Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)
RUSTUM ROY: Alternatives to Review by Peers: A Contribution to the Theory of Scientific Choice
R(JSTUM R OY: Alternatives to Review by Peers: A Contribution to the Theory of Scientific Choice Minerva, 22 (1984) 316-328 IN THE mid-1960s a series of papers by Michael Polanyi, Dr Alvin Weinberg and others opened the discussion of "scientific choice". 1 The term "scientific choice" referred to two rather disparate choices. The first was the choice among subfields of science with respect to allocation of resources. The second was the choice among different possible performers of research as to which should be supported. Since those happy days for science, the former question, possibly the most critical issue of science policy, has virtually disappeared from the range of concerns of the makers of science policy. In 1977, in the wake of President Carter's push for "zero-based budgeting", whereby the allocations made for the next budgetary period would disregard the pattern of allocation of the previous budgetary period, I suggested to Dr Philip Handler, then president of the United States National Academy of Sciences, that the Academy create a committee to reflect on the desirability of a "zero-based budget" for science and engineering. Dr Handler's response was that such a task was impossible since it would arouse bitter conflicts among scientists. Under present practices, the support of American science research is frozen into a more or less fixed pattern of distribution of support for engineering, applied scientific research and pure scientific research, and among different subfields; if the pattern were once appropriate, it appears less and less so every day. 2 The issues raised in the discussion of scientific choice reappeared in the 1970s in connection with "peer review". Unfortunately, the entire focus of the argument was shifted from the important problem of the best way to distribute the total funds for the support of research, to an analysis of one of the less significant methods of deciding how funds should be allocated. The persons who discussed "scientific choice" seemed to take for granted that allocations would be decided on the basis of review by peers. Some of the criticisms focused on the possible miscarriage of justice to individuals. The debate about the merits and defects of review by peers diverted attention ' Polanyi, Michael, "The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory", Minerva, I (Autumn 1962), pp. 54-73; Weinberg, Alvin M., "Criteria for Scientific Choice", Minerva, I (Winter 1963), pp. 159-171, and "Criteria for Scientific Choice II: The Two Cultures", Minerva, III (Autumn 1964), pp. 3-14; Maddox, John, "Choice and the Scientific Community," Minerva, II (Winter 1964), pp. 141-159; Carter, C. F., "The Distribution of Scientific Effort", Minerva, I (Winter 1963), pp. 172-190; Toulmin, Stephen, "The Complexity of Scientific Choice: A Stocktaking", Minerva, It (Spring 1964), pp. 343-359. 2 Shapley, Deborah and Roy, Rustum, Lost at the Frontier: American Science and Technology Policy Adrift (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1984).
