Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sdcsla.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcsla!norman From: norman@sdcsla.UUCP Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Senator William Proxmire and The Golden Fleece Awards Message-ID: <615@sdcsla.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 07:14:45 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcsla.615 Posted: Mon Jul 23 07:14:45 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 19:46:49 EDT References: <915@ulysses.UUCP> Organization: U.C. San Diego, Cognitive Science Lab Lines: 47 An open letter to Gary Perlman: Damn it, Gary, the Golden Fleece awards are outrageous. Proxmire has done great harm to the scientific research system. He choses research to ridicule solely on the title. He has given the award to some very outstanding pieces of research. He makes science sound silly and petty, with no understanding of what is going on. He is especially critical of research involving animals, especially social behavior and animals. Yet some of our best understanding of social interaction and comparative anthropology comes from the very studies he has ridiculed. His constituents may think he is wonderful for exposing studies on "Smiling Behavior in the Baboon," but if you look behind the title to the research, it has often turned out to be absolutely first rate and important. In fact, it is fortunate that Proxmire's methods are so slipshod that he has criticized some of the best science around: it makes it easy to defend. The main result has been to make NSF and NIH grant administrators timid and conservative, hesitating to fund good research if it seemed at all unusual. I have been asked to change the titles of my proposed research ("So Proxmire's people won't pick on it"). Not the research -- everyone liked that -- just the titles (which is all Proxmire ever looks at). Yes, some of his exposes are deserved, but he is a wild shooter, and he does not do the careful research on his targets that would be required to substantiate his criticisms. He simply uses his senatorial exemption from libel. I have donated several hundred dollars to help scientists fight his awards --- in court. Mind you, the scientists won. Yes, there is serious wastes, and yes, not all scientific studies that are funded should have been, but random, wild potshots of the sort Proxmire takes do more harm than whatever little good results. Even when he is correct, his methods are so poor that the people in administrative positions do not take him seriously. I have talked with senate staff members who say that his awards are not respected in congress: they think of them as publicity, not as serious. (I guess we need to give our graduate students some lessons about politics before they get out of here. We used to think they couldn't do harm if they were only going to ATT. I guess we were wrong.) Don Norman Donald A. Norman (ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcsla!norman or norman@nprdc) Institute for Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093