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Science and our expectations: the reach and the grasp.

In the equation for an exponentially increasing process, the rate of change is proportional to what is there. One wonders, if an attempt were made at a similar model for our expectations, what high power of what is actually there would appear on the right-hand side. "The Revolution of Rising Expectations" was coined to describe a prevalent social attitude shortly after World War II and yet, a scant three decades later, we find ourselves in the midst of a doldrum of falling expectations. A rise fueled by the anticipation of change, manyfold greater than that observed at the time, has given way to a fall as fact far lags the anticipation. What began as optimism in the full flush of victory, an optimism directed at the scores of problems which afflict mankind, turned to apathy and despair, as confidence was lost in the institutions and procedures of society to accomplish what had been anticipated, what we had been led to expect. This failure of confidence is not only in regard to our social and political institutions and procedures but to our intellectual ones as well. Science, as a way of knowing, as a basis for technological development, came trickling out of the 17th century, growing in strength in consonance with our own growth as a nation until it came on as a torrent in our mid-century, a potent fuel for our rising expectations, only to be found with feet of clay, with all the weaknesses and frailties of its flesh and blood practitioners. And yet there is more. Just as our recent trials have demonstrated the resiliency of our 200-year-old political institutions, so have our recent intellectual achievements extended our reach beyond the bounds of our mortal frailties, an extension which is the hallmark of those things we cherish most in our human history. In the words of Browning's Andrea del Sarto, "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" Passing a major milestone in our nation's history, it is time to take stock, to sort out our reach from our grasp, and ask