Given the reverence that the Nobel science prizes command, there's but a scant chance that the century-old awards will be deservedly terminated for what they've become: anachronisms that caricature the workings of modern research and sow acrimony among scientists.The turbo-hyped Nobels annually bring luster to Sweden, where the king hands out $1 million prizes in a ceremonial setting that draws prime-time attention worldwide. As one of the biggest, oldest, and most mystique-bound awards, the pri

Creating a health-research counterpart to DARPA, the Pentagon's legendary Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, makes tremendous sense. DARPA, the freewheeling, cash-laden nest of sci-tech wizards, sired the Internet, stealth technology, the global positioning system, the Predator unmanned aircraft, and many more innovations throughout the Cold War and beyond. Call the biomedical version BARPA, and let it roll. Great. But if it's going to happen--and there's currently an influential prop

Medical writers and editors for the general press don't intend to inflict cruelty on suffering people. But that's what they often deliver in the rote-journalism pursuit of informing the public of new developments in medical research, no matter how distant they may be from therapeutic application. News of direct health value to the public deserves the prompt coverage that it regularly receives. But not so the mere research fragments that raise unrealistic hopes, leaving distressed people empt

Scientists cheered in 1972 when Congress created the Office of Technology Assessment, a PhD-laden think tank that was dedicated to providing policy analyses and technical evaluations for the House and Senate. They wept in 1995, when, in a burst of political pique and boastful penny-pinching, Newt Gingrich and his Republican Revolution abolished OTA. Resuscitation efforts started then, and continue--in futility. Thus, in the current Congress, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), one of the few scientists i

Does the United States face a shortage of scientists and engineers? Are drooping science enrollments undermining America's strength? You might conclude so from the anxious warnings that perennially occupy a prominent place in scientific establishment pronouncements. An American Scientist editorial, in its July-August 2001 issue, asserts, "We are not training enough American scientists and engineers to retain our prosperity ...." Former NASA head Dan Goldin wrote in the September 2001 Atlantic

Whining and righteousness get you no place in politics. Nevertheless, those are the pop-gun responses of mainstream science to the Bush administration's persistent moves to stack federal science-advisory committees with appointees friendly to its conservative agenda. Here and there, a protesting letter to the editor, a bit of irate testimony on Capitol Hill, preachments to the faithful via an editorial in Science. But when it comes to real politics--raising money and running ads for friendly