That comment from neuroscientist Donald Stein of Clark University could also serve as the epitaph for the Washington. D.C based National Coalition for Science and Technology. Its demise last month marked the end of a six year effort to build a grassroots organization to lobby for more federal support for all of science.
NCST never enrolled more than a few hunderd individual members and its annual budget, bolstered by corporate contirbutions hovered around $20,000. Its size became a catch-22 the mainstream scientific community refused to join in until NCST chalked up successes that could'nt be achieved without the help of many more members.
"We never had adequate resources to do continuous membership building," said Stein, NCST president who, along with other former congressional science fellows, started the organization after hearing politicians complain that scientists were not an effective lobbying force. Stein, who this summer becomes dean of the graduate school ...
