William Gordon

Members and guests, as foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, it is my privilege to welcome you to this symposium on science and human rights sponsored by the academy's Committee on Human Rights. The symposium attests to the importance that the National Academy of Sciences attaches to the committee's work.

For more than 10 years the Committee on Human Rights has worked in behalf of scientific colleagues around the world who are believed to be prisoners of conscience. Its caseload has grown from about a dozen in 1976 to more than a hundred active cases today. New cases come to the attention of the committee all of the time; many have been successfully resolved over the years.

The term “cases” sounds very abstract and legalistic, but each case is, in fact, a human being, a fellow scientist who is imprisoned or internally exiled or who has disappeared. The committee tries to help these colleagues not only by making appeals, but also by reaching out to them in the prisons, in the courts, and in their isolated places of exile through letters to them and to their families.

Having three former prisoners of conscience here today as guest speakers and being able to listen to them directly and freely is rewarding, indeed. We welcome each of you and applaud your courageous efforts in behalf of victims of oppression.

I cannot talk about the fine work of the committee without mentioning its correspondents, many of whom are in the audience today. Correspondents are members of the academy and its foreign associates and members of the Institute of Medicine who actively assist the committee by making private personal appeals in behalf of imprisoned scientific colleagues. They now number well over one thousand.

I am also pleased to announce that the National Academy of Engineering has recently decided that its members should also be invited to become correspondents. We look forward to their help. We are also very grateful for the vital financial support the committee receives from the academy and from a number of private foundations.

The committee has had the good fortune of being chaired by three distinguished scientists over the past 10 years. The first chair was Robert Kates and the second, Lipman Bers. The current chair is Eliot Stellar. This symposium was their brainchild, and all three are participants.

Eliot Stellar is professor of physiological psychology, Department of Anatomy and Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. I should also tell you that he is the newly elected president of the American Philosophical Society, for which we congratulate him. Dr. Stellar has served a three-year term with dedication and sensitivity. I am pleased to announce that he has accepted our request to serve a second three-year term.

It is a great pleasure to introduce Eliot Stellar.