alle@ihuxb.UUCP (Allen England) (07/22/84)
+ I have always felt that Proxmire was like a bull in a china shop with this award. He attacks things that seem useless on the surface, but which often have a high intrinsic value. --> Allen <-- ihnp4!ihuxb!alle
dhc@exodus.UUCP (David H. Copp) (07/22/84)
There is a darker side to the Golden Fleece awards. Proxmire sometimes villifies things that he doesn't understand, and projects that really might be decent basic research. Of course we have to make choices. Of course, there are lots of stupid and wasteful projects in the world. But I recall that Proxmire once fleeced some social research into the causes of marital conflict. Perhaps there was little chance of payoff, but if YOU were asked to spend $50,000 out of the U.S. budget on a project that had a 1% chance of reducing the divorce rate by 10%, would it really be appropriate to say "it's not only not worth it, it is so stupid that I will hold the proponents up to so much ridicule that neither they nor anybody else will ever try it again?" I prefer non-sensational peer review to public fleecings. -- David H. Copp
jfw@mit-eddie.UUCP (John Woods) (07/23/84)
Senator Proxmire, from what I have heard, has been sued a number of times, and (naturally) uses public funds for his legal defense. I am told that his staff once awarded him a Golden Fleece award for this... -John Woods ...!decvax!frog!mit-eddie!jfw
norman@sdcsla.UUCP (07/23/84)
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 92093clyde@ut-ngp.UUCP (Clyde W. Hoover) (07/23/84)
> Senator William Proxmire, from Wisconsin, was so fed up with > government waste, particularly with govenment funding of research, > that he began the Golden Fleece Awards for outrageous spending. > The awards are amusing, until you realize you are paying for them, > and they are informative, because they have implications about > what is worth doing and what is not. > Required reading for academicians, you can mail requests to: BULLSHIT! Proxmire is an anti-technologist of the first degree. May I remind you of his leadership (with Fritz Mondale in tow) in killing the SST, his frequent attempts to gut the Apollo program, dismantle NASA and scrap the Space Shuttle. This man has no concept (judging from some of the Fleeces he has given out) of pure research. While some of the Fleeces were quite justified, he has also ridiculed a number of researchers and their work just because he can't understand what they are doing. One such maligned soul (I do not recall who) sued Proxmire for slander and won. If you add up ALL the money bemoanded by the Fleeces, I suspect it MIGHT be enough to pay a for year of price-supports and subsidies to Wisconsin dairy farmers. If this self-appointed guardian of the public purse strings really wished to save 'our money', I would suggest he start there. -- Clyde W. Hoover @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas (Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots) "The ennui is overpowering" - Marvin clyde@ut-ngp.{UUCP,ARPA} clyde@ut-sally.{UUCP,ARPA} ihnp4!ut-ngp!clyde
abm@whuxl.UUCP (MYERS) (07/23/84)
Sen. Proxmire's goal to check government waste may be a good one, but I can remember one time when he "shot from the hip" in awarding one of his Golden Fleece awards. (In fact, David Copp alluded to this incident in his recent followup posting.) I was a Wisconsin resident at the time, and was working as a science writer for one of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's news services. Proxmire had blasted sociology professor Elaine Walster for doing research on "erotic love." As is the case with such publicity stunts, Proxmire took one item out of context and blew it up. Walster's research was on social relationships, and it included some items on erotic love, but overall the research was thorough and scholarly, having significant implications on relevant social issues -- divorce, broken families, and needed social-work response for such families. Proxmire may still get a lot of votes in Wisconsin, but he lost my vote that year! Carl Blesch hlwpc!cb (Repliers please don't hit your "r" key -- a friend posted this for me because my machine is cranky today about posting news!)
flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) (07/24/84)
At least one of the Golden Fleece awards was completely groundless - that of April 1976, awarded to the NASA Lunar Programs Office, with which I was associated at the time. The Senator had received a crank letter from a disgruntled constituent who was an ex-employee of a NASA contractor at Johnson Space Center, and the letter accused NASA of wasting the taxpayers' money in building a fancy facility to house the lunar samples, and of diverting the money secretly to do research on meteorites. The budget proposal for $2.5M to make the lunar sample curatorial facility more secure against floods, tornadoes, and vandalism was at that time making its way through the NASA financial people and OMB, and it was certainly not a lavish or wasteful thing. Meteorite research was and always had been part of the lunar science program. NASA received this letter for comment, and we wrote several pages refuting all the accusations; this was sent back to the Senator in the normal course of business, and we thought nothing further about it until the 4/76 GFA hit the newspapers. Apparently whoever was in charge of getting the Senator's name into the newspapers chose to ignore NASA's reply and go with the accusations as if they were proven. A great deal of time was spent discussing this business with the Senator's staff and various congressional committee staff members. Sen. Goldwater read the NASA refutation into the Congressional Record, but Senator Proxmire never withdrew his accusation. Unfortunately Senator Proxmire was the Chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee which dealt with the NASA budget, and just to demonstrate that you don't get into a pissing contest with a United States Senator and win, the next opportunity Sen. Proxmire had, he cut the $5.5M NASA lunar research budget to $0.5M. Much of this cut was later restored, but the reverberations in lunar science and terrestrial geology were severe.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/24/84)
Did the Golden-Fleece Award summary mention that he had to publicly
apologize for one of them after the recipient sued him? The awards
would be more amusing if Proxmire wasn't a shortsighted ignoramus.
Some of the things he's given awards to were quite legitimate (if
somewhat odd-sounding) research projects. It's true that *some* of
his awards have been justified, but his batting average is nowhere
near 100%, and many think that he's done more harm than good.
"Anyone who buys Wisconsin cheese is a traitor to mankind." -- Pournelle
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henryriddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (07/24/84)
Better be careful about this -- how long before Usenet gets a Golden
Fleece Award? :-)
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddlesimon@psuvax1.UUCP (07/24/84)
[] I strongly object to the last sentence: [the Golden Fleece awards book makes interesting reading because ] it tells you what is worth doing and what is not. Why? Why does the opinion of a (possibly idiotic) senator from Wisconsin determine what is worth doing? Does he have a training in some branch of the sciences? Does he represent other interests than milk farming? For the record, he has singularly backward notion about the use of space, much of basic research, and long-term applied research. Some of his awards went to colossal bureaucratic stupidities, but he criticized some reasonably well justified research. If I remember correctly, an ape research person had his career all screwed up because of it. How would you like to have the value of your work be judged by a farmer? js
ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) (07/24/84)
Yes, Sen. Proxmire has been issuing the Golden Fleece awards for items that he deems wasteful. The problem is that the Hon. Sen. Proxmire has displayed a nasty habit of grabbing research projects that sound funny, but doesn't investigate into the motivations or justifications of the thing. It must be admitted that he's been more cautious since the infamous 'centipede' incident. He 'fleeced' (sorta like being slimed) a researcher for spending lotsa the taxpayers' $$ on a multi-legged remote-control mechanical centipede. Turned out that the lessons in articulation learned on that project provided major improvements on some artifical limbs, and the researcher sued the Senator on a number of charges--defamation of professional character, etc. I don't know if he lost, or the case could even be prosecuted (public servant and all that), but Proxmire quieted down a bit. While pointing out wasteful, marginally useful grants could be a useful thing, Proxmire does it for publicity and show value, in an irresponsible manner. In addition, he's also strong on PIC, dairy price supports, etc. In short, it was either Niven or Pournelle who said, in reference to Proxmire: "Anyone who eats Wisconsin cheese is a traitor to the human race." Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (07/25/84)
[] >While some of the Fleeces were >quite justified, he has also ridiculed a number of researchers and their >work just because he can't understand what they are doing. >One such maligned soul (I do not recall who) sued Proxmire for slander >and won. > >Clyde W. Hoover @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas >(Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots) "Won" is a hollow term in this case -- although a court of law ruled that the poor guy had indeed been slandered by Proxmire, and awarded him $$ in compensation, Honorable Willy has hidden behind his congressional immunity and refused to pay up. This, of course, sets a good example for us all. -- Ed Nather {allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!nather Astronomy Dept., U. of Texas, Austin
jlw@ariel.UUCP (07/26/84)
Proxmire also had his baldness covered up by a transplant performed at taxpayer's expense at a VA hospoital. Joseph L. Wood, III AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel (201) 834-3759 ariel!jlw
sef@drutx.UUCP (07/27/84)
This message is empty.
ivy@ihuxt.UUCP (JJ Ivy) (07/28/84)
I would not in particular mind having my work judged by a farmer, or an engineer or a sign-painter or a truck driver... But to have one's career judged by a Senator ??? Gag me with a Grodie Garbage Can !!! D Iverson (ex-farmer and proud)