IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019 - 66

We suspect that the primary reason why Hindsight
has not been repeated is due to the political controversy
that ensued, both from within the scientific communities and within the agencies. Criticisms by scientists in
the press clearly had an impact on the report, as can be
seen by noting the addition of caveats to the final version of the Hindsight report. Additionally, U.S. agencies
might be reluctant to fund a study that would lead to
more external control of their portfolios.11

Comprehensive research programs to
study the sources of innovation could
help engineers better direct their
work to positive societal outcomes.

Perhaps the more important contribution to Hindsight's political controversy is the U.S. Congress's engagement with the report. In the 1970 defense authorization
bill, the liberal, anti-defense spending Senator Mike Mansfield partnered with small government conservatives to
pass legislation to ban non-use related research at DOD
[18]. According to [19], this action was in part inspired by
a reading of the Project Hindsight report. While this ban
was eventually watered down,12 the initial fear that the
Mansfield amendment would drastically alter hundreds of
DOD research projects may have left a mark on the agency. According to [18, footnote 23], there may have still
been a shadow Mansfield amendment that existed internal to DOD among managers who avoided doing basic or
applied science research for fear of having the penalty
reapplied to them.

A reviewer asked us to elaborate here, which we will do speculatively.
Continuing Hindsight-like studies could mean that managers need to
account for the success (or lack thereof) on a more direct and clear basis
to external funders, which could involve more queries and more requests
for change. On the other hand, clear evidence of achieving specific goals
from case studies could be the basis to better empower strong managers,
both in getting authority to make decisions and to request funding.
12
The Mansfield amendment, found in Section 203 of the defense authorization for FY70, says: "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated
by this Act may be used to carry out any research project or study unless
such a project or study has a direct or apparent relationship to a specific
military function or operation" [19, p. 62]. When modified the next year, it
said "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated to the Department
of Defense by this or any other act may be used to finance any research
project or study unless such a project or study has, in the opinion of the
Secretary of Defense, a potential relationship to a military function
or operation" (Sect 204 of PL 91-441, emphasis added). Allowing a written waiver to be made by an official can allow for many exemptions to be
made, thus greatly loosening the impact.

Understanding Sources of Innovation
Comprehensive research programs to study the sources of innovation could help engineers better direct
their work to positive societal outcomes. While Hindsight is not a perfect case study, it is a worthwhile
benchmark for engineers. Engineers and social scientists can use case studies to understand sources of
innovation, exploring the nuances brought out in the
criticisms of Hindsight's methodology, as in the
TRACES study.
Looking at Hindsight and TRACES 50 years later, we
show how the studies overall remain applicable in both
data and methods. Hindsight's data offer rich nuances
on the complexities of engineering development and
insight into the phases of engineering which might
include conceptual and detailed design. The distribution of RXD events in Figure 1 suggests that much
knowledge results in the late design and production
phases of a system. Finer grained insights on such
phases would help managers of early-stage projects
better predict the complexity of subsequent system
development challenges.
These insights and methodological contributions
appear more useful than the most politically controversial part of Hindsight: the claim that relatively few basic
and applied science events contributed to mainline
DOD weapons systems. While TRACES, the counterstudy from the NSF, arrived at the opposite conclusion
with regard to basic science, our analysis found that it
provided much less detail about its methods and how
it coded key innovation events. Given the different content studied by each report - Hindsight examined
incremental innovations to technical systems and
TRACES examined relatively new innovations - the
studies may be best viewed as complementary.
Hindsight still offers a potentially strong case for
basic science. While its methods are biased in giving
all events equal weight, the report acknowledges that
some RXD events matter more than others - like the
advent of the transistor. The Hindsight authors strongly emphasize that there are other significant benefits
from funding basic and applied research,13 such as
developing a trained technical workforce. Their argument that, for most systems, innovation primarily
comes from technical and engineering work seems
both plausible and obvious, particularly in block
upgrades of existing systems (such as the Minuteman
13
In the final 1969 report there is a strong defense of basic research: "The
reader must appreciate that this report covers only a small segment of a
much larger area of interest in the dynamics of R&D management. The
object of this preface is to emphasize that the Project HINDSIGHT study
had certain clearly recognized limitations" [10, p. iii]. "The dynamics and
causal relationships between the researcher in the basic sciences and the
applied scientist or the technologist are not, of course, completely understood or defined."

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

∕

SEPTEMBER 2019

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2019