The issue, which has dogged the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food and agricultural research programs for years, came into sharp focus last year in a National Research Council report that criticized several aspects of ARS project peer review (see THE SCIENTIST August 10, 1987, p. 7). The report charged that ARS scientists and staff neither understand peer review's proper role nor agree on its purpose, often viewing it as "busy work."
In a subsequent letter to Charles Benbrook, executive director of the NRC's Board on Agriculture, Kinney outlined ARS's reactions to the recommendations. He said he agreed with about two-thirds of them, and rejected the rest as either infeasible or unnecessary.
"I would trust his [Kinney's] advice on what to do or not to do" with the panel's recommendations said Richard S. Nicholson, assistant director of NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences and chairman of the NRC committee. "There ...
