade boom which led to the assertion of colonial independence (Dunsink Observatory fits in here); Grattan's Parliament and the funding of scientific research in the linen industry (the role of the RDS etc); the French Revolution and and its scientific effects (again a key role for the RDS; cf McMillan); the Famine; the Fenians (Holland submarine etc); Parnellite Home Rule (how did Fitzgerald and the TCD scientific elite relate to this?); the 'Godless Colleges' and the Catholic University; World War 1 and the 1916 Rising (role of radio broadcasting etc); the post-1921 governments (eg the Drumm episode; the early IIRS); World War 2 (the Emergency Scientific Committee; the Institute of Advanced Studies); the Marshall Plan and the Agricultural Institute; the IIRS upgrade; the OECD Report of 1964 and the National Science Council; the NBST etc.

(b) key steps in the transformation of scientific discovery to technological innovation to economic application, selected from the global experience on the basis that there is an Irish contact-point at some significant stage. In this context it is possible to trace the history (for example) of the Birr telescope and its linkages to the Parsons turbine and the Grubb optical works through the biographies of the people concerned, and their historical relationship with the Irish socio-political environment. There are many candidates for this process: Kelvin and the transatlantic cable; Boole and the computer; Ferguson and (a) aircraft manufacture (b) the hydraulic power take-off in agriculture; Gossett and industrial statistics (in Guinness's); some of the key people are listed and briefly summarised in the RIA 'People and Places in Irish S&T' booklet, which could form a starting-point for this approach, though its scope is somewhat limited.

2. Preliminary Listing of Phases and Tasks within each Phase

The project is expected to take 5 years, and can be divided into the following phases, each containing several linked tasks, and producing interim milestone outputs.

Phase I: Collation and classification of sources: this will involve the development of a complete reference system for the existing sources of knowledge (not a 'bibliography' so much as a 'meta-bibliography', or listing of bibliographic sources), and the selection from this reference material of key areas to be explored in depth (from both (a) and (b) perspectives, as outlined above), with where possible access to primary sources.

The output of Phase I will be terms of reference for a series of research projects, perhaps suitable for masters-degrees in business faculties (where there is the possibility of historical study of the innovation process), or in history schools (where, as in Cork, there is an interest in the history of S&T), or in science/engineering faculties (where there is an interest in the history of the scientific or engineering discipline).

It is intended to complete Phase I by the end of Year 1.

Phase II: Researching the selected topics from the (a) and (b) perspectives; this will extend over 2 years and will be a multi-centred team activity, co-ordinated by the proposer, in collaboration with academic supervision on site in each of the selected locations. Certain of the research areas will be selected by the proposer to implement personally, on the basis of their relationship to his primary qualifications and experience. During this phase a steering committee will be set up to monitor progress, and there will be a series of research seminars.

By the end of Year 2 of the project (year 1 of Phase II) there should exist enough raw material from the various research areas to enable a start to be made on a book, possibly entitled 'Science, Technology and Innovation in the Irish Nation-building Process', targeted at publication at the end of Year 3, and aimed basically at an educated lay market, with the message that 'S&T in Ireland, though colonial in origin, has definitely become part of the Irish cultural heritage; we should be proud of it, value it, and sing its praises'.

There is another target market: the educated lay public in other post-colonial emerging nations, for which the pioneering Irish experience can give guidelines (both positive and negative). Thus the project has export and national prestige potential. (For example, how will a reformed South Africa win the support of the white S&T elite, necessary for economic survival?)

Thus the milestone for the end of Phase II is the publication of a book which will serve as the theoretical basis of the Centre. A parallel milestone should be the existence of a computer-based relational knowledge system, with networked human support for ensuring its ongoing updating and maintenance as a research tool.

Phase III: Identifying a suitable location for the Centre, raising the necessary sponsorship funding from industry, drawing up plans for conversion, implementing the plans, setting up a management system, opening with a suitable launching event (possibly based on a suitable centenary).

Candidate locations include Dunsink Observatory, which is situated convenient to DCU, and possesses an important core of significant historical material (cf the Wayman history). The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham is another possibility. Some scientific or technological background would be an advantage.

Sponsorship funding from industry would need to be related not just to the building and the management of the Centre, but to the promotion of active historical research into S&T in the innovation process, on a basis available to all 3rd-level Colleges. Ongoing State funding for this process might be considered in the context of the Eolas budget.

The detailed plan for Phase III would need to be embodied in the 'end of Phase II' milestone.

