So They Say

A Niche for Reagan's AIDS Commission A New Yawning Theory International Cooperation: Possible But Not Practical R&D's New Role Who's the Bumblingest Of Them All? Who Will Be the Lucky One? Beyond the Three Rs The more important function for which the [Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus] . . . commission might be uniquely situated is to remove bureaucratic impediments to research. Fundamental investigation in virology, pathology and drug therapy must be given its own clear path through the thicket of social, financial and bureaucratic obstacles that litter any potential trail to a medical solution. Congress has led the White House by finally pumping out money for research in appropriate amounts, but there remains the capacity for poor use of talent and time. These appropriations must be separated from those for education, care and a host of associated needs. -J.D. Robinson "What Now for the AIDS Commission" Washington Post Health, p. 6 December 22, 1987 It continues to amaze me that so much scientific inquiry and energy is spent analyzing yawns.... The great minds spend huge amounts of research money and energy postulating that yawns represent various esoterica such as silent screams from oxygen-starved tissues or Freudian responses to boredom. I hereby submit an entirely new, revolutionary theory. A yawn just may be a signal from Central Control that some additional shut-eye would be greatly appreciated. -John C. Stevens Letter to the Editor from Science News, p. 19 January 9, 1988 To avoid other nations making hay of the genome before the sun shines on US efforts, [Jack B. McConnell, corporate director of advanced technology, Johnson&Johnson] advised an all-out government-funded sequencing effort, to be executed without peer review and with minimum regulatory control and to involve US efforts exclusively. "That's not to exclude others, but rather to get on with the task that we know needs to be done and to move with some expediency. I can appreciate the suggestion of those who say it should be an international cooperative program; while that's possible, I don't think it's practical." If other nations' concerns, needs, and agendas have to be considered he predicted, the sequencing project would "never get off the ground in any short period of time." -Beverly Merz "Senate Committee Sees NIH/ DOE Partnership in Genome Project" JAMA, p. 16, January 1, 1988 [Rachel McCulloch of Brandeis University] . . sees no chance that the U.S. or any other country will attain the technological dominance Lindley H. Clark Jr. "Japan and U.S. May Be Entering a New Relationship" The Wall Street Journal, p.6 December 31, 1987 Eve has provoked a scientific controversy bitter even by the standards of anthropologists, who have few rivals at scholarly sniping. Their feuds normally begin when someone's grand theory of our lineage is contradicted by the unearthing of a few stones or bones. This time, however, the argument involves a new breed of anthropologists who work in air-conditioned American laboratories instead of desiccated African rift valleys. Trained in molecular biology, they looked at an international assortment of genes and picked up a trail of DNA that led them to a single woman from whom we are all descended. "What bothers many of us paleontologists," said Fred Smith of the University of Tennessee, "is the perception that this new data from DNA is so precise and scientific and that we paleontologists are just a bunch of bumbling old fools. But if you listen to the geneticists, you realize they're as divided about their genetic data as we are about the bones. We may be bumbling fools, but we're not any more bumbling than they are."... -John Tierney "The Search for Adam and Eve" Newsweek, pp. 46, 47 January 11, 1988 "Scientists like to kid around about who would pick" the people whose genes would be studied when the entire genome is sequenced," [Eric Lander, a researcher at the White-head Institute] said. "I've heard jokes that the Japanese would pick Emperor Hirohito. I know a couple of colleagues who think they personally should be sequenced. I say, auction it off to the highest bidder. Find 23 very rich people and then put out a glossy coffee-table book with a biography of each and a description of their chromosomes" -Q&A: Science Times The New York Times, p. C9 January 5, 1988 Our academic and scientific reward systems overwhelmingly favor those who manipulate numbers and symbols. Scientists have used computers to replace much phenomenological observation and in-sight gathering with symbol processing. Scientists trust numbers and symbols; they are easy to compare and publish.. . . Science is funded through the careful preparation and evaluation of proposals, which, after all, are words and numbers (budgets). Scientists are trained extensively to read and write but not to produce or communicate with visuals. Our culture simply does not accept, much less favor, any level of nonverbal communication in science. -Thomas A. DeFanti "Cultural Roadblocks to Visualization" Computers in Science, p. 4 January/February 1988

So They Say

The Scientist Staff

Feb 7, 1988

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