gsp@ulysses.UUCP (Gary Perlman) (07/25/84)
I am embarassed by my advertisement of Senator Proxmire's Golden Fleece
Awards. Truth in advertising makes compels me to present a more balanced
treatment of the subject. Two messages I reiceved today 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 thing they are interesting, and worth reading. Proxmire's
attacks may not be right, but I think they do reflect most 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.
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