When I hammered out my reservations about Eric Lander as science advisor, I knew exactly what source to track down: this memorable assessment by Sharon Begley. With perfect clarity, she crystallized my concerns about the guy.
Now I learned that Sharon Begley has died. Dammit. We needed her.
Hmm. I do have to say that the emergence of “Big Science” is not really criticizable, certainly not on moral grounds. Certain problems in physics and biology require very capital intensive approaches and large-scale collaboration, that’s just how the universe is built. Doesn’t mean there isn’t still work to be done in smaller labs, but the days of Galileo and Newton are long gone — informative experiments are just getting more expensive and complicated to do. I’m not sure why you would condemn people for doing them.
Anyone seen this?
“Trump signs executive order to creation national ‘Garden of American Heroes’
The president’s signed an executive order for his promised “Garden of American Heroes”.
Announced during his last Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore, the garden would “reflect the awesome splendour of our country’s timeless exceptionalism”, according to the order.
There are the usual suspect’s in the list of statures like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Samuel Adams, but also some wild cards.
The garden is to include John Wayne, Julia Child, Dr Seuss, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Steve Jobs, Harper Lee, Elvis Presley, Edgar Allan Poe, Babe Ruth, Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Temple, Douglas MacArthur, and Humphrey Bogart.
And also, who was the recently deceased host of Jeopardy?”
Sharon Begley’s death really is a sad blow. What a rare and wonderful human.