I met with Joe Lee; we discussed the draft, and I improved it. I met subsequently with Dorinda Outram, Joe Lee's science historian, but it turned out that she had lost interested in the Irish 'science in history' domain, being perhaps disappointed by the lack of 'heavy' academic response to her earlier Irish Review article. She was visibly turning her attention to the academic promotion channels via the UK, and Joe Lee had sensed this. I wrote to him again:

Prof J Lee / Dept of Modern History / UCC / 6/8/90

re: history of S&T project

Dear Joe I enclose a second draft (substantially as above) of the approach to this project; it still remains to be quantified, but on reflection it seems to be necessary to give it the necessary aura of 'Napoleonic grandeur' such as to appeal to CJH (ie the then Taoiseach Charles J Haughey). You might like to sound Gerry Wrixon (then Chief Executive of Eolas the science funding centre, while also heading the Cork micro-electronics laboratory) on this. He would not want to see it as a drain on existing Eolas funds, but might welcome an injection of Heritage funding such as to enhance the image of Eolas. It might be possible to hint to CJH that the image of the Heritage funding is somewhat tarnished, and could do with an upgrade.

The question of where to base the operation arises, and who should be on the steering committee. It would be good if we could get a link with the UCD Business School (this is my nearest contact-point with the academic system); we would need on the steering committee an appropriate mix of science, engineering, business and history. There is substantial politics in this, and I would hesitate to approach anyone before I had initial support in principle from yourself, Wrixon and Robert Jacob (from the IEI Heritage Committee; I have had a preliminary discussion with him).

My initial contact in the UCD Business School might be someone like John Murray, who runs a postgraduate programme in innovation, but perhaps it would be appropriate to go to Paddy Masterson, with initial soundings via J J Kelly and/or Tony Scott (whom I know on the physics network). My TCD contacts would tend to be Herries Davies and Ron Cox (science and engineering); I have on different occasions discussed aspects of the concept with both of them, and I get the impression that they are well disposed, though one can never be sure in academic politics.

The sweetener, which would make the academic politicians sheath the knives, would be the whiff of funding that is NOT a diversion of funding from some basket that they are already into. Thus we need to be very careful how wide we spread the 'steering committee' net initially, and include only people who genuinely believe in the feasibility of a major interdisciplinary project, and would be guaranteed not to strangle it at birth, as is the usual for concepts 'not invented here'. Whence the importance of your initial approach to Wrixon, which I would come in to reinforce, it you got back any kind of positive signal.

I look forward to meeting you again in Cork to discuss this further, hopefully with Wrixon, and to meeting Dorinda.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

I continued the contact again later, as follows:

Prof J Lee / Dept of Modern History / UCC

28/12/90 / re: history of S&T project

Dear Professor Lee / I refer to my letter of Aug 6 and subsequent meeting, followed by several phone-conversations. I feel we need to meet again, to update and develop further the proposal. Also I would like to meet with Dorinda Outram, and see if my 1970s IT material is of any use to her, and possibly discuss in what way it can be used.

Basically the position is that the proposal as outlined in my August enclosure (draft 2, Aug 1990) remains extant; the problem is how to activate it. The steps are:

(1) for UCC to agree it is a valid programme, provided it gets adequately funded (this does NOT imply a present or future allocation of UCC resources, as seemed to be the issue in a subsequent phone-conversation; we will not embark on it unless ALL UCC overheads involved are covered!)

(2) for me to convey it to Robert Jacob and the IEI Heritage Committee, and get their backing (because the National Heritage Council will refer it to them)

(3) for me to submit the proposal to the Heritage Council for long-term funding along the lines suggested.

It seems to me that UCC is the initial contact-point because

(a) of your appreciation of the S&T aspect in your book

(b) because you have recruited to your department with S&T in the terms of reference. I could equally well go to UCD and try to initiate the process via the Business School, but I do feel I should give you the first refusal, so to speak.

My movements in the near future are that I have a review of my current EC project in Brussels on Jan 22-23, before which I am working full steam, and after which I will be able to consider going to Cork for a day or two, with a view to progressing this. There is an IEI Heritage meeting on Feb 25, at which I would like to be able to update Robert Jacob regarding the position.

So that leaves a 4-week 'window of opportunity' in which I could visit Cork, see yourself and Dorinda, and possibly see Wrixon, with a view to progressing the project.

How does this sound? Can you get back to me with a date? On the whole I would prefer a Friday or a Monday, so as to have the opportunity of making various social contacts on the weekend.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston PhD

I never got the slightest flicker of interest at this time from any Government funding agency, so I gave up on it. It remains on the agenda at the time of writing (2002).

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 2002