Nobel Winner Agre Fears for Scientific Freedom

[kayell]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&e=18&u=/nm/nobel_chemistry_agre_dc

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - One of the two Americans who won this year's Nobel prize for chemistry said on Wednesday he may use some of his prize money to help defend academic freedoms against restrictions imposed on scientists as part of the U.S. war on terrorism.


"There are some social issues we're considering, including scientists who are being persecuted around the world and in the United States," Dr. Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

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[ninkasi]

1. This is important

In addition to all the other liberties the right wing is destroying, the scientific community is in danger of being destroyed by fundamentalist and nationalistic prejudices. We can't afford to have science and medicine destroyed by this gang of idiots.

I'm going to kick this, and hope more people read. I realize, with everything else going on, this might not seem important, but I think it is.

[Maple]

2. Yes, this is vital

It is a deliberate retreat to the Dark Ages, and must be fought.

[Nottingham]

3. Scientists are under the gun!

:bounce: Pretty Soon the government will tell them what to study and what the results are! Dark Ages :bounce:

[4dog]

4. The quality of American science also is suffering.

Not too many American students want to study science. We are keeping things going with immigrants, but they are severely restricted by new procedures and requirements. A vital economy through R & D is not part of the current government strategy. Not to mention their pretending that global warming and environmental degradation are not happening.

Well, good for him (Agre), and for citing Linus Pauling's example (Nobels for chemistry and peace).

[inthecorneroverhere]

8. yes, you're right

Tuition hikes much above inflation and cuts in research funding do little to attract students to R & D.

I actually feel that 85% of graduate and postdoctoral slots should be earmarked for American citizens, complete with funding and research or teaching assistantships.

We don't need to be transferring so much technology overseas, and we especially don't need to be discouraging Americans from working in science & engineering.

I'll admit I'm a bit of a paleocon on just about all matters of education, but the bottom line is that the current administration's deficits, lack of funding, and lack of promotion of American science are disastrous for our future.

I'm most strongly in favor of infrastructure-related engineering research, as well as reseach into biodiversity as well as medicine.

[moof]

5. age of faith / dark ages, coincidence NOT!!!

n/t

[Poiuyt]

6. Don't forget stem cell research

As someone who's mother has Alzheimer's Disease I'd like to cast my vote to increasing stem cell research. Not the retricted research that the religious right made Bush approve, but the freedom to do real research.

[inthecorneroverhere]

7. it's not just the hot-button ideological issues...

that are suffering, but also very basic things like taxonomy (the study of species and their relationships to each other) and basic ecology that are suffering.

We have a lot more molecular tools for taxonomy now than 15 years ago, but taxonomy of plants and smaller animals is really suffering very badly from lack of funding. This is really central to documenting the diversity of living things on the planet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Agre attended the same college I did

and graduated a couple of years earlier. If I had a scanner, I'd scan it in the morning, I'd scan it in the evening, all over this land...no, I'd be able to post his yearbook picture. His late father was a chemistry professor, a man who could have retired at an early age on the royalties from his patents but donated his time to the college, because he believed in supporting Lutheran higher education.

The whole family is made up of scientists with a social conscience.

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. __Dis Dumm Canuk fears for plain BASIC freedoms - period__

n/t

[Guaranteed]

11. Ahh yes....the inevitable battle between

science and the government. Much as government battled theist religions before.
Yet another striking similarity between science and religion.

[farmboxer]

12. Ashcroft, Falwell, Robinson, Rev. Moon

Gary Bauer, and their ilk hate science! The long for the good ol' "Dark Ages"!