 You may remain seated for the invocation, O Lord King of heaven and earth, may it please thee this day to order and hallow, to rule and govern our hearts and bodies, our thoughts, words, and works according to thy commandments, through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. In May of 1963, Gustavus Adolphus College dedicated the Nobel Hall of Science. We were honored by the presence of 26 Nobel laureates, together with the chairman and the executive director of the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. While the program was still going on in front of the Science Hall, Dr. Glenn Seaborg, director of the Atomic Energy Commission, asked me whether plans had been made to continue and to develop the association between Gustavus and the Nobel laureates, which had now been established. The suggestion was not wholly foreign to us, but we were pleased to have it come from one of their number, from one of the Nobel laureates who were our guests, and to have it endorsed by a number of others, most notably by the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Professor Arne Tisilius, and by other representatives who were with us. Our first step in implementing the suggestion was to establish an advisory committee of Nobel laureates. As chairman, we chose Dr. Philip Hench, who had already been an unofficial advisor in connection with the dedication plans, and who had received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1950 for his work in connection with the discovery of cortisone. Dr. Hench serves also as chairman of this first Nobel symposium, and I should like to present him at this time, Dr. Hench. Dr. Glenn Seaborg agreed to serve as a second member, and he has contributed to this symposium both in correspondence and in personal conference. For the third, we asked one of the Nobel winners in physics who had made a particularly vivid and felicitous impression on us by the warmth of his personality, the breadth of his interests, and a certain wry sense of humor. Dr. Polycarp Cush is a member of the Department of Physics at Columbia University. He received the Nobel Prize in 1955 for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron. During this year, he is on leave and is associated with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He has been most helpful in planning the program for this first Nobel symposium. He has been particularly concerned that this symposium should consider a science-based issue in the larger context of its social, moral, and religious implications. We were delighted when he agreed to serve as the moderator for the symposium. His initial assignment is to make an opening statement which will prepare our minds for this very significant venture, which we think will become an exciting adventure for us all. Dr. Cush. It is my great privilege to serve as the moderator of this symposium, Genetics and the Future of Man. It is most agreeable to be able to make these general introductory remarks in this lovely chapel. I am, as a matter of fact, the son of a Lutheran clergyman and have heard unnumbered sermons, often as many as three a Sunday, in both German and English in the rural churches of the Midwest. If one's state of grace were to be determined solely by the statistics of church going, I would be in fairly good shape. The problems about which we will think rather intensively for the two days that are coming, and which I hope will be the subject for serious reflection for a long time to come, can be resolved only partly through knowledge. I wish to be emphatic about the absolute indispensability of knowledge. Still, a well-defined set of values, or lacking this, even a groping for guiding values, is essential to the resolution of almost any problem, present or future, that relates to the condition and future of man. I believe it to be appropriate that the first session of this symposium be held in this chapel. We are almost certainly not agreed that the formal religion that this chapel represents uniquely offers a set of values that will lead to excellence of personal conduct and wisdom in public policy. But we are almost certainly agreed that this chapel is a symbol for the quest for values which I think must be a part of the life of every man who believes himself to be a member of the community of civilized men. We tend in the course, we college professors, I guess, tend in the course of normal academic procedure to be occupied with the details of learning. And I sometimes think that we have only a limited awareness of the forest, what with an intense concern with individual trees. This, I think, does not meet the real needs of undergraduates or of anyone else. They examine a single tree in the domain of physics, another one in the province of biology, perhaps a couple of trees that the philosopher tends, a tree of the artist, not a real tree, but one that captures the essence of all trees and finally several trees in the territory of, say, political science. All of this does not add up to a comprehensive view of the forest and an insight into the complex relationships between the trees that leads to an organized forest to drop the analogy. Even a carefully chosen sequence of courses does not necessarily yield an inclusive and connected body of knowledge, a comprehensive view of the world. Further, in courses, we are frequently reluctant to make the assertion that the application of human knowledge of knowledge to human affairs requires the making of value judgments about a large range of things. This symposium is an instructional device, but is an attempt to depart from the conventional procedures of undergraduate instruction. It would be foolish to suggest that the undergraduates among you, the dominant segment of the audience I think, will learn as much in this symposium about any one of the topics that the speakers will discuss as you would in a disciplined course. It would be equally foolish to suppose that in two days we can do anything other than give a very general view of the forest. This symposium should command all of the education you have had and is based on the assumption of an audience with disciplined inquisitive and serious minds. It is the hope of those within the college who organized this symposium and those from the outside who will speak that you will derive some insights about the origin and nature of the problem of genetics and the future of man. The knowledge of science and the power of a closely related technology have offered to man great opportunities for increasing the pleasure that each man may find in life, forgiving increased meaning to life. At the same time, there can be no doubt that the opportunities have carried in their wake hazards and problems. By some magic in the human spirit, man has up to this point somehow or other managed to muddle through and the human condition would be conceded by a fair fraction of humanity to be better than it was even at the time as recent as one century ago. In other words, we haven't done too badly. The opportunities are greater and the hazards