An Investment in Science

The National Academy of Sciences and its associate academies--the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council--are the closest things that this country has to an official voice of science. They are honorary societies for distinguished scientists, and they advise the federal government on ethical and scientific issues in science and technology.

So it is a major event in Southern California for the academies to build a West Coast headquarters adjacent to the campus of the University of California, Irvine. More academy members come from California than from any other state, and they and their colleagues in the West will be able to participate more fully in academy deliberations now that they won’t have to go to Washington to do so in every case. Science and technology are among California’s major strengths--a fact that the National Academy knows well.

The new West Coast headquarters was made possible by a gift to the academies of $20 million from Arnold O. Beckman, who is the founder of Beckman Instruments Inc. (now part of the SmithKline Beckman Corp.) and one of the country’s leading philanthropists for science. The seven-acre site in Irvine on which the center will be constructed is worth $6 million--a donation by the Irvine Co.

So far this year, Beckman, 85, has also donated $40 million to the University of Illinois for a center for the study of human and artificial intelligence; $3.5 million to the medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, toward the construction of a vision center, and $12 million to Stanford University toward a center for molecular and genetic medicine.

The community, the country and the world can only say thank you to him for the enlightened way in which he has decided to share his fortune.