Student Militants Disrupt Annual 6-Day Meeting Of Scientist Association

Political demonstrations, a student symposium and a heavy emphasis on social issues marked the 136th annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston during the vacation.

More than 90 Harvard faculty members and students presented scientific papers and participated in symposia during the six-day meeting of the country's largest general scientific society.

Among the more unusual symposia was a student-run discussion entitled "The Sorry State of Science-A Student Critique."

"We showed by example that science and technology, especially the latter, do not occur spontaneously, but usually follow the directions of funding," Mark S. Tuttle, a third-year graduate student in the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, told the group. "Science and technology are enhanced or repressed by the people who set the policy, and these are not the scientists."

Addressing an audience of more than 300 people, the Harvard and M.I.T. students in the symposium first showed slides of pollution and weapons while playing Dylan and Beatles recordings such as "Happiness Is a Warm Gun."

They then presented case histories of research funding in the drug, spacecraft, and computer industries and in the social sciences to illustrate the thesis that, according to the students, "science serves the ruling class and corporate interests, not the people."

At other symposia during the convention, student members of the Science Action Group interrupted scientist speakers to ask questions and heckle.

Confrontation

The first confrontation occurred at a panel on Arms Control and Disarmament, chaired by George B. Kistiakowsky, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry. Student questioners attacked some panelists for their involvement with the Department of Defense.

Scientists in the audience generally disapproved of the interruptions. "Ithought it was rather silly for the students to attack these men as tools of the establishment since they were working the hardest to change" the direction of the arms race, said John T. Edsall, professor of Biological Chemistry, after listening to the session.

The student groups, however, were divided in their tactics. The Columbia Ecology Action Collective vigorously attacked speakers' personal backgrounds as well as their symposium statements. "They came in cold and used a lot of smear tactics," commented one moderate student leader. "We like to think we did our homework and tried to argue on their [the scientists'] terms," he said.

During an agenda meeting that considered resolutions to be presented to the 6,000 scientists at the convention, a member of the Columbia Ecology Action Collective attempted to seize the microphone. He was dragged off by other students who hoped to present the students' resolutions after recognition by the chairman.

"The AAAS intended this convention to be different, but the students caused much more of a splash and created more interest than we thought we would," Tuttle said yesterday.

In addition to Tuttle and Weinrub, two other Harvard scientists, David J. Jhirad, instructor in Astronomy, and Richard J. Paul, a graduate student at the Medical School, presented papers at the student symposium.