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[[File:Mansfield-Amendment-1969-Cover.jpg|thumb|Implementation Of 1970 Defense Procurement Authorization Act Requiring Relationship Of Research To Specific Military Functions (Original Document)]]
[[File:Mansfield-Amendment-1969-Cover.jpg|thumb|Implementation Of 1970 Defense Procurement Authorization Act Requiring Relationship Of Research To Specific Military Functions (Original Document)]]


'''[https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-167034-d12080.pdf The Mansfield Amendment of 1969]''' was a provision (Section 203, Public Law 91-121) attached to the Military Procurement Authorization Act of 1970 that restricted the use of Department of Defense (DoD) funds for research.
 
The amendment stated that DoD funds could only be used for research that had a '''direct and apparent relationship to a specific military function or operation'''. In effect, it prohibited the Department of Defense from funding basic or fundamental research that lacked an immediate, obvious military application.
From 1945 to 1969, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) served as a primary sponsor of unrestricted basic research in universities, particularly in physics, mathematics, materials science, and computer science. Agencies such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, established 1958), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), and the Army Research Office provided long-term funding with minimal requirements for immediate applicability. This support enabled high-risk, curiosity-driven work, including developments in quantum field theory, general relativity, and early computing. Historians of science, such as Daniel Kevles and Paul Forman, have described this period as one of exceptional productivity in fundamental physics, supported by annual DoD basic research obligations that reached hundreds of millions of dollars (in then-year terms).
'''[https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-167034-d12080.pdf The Mansfield Amendment]''' (Section 203 of Public Law 91-121, enacted November 1969 and effective for FY1970) required that DoD-funded research demonstrate "a direct and apparent relationship to a specific military function or operation." This provision effectively prohibited support for purely basic research without clear, short-term military relevance. Subsequent legislation softened some restrictions, but the core change persisted.


== Background and purpose ==
== Background and purpose ==
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Senator [[Mike Mansfield]] (D-Montana), the Senate Majority Leader, argued that funds appropriated for national defense should not be used to subsidize general scientific inquiry, a role that properly belonged to civilian agencies such as the [[National Science Foundation]] (NSF). The amendment was intended to curb perceived military overreach into academia and to ensure that defense appropriations were spent only on projects with direct military relevance.
Senator [[Mike Mansfield]] (D-Montana), the Senate Majority Leader, argued that funds appropriated for national defense should not be used to subsidize general scientific inquiry, a role that properly belonged to civilian agencies such as the [[National Science Foundation]] (NSF). The amendment was intended to curb perceived military overreach into academia and to ensure that defense appropriations were spent only on projects with direct military relevance.


== Impact ==
== Immediate, Measurable Consequences (1969–1975) ==
 
* DoD basic research obligations in physics and related fields flat-lined or declined in real terms while total federal R&D grew. NSF data (constant dollars) show DoD basic research peaked mid-1960s (~$400–500 million current dollars for all basic, with physics/math a major share) and then stagnated or fell ~25–30% in real terms by mid-1970s, even as NSF's basic research budget doubled.
* The entire ARPA Materials Research Laboratories (MRLs/IDLs) program — ~$30–40 million annually across 12 elite universities — was transferred to NSF in 1971–1972 because DoD could no longer legally fund it.
* University physics departments that had been 70–90% DoD-funded in gravity, field theory, and relativity suddenly lost that support. The "Golden Age of General Relativity" — explicitly dated by historians (Jean Eisenstaedt, Clifford Will, Kip Thorne, Jürgen Renn) as ~1955–1973/75 — ended exactly on the Mansfield timeline. The field went from explosive growth (new exact solutions, global methods, astrophysical applications, dozens of active groups) to near-dormancy outside a few astrophysics niches.
 
Some of the money moved to the [[National Science Foundation (NSF)|National Science Foundation]], but the rules changed completely:
 
* Pre-Mansfield (DoD/ARPA): Program managers (e.g., Jack Ruina, Eberhardt Rechtin, Stephen Lukasik) could fund brilliant iconoclasts for decades on hunch alone. No peer review panels, no consensus requirement, no short-term deliverables.
* Post-Mansfield (NSF): [[Peer Review|"Peer Review"]] (already strengthening since 1965), requirement for "sound preliminary data," punishment of paradigm deviation, obsession with citation counts and "safe" incrementalism.
 
The result was immediate risk-aversion. Proposals that might discover fundamentally new ideas, overturn entrenched views or disrupt preexisting academic expectations became un-fundable because they couldn't guarantee results in 3 years or satisfy reviewers wedded to existing paradigms.
 
== The Resulting Stagnation ==
 
* Particle physics: The last major addition to the Standard Model Lagrangian that was not already anticipated in the 1960s was the charm quark (November Revolution, 1974) — arguably the last gasp before full stagnation set in. Since 1973/74, zero new fundamental particles or forces have been discovered beyond the 1970s roadmap. The Higgs (2012) and top quark (1995) were predicted; nothing unexpected has appeared.
* Theoretical physics: [[Quantum Gravity]], particularly the [[String Theory]] program (promising unification in 1984) has dominated for 40+ years and produced zero testable predictions. Every other approach is starved. [[String Theory]] was claimed for decades to be [[The Only Game in Town (TOGIT)]]. In addition to Eric Weinstein, [[Sabine Hossenfelder]], [[Peter Woit]], [[Lee Smolin]], and others document that the field has been in crisis since the 1970s — i.e., the Mansfield era.
* The [[The Golden Age of General Relativity]] ended abruptly. The community that had been aggressively pursuing unified field theories, alternative gravities, and (quietly) propulsion-relevant modifications simply disappeared from open literature after 1973–1975.
 