more pretentious in this half of the present century than they have ever been before. This is a consequence of a very rapidly evolving body of scientific knowledge and of a highly effective technology. Very importantly, perhaps even most importantly, there is at this point in history a compelling and almost universal urge to translate the knowledge of science and the power of technology into some kind of action, whether social, political, economic or military. I am of the belief that never before has man done or tried to do as many things as quickly as he now does or tries to do. We are going to make planes frontal that travel 1500 miles an hour for no reason. Many persons believe beyond the fact that it can almost certainly be done. You could cut down my travel time from Palo Alto, California to St. Peter by 10%. I spend most of the time in airports waiting for planes. We are in the midst of a crash program to send a man to the moon for no important reason many men believe other than that it can probably be done. Clearly, the urge to do anything that is possible introduces hazards into human life. In a sense, one may applaud the urge to do everything that we think can be done. Man must rise to meet challenges, whether offered by the external world or self-imposed. Indeed, the history of civilized man would barely exist if man had not attempted to do all kinds of things that appeared to be just barely possible and perhaps man surprised himself by succeeding in his attempts. Still, the things that man may potentially do have acquired a new dimension in this century. In our ability to cause certain large nuclei to explode and to cause certain small nuclei to fuse together, we have the certain capacity to destroy all civilization and the probable capacity to destroy mankind, perhaps even all life on earth. Clearly, man must apply restraints to himself so that the doable does not in fact become the done. We have the capacity or thought we had to eliminate the insects that are a menace to man or perhaps do nothing more than annoy him and to destroy the insects that clearly reduce the productivity of agriculture. It is increasingly evident that a very large scale program to do what we thought we could has posed very grave problems. There has been a serious dislocation of normal ecology and the cost to our normal natural environment has been high. We thought we could put all of America on wheels and have in fact gone far in doing so. I remind you, however, that more than 40,000 deaths occur in the United States every year through automobile accidents and that the air over many American cities is vile, thanks in part to automobile exhaust. I also remind you that vast amounts of irreplaceable natural resources have gone into the enterprise of putting every American into an automobile. I personally think that a more morally adequate act would be to share resources with even remote future generations. Whatever hope of immortality I may cherish is related to my hope that the human spirit may survive for many millennia and I believe it to be improbable that the human spirit will flourish in an exhausted planet. The point is that we can do or can aspire to do tremendous things. It is not always clear at the outset what all the implications of what we do will be. Neither is it clear that we must accept every challenge that faces us or that we can create. Wisdom and judgment, whatever those words mean, must enter into any decision as to what we do and on what terms we do it. Brief, this symposium is going to be an attempt to explore what we can do, what the implications of doing it would be or are, and perhaps some discussion of one's own view of wisdom and judgment as to whether we ought to do it. Some of the greatest opportunities for man and the greatest hazards at this point in history involve the genetic processes that occur in the human species and thus have large implications for the long-range future of man. Quite incidentally, to man's newly found ability to exploit nuclear energy for military and peaceful purposes, it is now possible for the first time in human history to expose world populations without their consent to radiation capable of producing deleterious changes in hereditary material. The last sentence I give credit where credit is due was lifted almost verbatim from a report on the biological effects of radiation in whose preparation Professor Glass had a hand. On the other hand, this is the incidental effects of nuclear energy. On the other hand, the biologist has acquired such a profound and detailed knowledge of the nature and chemistry of the genetic material that the day may not be far removed, but it would be possible to exercise a high measure of control through chemical rather than eugenic procedures over the genetic characteristics of both individuals and societies. It would be foolish to hope that muddling through will chart a wise course in this difficult terrain of opportunities, problems and hazards. I hope that the direction that we as a society take will be determined by a multitude of men, clearly including competent experts on every matter in which there can possibly be experts, but also including all men of intelligence and goodwill. Almost any decision of substance must be made through the exercise of judgment about the whole range of things. Judgment itself, the necessary ingredient in making policy, personal or public, judgment itself can, however, be valiantly exercised only on a basis of knowledge. In the present symposium, the first three lectures will be largely, but not wholly, devoted to an exploration of the scientific background of our general problem. The three men who will lecture are highly qualified experts. You cannot contribute to the determination of a social course without understanding them. Listen with care and concentration. It is not possible to have been a university teacher of science for more than 30 years without having acquired a considerable experience with undergraduates who close their minds to the possibility of understanding any part of science. I won't ask you to raise your hands, but I'm sure you're abundant. Open your minds for once what these men, the qualified experts will say and some of this is some of the substance of what will determine perhaps your personal future. The future of your race may even determine whether that most marvelous thing in all creation, the human spirit will survive. The qualified experts in genetic process as men of experience and education may express opinions and judgments of their own, not verified by the cannons of scientific inquiry. The experts have the clear right to offer judgments and opinions, perhaps also the clear obligation to present an informed judgment, but keep your minds open to opinion as opposed to knowledge. Opinion is an important component of all existence, but it is not the same thing as validated knowledge. There has always been genetic change in life on earth. If there had not been change, we wouldn't be assembled here to discuss anything at all. Prior to the turn of