Actually the most important thing needed in science/research in America,
as with most everything else, is JOBS JOBS JOBS.
Science (and the rest of America) suffers from a very simple
dysfunction: too much investment in too few.
Too few PI's, too many fully and highly skilled/trained creative
scientists forced to work for them - and relinquish their intellectual
property to their bosses, not to mention give up hope of a position in
science from which they could retire.
Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D.
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Wayne Tyson wrote:
Ecolog:
Because it all boils down to individuals and cases and the devil is in the details, I would say
that (the article at the link is.gd/dTIL2)* as Madhu suggests, is as good a place as any to start.
Generalizations won't cut it, but that doesn't mean that trends and entrenched habits and even
inconvenient truths are not useful--to a point, of course. Hacker and Dreifus have illuminated some
possible pathways to betterment, but like all good teachers, wisely choose not to belabor the
obvious and bore us all to tears. Their job is to help all to UNDERSTAND, not merely to
"know." As they point out: "It's the job of the teacher to get students interested
and turned on no matter what the subject is. Every student can be turned on if teachers really
engage in this way." That is the issue, and that is the challenge. Always has been, always
will. It is out of THIS that the magic of fuller and fuller understanding grows.
Ecology, like a "roofer's card," covers everything. Every teacher should have a fire in hisher belly and infect as many other people with the disease as possible, in and out of institutions. Those who are primarily interested in glory and/or riches should keep a day job in the military or the stock market and settle for ecology as an avocation. Getting rich and famous just isn't in the cards in ecology; it ain't for the egocentric. It's a square
peg in a round hole problem.
True, the whole trend in the world is toward acquisitiveness rather than inquisitiveness, and right there is the tension between emphasis on a life of ease and an easy life. Subordination of all kinds should be resisted, but ecology most of all, as a study of life in its context, should resist selling out to the acquisitors. Students, which means all of us who stand before Nature in naked ignorance, would do well to suffer their suffering
unto Ecolog--and all of the 10,000-plus subscribers should pass the word that this is the place to start. To some degree (and once one gets hooked, CAN one stop?) every single person should be an ecologist. Jobs, JOBS? We don' need no stinkin' JOBS--what we need is a LIFE!
WT
* For some reason, inclusion of the actual link caused the system to reject the post without sending the request for confirmation message. Sorry for any inconvenience. Have others noticed this? What is it about the link that causes this? This is the first time I have encountered this. The fact that Madhu's post was able to get through the system with this "defect" only adds to the mystery.