== Where Did the Top Physicists Actually Go? ==
 
Physicists did not retire or die en masse following the Mansfield Amendment. Many went to Wall Street, starting in the late 1970s and exploding in the 1980s. Fischer Black (Black-Scholes) hired physicists in the 1970s; Jim Simons founded Renaissance Technologies in 1982 explicitly to hire pure physicists and mathematicians who could no longer get academic funding. By the 1990s, quantitative finance was draining elite talent that previously would have gone into fundamental theory.
Others went into classified programs — or simply stopped publishing in the open. The timing is too precise to be pure coincidence: the gravity/propulsion community (Witten père, DeWitt, Weber, Forward, etc.) vanishes from public view right as Mansfield.
 
== Interpretation ==
 
The timing and scope of these changes suggest that the Mansfield Amendment, combined with subsequent policies (e.g., the [[Eilberg Amendment (1976)|1976 Eilberg Amendment]], the [[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|1980 Bayh-Dole Act]] enabling patenting of federally funded research, [[IMMACT90]], and the 1993 Superconducting Super Collider cancellation), restructured incentives in academic science, turning universities into patent factories dependent on cheap foreign labor, killing mandatory retirement so risk-averse elders could block new ideas, and ensuring no new big-science instrument would ever again threaten the controlled stagnation. The result has been a prolonged period — now over 50 years — of limited fundamental breakthroughs in the fields most directly affected by the 1969–1973 funding restrictions, despite growth in overall R&D spending, computational resources, and the global scientific workforce.
 
This pattern indicates a transition from a system tolerant of high-variance, exploratory research from independent, secure scientists with true [[Academic Freedom]] to one favoring reproducible, consensus-driven advances from docile, pliant and [[The Precariat|precarious]] STEM labor — a shift initiated decisively by the Mansfield Amendment's redefinition of permissible military support for basic science.
 
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1617626399615119361
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=<nowiki>*</nowiki>bred. 🙏
|thread=
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1617623568145350656
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=We’ve been trying to destroy US scientists’ freedom &amp; their research universities for ~60 years.
 
[[Peer Review|Peer Review 1965]]</br>
[[Mansfield Amendment (1969)|Mansfield Amendment 1969]]</br>
[[Eilberg Amendment (1976)|Eilberg Amendment 1976]]</br>
[[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|Bayh-Dole Act 1980]]</br>
[[IMMACT90|IMMACT90 1990]]</br>
[[SSC Cancelation (1993)|SSC Cancelation 1993]]</br>
ADEA Faculty Uncapping 1993</br>
Dear Colleague Letter 2011</br>
DEI 2017
|quote=
{{Tweet
|image=MarioNawfal-profile.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1617596488502370304
|name=Mario Nawfal
|usernameurl=https://x.com/MarioNawfal
|username=MarioNawfal
|content=When a successful polio vaccine candidate was introduced in 1953, it made its developer a minor celebrity.
 
In 1960, Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” was awarded to “US Scientists.”
 
What used to be people’s celebrity in the 1950s is seen by many as a villain today.
 
Why?
|timestamp=6:53 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}
|timestamp=8:41 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1617625356416192512
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content='''You are looking at domesticated Scientists that were bread over almost 60 years from Wild Type scientists.'''


The amendment had an immediate and lasting effect on U.S. military-funded research. ARPA was forced to terminate, rejustify with explicit military applications, or transfer many of its basic research projects. Notable examples include early work that led to the [[ARPANET]] (predecessor to the Internet), which had to be reframed or moved.
It’s not that there is no connection. But the difference between a wolf &amp; a poodle can be significant. One is fiercely independent. One needs obedience to be fed regularly.
Many fundamental research programs previously supported by the DoD migrated to the NSF and other civilian agencies. Although the strictest form of the amendment applied primarily to fiscal year 1970 and was later softened in subsequent legislation, it marked a permanent shift in American science policy, reducing the military's role as a patron of unrestricted basic research and pushing DoD funding toward shorter-term, applied projects.
|timestamp=8:48 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1617625358454644738
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=And inside every domesticated animal lies an unkillable dream of being wild and free again. That’s why occasionally my dog brings me a squirrel or still pees on territory while on a leash.
 
Your real scientists want to hunt again. They need to be reintroduced into the wild. Now.
|timestamp=8:48 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}
{{Tweet
|image=Eric profile picture.jpg
|nameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1617626351154114560
|name=Eric Weinstein
|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
|username=EricRWeinstein
|content=Here is the simple point:
 
You can have scientists you trust.
 
You can have scientists you control.
 
And you can pick only one of the above options.
 
You’re getting angry at wolves you bred into obedience to non-scientific masters who have no idea what they are doing. That’s why.
|timestamp=8:52 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}
|timestamp=8:52 PM · Jan 23, 2023
}}


== On X ==
== On X ==
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[[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|Bayh-Dole Act 1980]]</br>
[[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)|Bayh-Dole Act 1980]]</br>
[[IMMACT90|IMMACT90 1990]]</br>
[[IMMACT90|IMMACT90 1990]]</br>
SSC Cancelation 1993</br>
[[SSC Cancelation (1993)|SSC Cancelation 1993]]</br>
ADEA Faculty Uncapping 1993</br>
ADEA Faculty Uncapping 1993</br>
Dear Colleague Letter 2011</br>
Dear Colleague Letter 2011</br>
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}}
}}


==See Also==
== Related Pages ==


* [[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)]]
* [[Bayh-Dole Act (1980)]]
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