the century, man did not, I think, do very much to his physical environment that had a real or potential major effect on the process of genetic change. I could be wrong and I will be corrected, I am sure if I am, as an expert in something other than genetics. I recognize the pleasure with which the expert corrects a non-expert. In any case, genetic change in a natural environment has occurred throughout untold millennia and Professor Reed will discuss some aspects of this normal process. A basic question to you as citizens would be whether or not you believe that the normal process is operating so well that you would be reluctant to recommend tempering with it. This is a judgment you would have to make. For instance, the definition of the word operating so well, what's the definition of the word well in that sentence? But if you really think about the question, you will recognize at once that the days of a wholly normal genetic process are over thanks to man's fiddling with his environment. You don't have normal genetic process, you fiddled with the environment and you fiddled with man's sociology. With the discovery of x-rays by Rentgen and the isolation of radium by the Curies, a factor destined to be important in human genetics was introduced. Through specific activities of man, the normal genetic process could be modified. I don't think that this was a potential or real problem at the turn of the century. First, because human exposure to intense radiation was not general and also because a problem does not exist if you don't know about it. And we were wholly ignorant at that time of the genetic effects of radiation. The problem of genetic change through man's modification of the environment is now very real. Thanks to fallout from the bomb, the peaceful uses of atomic energy, and the prevalence of television, I am on uncertain grounds when I suggest that other environmental changes affect genetic process, the contaminants of the atmosphere, for example. Professor Glass would genuinely qualify professional of these matters will be much more precise in his discussion of the effect on genetic process of environmental change. Some of my friends among biochemists and biologists have the cautious belief that it may become possible to tailor make the genetic heritage of each individual by inducing changes in the chemical structure of basic genetic material. It may not be particularly relevant if they are right or wrong. Optimistic biochemists whether they're right or wrong in this respect may not matter very much, but it does seem quite clear that the profound knowledge developed by the new school of geneticists is certain to have profound implications for society. Dr. Tatum, will I think discuss some of this new knowledge and especially the implications of this new knowledge for the future of man? So much for the qualified experts on genetics. It is an important commentary on the pace at which the world changes that we desperately need them here. In the days of the founding of this college, you wouldn't need geneticists to talk to you about the future of man. Genetic process is also affected by their prevailing sociology and culture. For example, the mother of my children was not a Darwinian random choice. Things like multiple college degrees and Phi Beta Kappa are in the background somewhere. I think that Dr. Shockley will discuss in part the interaction of the prevailing culture and genetic constitution of the population. Let me say it just without having it on the text, all these people are semi-lunatics and I'm not sure what any of them will say and I have no faith that they will in fact say what they said they would. Professor Shockley brings to the discussion of population control or eugenics, the critical faculties. Perhaps I should add that from a purposes of my own ego, the rather considerable critical faculties of the professional physicist. Society by the very existence of social classes, non-uniform economic status, varying levels of aspiration, varying beliefs about the purpose and meaning of life has perhaps inadvertently affected a modification of its genetic composition. Has the inadvertent policy been a good one? What alternatives are possible? As Shockley speaks, bear in mind that he is critical and informed but that some or perhaps much of what he will say is descriptive of his personal sense of values, of his own view of the value and nature of human life, of his own hopes for the future of man. Nothing is more destructive of rational thought about science-related problems than the common belief that everything that a scientist says is validated by the criteria of formal science. I think the choice of Shockley is a deliberate one. A cultivated man, steeped in the scientific tradition as Shockley will talk about the problem in which he is not a competent expert. This is also an important part of the social process. We are all products of our personal history and that of our society. The moral values of man are often embodied in and described by his religion. Evidently, the value of any human action that potentially affects the nature of man himself cannot be appraised without recourse to the values which have guided or purport to have guided the actions of the individual in his society. Even those men who have become detached from any formally organized religious body or who no longer give even formal allegiance to a body of religious doctrine are inextricably involved in a set of values with an origin in religion. You can't get away from it. As a matter of fact, it's one of the problems of the rebels you can't escape. Dr. Ramsey, theologian, will speak on the moral and religious implications of genetic control. The possible societies and the possible kinds of social organization that one might envisage were one able to control the genetic heritage of each individual stagger the imagination. Not all societies would be viable as societies and only very few, I think, would yield to their members' satisfying lives. It takes someone other than an amateur in these matters to consider the effect of genetic control or the potential effect of genetic control on social organizations. What is the effect on society of an extreme diversity among men or that of a rather homogeneous population? Would men willingly concur in a policy that might somehow dilute the age-old pleasure in offspring in one's own image? I am reasonably certain that I haven't really asked the right questions, but they are questions that I ask myself. As the last of the formal speakers in this symposium, Professor Davis will speak on the sociological aspects of genetic control. You should note throughout this symposium the range of knowledge and of cultivated insights that are brought to bear on the problem under discussion. If we achieve nothing else here, we hope that you will leave with the belief that to become a truly effective member of society you must be much more than a learned physicist, an imaginative biologist, a dedicated clergyman or even an inquisitive student of social behavior. Thank you.