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C00002 00002	Dear Professor Kristol:
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Dear Professor Kristol:

	I have been a subscriber to {\it Public Interest} for about
10 years and have found myself in agreement with the magazine in
general.  I have just finished reading the 20th anniversary issue
and agree that there is much to celebrate.  However, this issue
omits completely, and the magazine omits almost always, a very
important matter --- the role of technology and science in advancing
the public interest.  I suppose you and the contributors to
{\it Public Interest} are friendly to technology and science, but
you seem to be firmly of the opinion that there is nothing important
to be said about it that interacts with ``social science'' and which
contains similar elements of controversy and is similarly affected
by ideology.  I will argue the contrary, partly stimulated by
your anniversary issue and partly by the fact that I have just
obtruded myself against the ``values, technology and society''
program at Stanford and will teach my first course involving
socially controversial matters.

	Here are some opinions any of which I am prepared to
support at greater length.

	1. Since the renaissance, technology and the geographical
expansion it made possible has been the main driving force of
history.  Since the geographical expansion of society trailed
off around 1900, technology has been the only important source
of increasing world prosperity.

	2. The study of science and technology is difficult.
It is difficult to learn enough to practice one branch of it,
and it is even more difficult to develop any kind of comprehensive
picture.  The difficulty suggests to many people that technology
is not important to know about and to those of a different cast
of mind that technology is harmful.

	3. Economists tend to

``It is to help all of us, when we discuss issues of public policy,
to know a little better what we are talking about --- and preferably
in time to make such knowledge effective.''