Letters 7

The leaders of our nat ion today are ne i ther scientists no r scholars; they are lawyers, economists, and financiers. The i r university education was not in science but in law, commerce , and political science, It is true that scientists and engineers play an impor tan t role but only as hired he lp in the service of industry and government; few are in positions where they can de- cide nat ional issues.

Scientific and cultural literacy are in- deed different, but not as different as we seem to think. Both are intellectual pur- suits driven by a desire for knowledge and unders tanding. They have little in com- m o n with a political and industrial world driven by a desire for money and power.

It is precisely the perce ived division between the sciences and humanit ies that unde rmines our stature and leaves our students so poorly p r epa red for leader- ship. Our differences are really superfi- cial and, with a little effort, could easily be su rmoun ted by making bet ter use of the c o m m o n g round we share. Alexander McBirney University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon

Professor Garkov responds: I agree with Alexander McBirney's ob-

servation that our con tempora ry society is governed by people who are not scien- tists. Lawyers and financiers (disguised as pol.iticians) make most of the decisions that affect all o f us and ul t imately the world. However, in my view, even though our politicians may not be formally trained in the sciences, ultimately their decision- making process must be rational. These people are certainly driven by their "desire for money and power." If they want to suc- ceed they need to per form scientific analy-

ses. Failure to do so usually leads to a fall f rom power a n d / o r the loss of money.

It seems to me that many of our lead- ers manage quite scientifically to p romote their own selfish interests and to disguise t hem u n d e r the b a n n e r o f "public ser- vice." I f these same leaders were a little be t ter educated in the humanit ies, they may have had a different, more cultural out look and less interest in the material . Fur thermore , bet ter educat ion in the hu- manit ies and the social sciences may pre- vent them from making culturally illiterate decisions that cost Amer ican lives a n d / o r prestige abroad.

NYU Never Opened Admissions

To the editor, Conor Cruise O 'Br ien ' s cogent article

"In Defense of Academic Freedom," in your Winter 2000-01 issue, contains a sec- tion head ing that may be a source of mis- unde r s t and ing . The sect ion is h e a d e d "New York Universi ty: T h e Fai lure o f O p e n Admissions." In that section, Pro- fessor O 'Br ien describes an incident that occur red dur ing the Vietnam War per iod in which his NYU students asked that he devote a class session to the subject of open admissions. He decl ined, and re- ports that "the students accepted the no." He goes on to discuss open admissions at o ther universities, notably Berkeley, and conc ludes that o p e n admiss ions are a snare and a delusion.

Unfortunately, the wording of the sec- tion heading might lead the reader to in- fer that NYU practiced open admissions. In fact, it never has. Raymond A. Katzell Professor Emeri tus of Psychology New York University