L.A. Meeting Attracts 3,000 Scientists : Sessions Afford Chance to Investigate Widely Varying Fields

In the world of science, those who practice their art well generally stick to the facts they know best.

But it is always tempting to peek into someone else’s discipline, searching for ways to apply new information. The lure is especially strong for scientists who find the confines of the laboratory too restrictive, their own fields too narrow, or their own ideas undervalued by colleagues in other disciplines.

Some inevitably seek a more visible role on a broader stage, taking their case to the people.

That, in essence, is what will be happening this week as about 3,000 scientists from nearly all disciplines gather in Los Angeles for the 151st national meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

The six-day convention, which begins today at the downtown Hilton and Bonaventure, is designed to encourage scientists to examine the implications of their work in a multidiscipline environment. It is also designed to attract the news media, and 500 to 600 reporters are expected for what has become the most widely reported scientific meeting in the country.

The list of registrants includes some of the leading names in science, including several Nobel laureates. For the next few days, the scientists will participate in what one described as a “free-wheeling, winner-take-all bull session.”

Many of the sessions will last well into the night, involving people who are extremely dedicated to their work. Such intensity contributed to an increase in the unemployment rate within one segment of society when the meeting was held in San Francisco a few years ago.

“The ladies of the night were complaining bitterly because business was so poor,” said one who was there.

For some of the scientists, however, employment of a different sort will be high on their agendas. Asked why busy scientists take time out from their crowded schedules to attend such meetings, one biologist responded, “To get a job.” He said he had used that procedure himself, “but that’s probably true of people who go to any convention.”

The meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science is different from most other scientific gatherings because it so broad-based.

“My sense is scientists come because they are invited to talk about a topic that fits into a symposium that is broader than their professional societies,” said Rae Goodell, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and author of “The Visible Scientist.”

“They want to give their slant on a subject that may have policy implications.”

Giving their “slant” is really what this convention is all about.

Far Less Arduous Path

One scientist who has written extensively for scientific journals--the most common avenue for scientists to reveal the fruits of their labors--said the road to public exposure is far less arduous through meetings such as this than it is through the journals.

“To publish a paper, you first have to get it approved by your agency,” he said. “Then you send it to the journal, and they send it out to several referees.”

The referees read the paper and offer suggestions to the journal, including recommending whether the paper should be rewritten, altered or rejected. It is then sent back to the author with the referees’ opinions, and the author must satisfy his critics.

“If the idea is controversial, or if it involves radical new research, that process can take years,” said the scientist, who asked that his name not be used.

Joan Wrather, a spokeswoman for the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the prestigious Science magazine, was dismayed by that suggestion.

“I hope it doesn’t take years,” she said, although she noted that “it would not be at all unfair” to say that it frequently takes about 18 months to get a paper published.

The journal is changing some of its procedures, and “we are shooting for four months now,” she said.

Wrather conceded that the scientist may have been on the right course in one sense.

“If he is trying to draw attention to his work, he can get a lot more mileage out of presenting a paper at this meeting” than from publishing it in a journal, she said.

Whatever the time span or the motive, the product of a published report, according to some scientists, is a paper with far fewer opinions by the author. The intense, emotional, sometimes frustrating effort to publish their views can also lead to personal conflicts, even destroying friendships between co-authors.

By contrast, the papers that will be presented during this convention have been refereed only in the sense that committees have determined that the authors are qualified to speak on the topics, and that the subjects are of interest to a wide segment of the scientific community.

Making Their Views Known

“Meetings like this,” one scientist said, “give you a chance to really make your views known. It’s a free-wheeling, open forum.”

“The papers are certainly less structured (than those published in the journals),” said MIT’s Goodell. “They tend to have more opinion and more of the implications of the work.”

Beyond that, the meeting offers a chance for scientists in all disciplines to bring themselves up to date on work that is going on in other fields.

“Meetings like this do serve a rather important function of communications,” said Dan Greenberg, editor of Science and Government Report. “The bridging function is terribly important.”

“The audience,” Wrather said, “generally will not be from the discipline that’s being discussed.”

Wide Variety of Topics

The topics run the course of the traditional disciplines, but also include such items as “Arms Control and National Security,” giving the participants a chance to apply their findings to a matter of international significance. Other subjects will include the responsibilities of the scientist in such things as emerging technologies in the Third World, and even how scientists are depicted in the movies.

Most of the discussions will cover material that is already well known within the respective disciplines.

“There is some new science at each meeting,” Goodell said, “but that’s generally not what draws scientists to the meeting. They come largely for the interaction among the disciplines.”

Asked why he thinks scientists attend such meetings, Murray Gell-Mann, Caltech’s Nobel laureate in physics, said, “I can’t really answer that.”

But he had a quick answer when asked why he personally will attend.

“I’m the keynote speaker,” he said.