Columbia University in the City of New York New York, N.Y. 10027

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY Fayerweather Hall

14 November 1977

Dear Josh,

I am glad we had a chance to talk last night. Bob and I
have been thinking about you and wondering where you were in
the decision process, In case there's any need to explain why
both of us haven't stood up and cheered at the idea of having
you nearby, let me say that I am concerned that you will find
NYC a trying place to live (particularly since neither of you
is unabashedly urban) and partly because I sense that you are
not altogether at peace with the idea of moving, at least yet,

Still, NYC does have its points (which I need not describe
atleast not those involving ballet, galleries, Opera, theater
and so on) rafiter it sis something like a critical mass effect
which produces an intensity of conversation and experience
which is mostly exhilerating and sometimes anxiety-provoking,
One thing is clear -- in your Rockefeller role, you will have
access to everyone and everything that is the best about New
York and so I don't think you have to worry much about establishing
social networks which will enable you and Marguerite to make use
of the city. I am enclosing the latest mailing from the Century
to give you the flavor of the place (sometimes it is more
precious than I would like but mostly it's not) and Bob will
arrange to get the membership list to you.

On to work items:

(1) Bacti Reviews looks tailor made, I hwe sent for
UY copies from the library, and will be back to you soon
if I have reservations.

/ (2) What is the source of the item on the NYC schools and
vA the relative numbers of Westinghouse winners? Have enclosed
it for your reference,

(3) You may remember that I mentioned a woman endocrinologist-bhochemis iI”
who knew you and had been one of Evans' students, I finally
unearthed her name -- I. Dorothea Raacke -- and now find

that she is engaged in a mammoth study of Evans' 345

collaborators with a special focus on his 52 women co-workers.
Raacke's idea is that Evans was especially helpful to women

even though he was otherwise very difficult, She writes me

that researching Evans is like researching a "blood feud,"

It was in the context of an earlier discussion I had had

Ure 195. (5) st)
with her about the difficulties women scientists encounter that
she mentioned how formidable you were in your “sala days" and
how much you had changed since then, Just to keep the record
straight, she in no way inferred that you were hard on women
collagues, unlike I gather a great Many Others in and out of the
Delbrick school, Anyway, all this is to tie up a conversation
we had in which I couldn't remember her name.

(4) Apropos the Nobel medallions and public use thereof, I don't
know if the Foundation has copyright on the designs. When one was
reproduced for the cover of my book, the publisher got the official
Photos from the Swedish cultural attache who went to grat pains

to mke sure that the quality of the photograph we were to use would
be good but I don't think we needed official permission to use

the photos, The advertisement for nuclear energy really is
exploitative -- would you have signed the statement if you had
known it would be used as an ad for NewEngland utility companies?

(5) Did I ever get around to telling you that the Subcommittee
on Science Indicators is sponsoring a review symposium in March
on the new Science Indicators volume --the idea being to bring
together the producers of the volume, the Washington-based
users and academic critics to examine the intellectual quality
and policy implications of the énterprise, I am rather pleased
so far with the people who will be preparing papers -- Joseph
Ben-David on international comparisons, Zvi G, on the impact of
R&D on the economy, Mansfield on International Economic Comparisons
and Ed Tufte on Statistical issues in the volume, (This, an
abbreviated list -- we've asked a number of* others who haven't
yet replied, )}

(6) Otherwise, I have been having active conversations with a
Statistician here at Columbia on whether one can study accumulation
pf advantage empirically,mmfi whether the interaction effects are

so complicated that the findings wouldn't be meaningful @ven if
some research were done. He's an interesting fellow (do you

know Burt Singer?) with great enthusiasm for applied statistics,
Among other things, he's working with Vincent Dole on how to take
self-selection into account in clinical studies generally and
methadone sBu therapy specifically. The self-selection problem is
of course one which resonates for me,

(7) The data from the Lipset-Ladd survey will soon be on tape and
ready for analysis -- so bacteria shoul be my current order of
business if the queue is to be kept in order, I owe you a memo
on the relationship of "need" to focus of attention in science
and also on a softened version of post-mature discovery. We will
have to talk further about the structure of the paper if we
decide that Bacti Reviews is the right place,

Love to all,

Set

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