gsp@ulysses.UUCP (Gary Perlman) (07/30/84)
I am embarassed by my advertisement of Senator Proxmire's Golden Fleece
Awards. Truth in advertising compels me to present a more balanced
treatment of the subject. Two messages I received do this quite
well, one questioning my action pretty seriously. I have known about
the awards for some several years, and was first made aware of them
because of their lack of validity. It is true that many of his awards
have been unmerited, and from what I have heard, reckless enough to warrant
legal action, but not all. Many if not most of his awards have been
in areas of government spending not related to research. After reading
them, I decided that they were very uneven, possibly because they are
given on a schedule of one per month. I never said I supported the awards,
but I still think they are interesting, and worth reading. Proxmire's
attacks may not be right, but I think they reflect many Americans' views.
I am of the opinion that much completed research was not worth doing,
among it my own, but that beforehand, there is little way of predicting
whether some research will flourish. If Proxmire's people use titles
(and sometimes nothing else) to award the fleeces, then it means that
care must be taken. Perhaps my first message did not show this care,
and if I have upset people, I appologize. But I still think the awards
are must reading for academicians. Two messages follow.
I would like to point out that the character attacks on Proxmire and
myself are open to the same criticisms people have rightly thrown at
Proxmire (though not me {:-). I doubt if many have read the awards,
and it may be that the loudest and rudest flamers have not even sent
for them. Still, I understand the emotionality of the subject, and
am pleased so many, like myself, find Proxmire scary. I would prefer
that people speak with more facts and less emotion.
Some people asked me for some examples. There are too many for me to
type (and comment on) them all, so here are a few (some cited on the net):
April 1976: NASA for requesting $2.8M to build an addition to the Lunar Lab
to hold 100 pounds of moon rocks. (I don't know much about moon rocks,
but they might well hold lots of information, and I am all for saving data.
That much money is not large by building prices, and the reference to
100 pounds is intended to imply insignificance; my guess is that moon rocks
are not easy to come by.)
February 1980: EPA for spending an extra $1 to $1.2 million to preserve a
Trenton NJ sewer as an historical monument. (Further elaboration implied that
this sewer is not readily observable. It may be fitting, though, that such a
monument be in NJ, but I felt that this fleece might be warranted.)
October 1979: Dept of Argiculture for awarding $90K for a 2 year study
on "Behavioral Determinants of Vegetarianism." (Sorry Bill, looks like
a reasonable area of study.)
I appreciate the pointers to specific problems with Proxmire's work.
I will post his response to them sometime in the future.
From sdcsla!norman Tue Jul 24 05:13:27 1984
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, wikth no understanding of
what is going on.
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.
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.
Yes, there is serious wastes, and yes, not all scientific studies that are
funded shold have ben, 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 hum
seriously.
(I guess we need to give our graduate students with some lessons about
politics before they get out of here. We used to think it was safe if they
were only going to ATT. I guess not.)
Don Norman
Donald A. Norman (ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcsla!norman or norman@nprdc)
Cognitive Science C-015
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093
From ihnp4!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!alcmist Tue Jul 24 06:24:56 1984
You may have heard that Senator Proxmire distorted one researcher's
work so badly that the researcher sued for libel. The Senator, before
finally settling out of court and apologizing to the researcher, spent
$150,000 on legal fees claiming that he was somehow immune to libel
suits.
Who paid the legal fees for this defender of the American taxpayer?
Take a guess.
If Proxmire were more interested in saving money than in getting
publicity for himself, he might do some good. Unfortunately, he has
discovered that he can make a reputation for himself by taking potshots
at defenseless targets like academia.
If you like, I can dig through my files and get more detail about how
Proxmire fleeced the taxpayers for his private legal expenses.
Fred Wamsley uw-beaver!ssc-vax!alcmist