May 1987

Mention lobbying to a scientist and until quite recently the typical response was disinterest or discomfort. Active involvement in the political fray over the public funding of research has simply not been within the experience of most scientists. Moreover, the pejorative connotations evoked by terms like "lobby" and "political action committee" only reinforce an innate distaste many hold for overt forms of influencing decision-makers in government. That distaste has been enormously strengthened

I enjoyed very much reading the article "Opting Out of the Numbers Game" . I hope that some attention is paid to the sentiments expressed. I spent better than 20 years in academia. I do not mean to pat myself on the back, but I have declined to be co-author on more papers than I have been a co-author. Sometimes I felt I was added as a co-author because I walked through the lab and I was better known internationally than were the primary authors. A number of bitter arguments resulted when I decli

The December 15, 1986 issue of The Scientist contained an excerpt from Drummond Rennie's piece on peer review in JAMA (vol. 256, pp. 2391-2392, November 7, 1986), which included the statement "The function of peer review, then, may be to help decide not whether but where papers are published and to improve the quality of those that are accepted." This function is now performed by peer reviewers of scientific journals and granting agencies. Peer review as practiced now, however, poses a serious o

In his article "A New Look at Contraceptives" N.W. Pirie reviews his findings that antihyaluronidases blocked fertility in rabbits. He suggests that it might be time to refocus research on the use of antihyaluron idases as contraceptives. Pirie did his research in this area before the development of the combined oral contraceptive and the intrauterine device. At that time there was great interest in developing methods of family planning. Following the initial progress in the 1950s and 1960s, res

I take exception to the article by Jack Ruina (The Scientist, February 23, 1987, p. 12), which contends that there should be no organized pressure within universities against accepting SDI research funding. He discusses the political nature of this pressure but neglects to add that there is political pressure from the other side bearing on funding allotments and the funding process. Funds for research do not come out of a vacuum, but are the result of political processes within an administration

In his review of Radical Science Essays (The Scientist, February 23, 1987, p. 22), Laurence A. Marschall acknowledges that scientists often sidestep the issue of how closely they attain their ideal of absolute objectivity. He then expresses disappointment at the "conservative" approach of our book—at its supposed attempt to fit reality into preconceived schemes—at the same time that he praises certain essays as "provocative." Yet those essays he finds provocative ask precisely the so

The tale of the South African grandmother pregnant with her daughter's triplets surfaced in the middle of the Fifth World Congress on In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer. But it created hardly a ripple among the scientists and clinicians gathered last month in blossom-time Norfolk, Virginia. They included all the big names of IVF as well as many who nurse big-name dreams, and they were intent on taking stock of where they are and where they're going. So intent, in fact, that news from th

In his Up Front article "Promoting Undergraduate Science," Eugene Garfield rightly calls for greater participation in research by undergraduates. He points with favor to the British system in which it is common (certainly in chemistry courses) for students in the final year of their three-year degree programs to spend two terms (about 18 weeks) on a small research project. Frequently, when new British chemistry graduates are asked their opinions of the courses they have taken, their project work

I usually feel happier reviewing a grant application from the U.S. National Science Foundation than one sent by the Science and Engineering Council here in Britain, where I am much more likely to know the applicant personally," a biochemist told me recently. A staunch supporter of peer review, he was nevertheless uncomfortably aware of the distortions, unfairness and even abuses that can flaw this time-honored principle of scholarly intercourse. He even suggested that the contemporary problem of

If visual impact correctly represented the position and participation of women in the biosciences, we could all join the Hallelujah Chorus and say the battle for recognition of women has been won and that further efforts could be laid to rest. Yes, it is true that more women have obtained junior staff appointments and that a few have even obtained senior appointments, more so than would have happened 10 years ago. But can one really say that women are hired in proportion to their numbers and acc

Less than a decade ago in this period of flourishing biomedical science, the contribution of physician-scientists to research was progressively declining to the point where the species seemed endangered. Although recent data from the National Institutes of Health suggest a reversal of this trend, the fact that the decline occurred at all has prompted me to think about the singular and perhaps critical role of the physician in research. The very origin of biomedical science owes much to the cont

Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares. —Louis Pasteur During the 1920s, more than 400 small power stations provided Britain's electricity supply. These local generating stations were owned by municipalities, local authorities and private companies, and operated at various voltages and frequencies: 50, 40 and 25 Hz, and direct current. It was recognized that this situation was far from ideal, not to mention uneconomic, as each local station had to p

Some scientists are born collectors, others achieve their ambitions and create great collections, and some have great collections thrust on them. It all depends on what they collect. There is a great variety of what scientists can collect—for example, stars for a new catalog, insects or plants, exotic chemicals, reprints, interesting medical cases, statistics or old scientific books. I have collected old scientific books for most of my life, so I shall write about the why, how and what of

Verbatlm excerpts from the media on the conduct of science. Keep Politics Out of the Workplace I find the recent infusion of ideological views, and calls for official ACS [American Chemical Society] support of those views, in your letters section to be extremely annoying. Issues such as binary chemical weapons, SDI, and weapons control are of course issues about which citizens should be concerned. But to allow one's personal philosophy to interfere with one's profession is, to me, extremely unp

Robert M. White has been reelected to a second four-year term as president of the National Academy of Engineering. Before being elected president of the 1,300-member academy in 1983, White served as president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of 50 universities with research programs in atmospheric sciences and technology. White is a recognized expert in meteorology and oceanography and served as the first administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric A