Johnathan Camerdene of the Bureau was not satisfied. “Can’t, can’t, can’t . . . All we hear is can’t. When will somebody try applying some positive thinking for a change and admit that maybe he can do something? I don’t see how a scientist is any different from any other professional person. If I ask my lawyer if he can have my case prepared for a date in court that’s been fixed for next month, he tells me he can. My doctor shows up on time when I’m sick; my bank manager makes payments on the days I tell him to; my kid’s teachers get their timetable organized before the start of a semester. Everybody else in the world accepts time as a real part of life that you have to take along with the rest of it. They all meet their deadlines. What’s so different about your people?”
“It’s not the people; it’s the subject.” Ollie Wilde of ACRE fought hard to conceal his rising exasperation. “You can’t tell a Rembrandt to go paint a masterpiece today. You can’t tell a gambler to come back a winner. Those things can only happen in their own time, not yours.” He looked for support to his right and left. Heads nodded their mute assent.
“But how much time is their time?” Camerdene demanded.
“That’s what we’re trying to get through to you.” Senchino joined in again. “Nobody knows. Nobody can even say at this stage whether there are any defense or military applications potential in it at all . . . never mind what they might be, never mind when they might happen.”
“All we’ve got are the beginnings of a fundamental theory,” Wilde added.
“I must agree that all this sounds extremely negative,” Mark Simpson, another of the Bureau men chimed in. “But this is characteristic of the way the scientific mind has worked throughout history.” He swept his gaze coldly along the line of faces confronting him from the other side of the table. “Didn’t scientists state, even right at the end of the nineteenth century, that heavier-than-air flight was impossible? Even after World War II, wasn’t it the scientists who were saying that man would never reach the Moon and that artificial satellites would never happen before the year 2000?”
“Some of them might have said so,” a voice growled. “But who do you think made things like that happen?”
Simpson ignored the remark and went on. “I think that what we’re hearing here today is just another example of the same thing.” His words were met by stony glares from across the table. One of the ACRE scientists lit a cigarette and threw the pack irritably back down in front of him.
Another Bureau man spoke up. “Let me try to put it more constructively. I agree with what Mark’s just said. Although scientists are proficient in their own specialized fields, they do have certain characteristic weaknesses. One of the biggest is their inability to organize their thinking and their activities into any kind of methodical and objective program.”
“For Christ’s sake . . . !” One of the scientists was unable to contain his outrage. “What do you mean—incapable of being objective? Science is being objective! You don’t know what you’re talking about . . .”
“Please,” the Bureau man said, holding up a hand. “Let me finish. I am talking about methodical ways of planning toward specific objectives, not about methodical ways of assembling data.”
“You think that’s all there is to science,” the previous speaker asked derisively. “Assembling data . . . tables of numbers?”
“Whether there’s more to it or not, traditional scientific practice has not evolved ways of planning methodically towards specified goals,” Simpson insisted. “What I am trying to draw attention to is the fact that other professions have been forced by necessity to develop such skills, and the techniques involved are well known.” He cast a pleading look along the table as if his message were so obvious that it needed no spelling out. “Over the past few weeks we have drawn up a list of what appear to me to be perfectly reasonable objectives. To achieve those objectives would seem to require two things: your technical knowledge plus the organizational and planning skills needed to wrap the whole thing up into a practical implementation framework. All I’m saying is, let’s pull together and do it.”