AIBS Executive Director's Weekly Blog

On April 17th, AIBS Public Policy Director Robert Gropp and I joined staff from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology to speak at the spring meeting of the Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation's Biology Directorate.

The agenda and slides from the meeting are here on the NSF website.

James Collins, NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, spoke about BIO's FY09 funding priorities for "Life in Transition" studies. He also spoke about the terrific new study that NSF commissioned from the National Research Council, The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. Dr. Collins will be meeting with the AIBS Board of Directors later this month.

AIBS, AAAS, and FASEB staff were then asked to speak for about 20 minutes each (Rob Gropp gave the AIBS presentation) on "biology in the federal science enterprise" with respect to the following three points:

How does your organization describe and represent the biological sciences/biology with respect to science policy and budget?

Will your organization provide science policy advice for the transition to a new administration? To the next Congress? If so, will your efforts be targeted to a particular group or groups within the new administration or Congress, and will they emphasize any specific area or areas of science?

The talks went very well; discussions continue. As we see it, in the coming decades, the public as well as decision-makers will demand that scientists provide answers to questions of great societal importance. Informed responses to global environmental change, sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, nanotechnology, biometrics, artificial intelligence, public health threats, food security and quality, among many other issues, will require a coordinated and prioritized response from the research community. Currently, however, few individual scientists are prepared to provide this response. As a result, few scholarly or professional organizations are positioned to appropriately inform a collective response.

In order for the biological sciences to advance, a new, efficient, and coordinated trans-disciplinary community will be required. Biologists need to employ new technical skills and theoretical frameworks that build upon and surpass traditional taxonomic and integrative approaches. More importantly, biologists from various subfields must be prepared to work collaboratively with each other and with scientists from other fields, members of the media, policymakers, and science educators. A cultural shift within the scientific community's traditional organizations and new models for supporting research are required.

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It's a weekend witnessing the odious Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed spreading into movie theaters across the land. The reviews are somewhat tepid; my favorite so far is in the New York Times: "One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time...a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry...an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike. In its fudging, eliding and refusal to define terms, the movie proves that the only expulsion here is of reason itself."

Anyone looking for information on how best to counter the claims and assertions in the movie should consult the National Center for Science Education's terrific new website, Expelled Exposed.

And anyone wanting to reacquaint themselves with the ability of "scientific habits of mind" to improve the human condition should do two things:

First, watch the April 7th installment of the Charlie Rose Science Series: The Imperative of Science, with Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University; Harold Varmus, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Shirley Ann Jackson, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Bruce Alberts, Editor-In-Chief of Science; and Lisa Randall of Harvard University.

Second, read Bruce Alberts' March 21st editorial in Science. Here's an excerpt:

Let's start with a big-picture view. The scientific enterprise has greatly advanced our understanding of the natural world and has thereby enabled the creation of countless medicines and useful devices. It has also led to behaviors that have improved lives. The public appreciates these practical benefits of science, and science and scientists are generally respected, even by those who are not familiar with how science works or what exactly it has discovered.

So how does this relate to science education? Might it be possible to encourage, across the world, scientific habits of mind, so as to create more rational societies everywhere? In principle, a vigorous expansion of science education could provide the world with such an opportunity, but only if scientists, educators, and policy-makers redefine the goals of science education, beginning with college-level teaching. Rather than only conveying what science has discovered about the natural world, as is done now in most countries, a top priority should be to empower all students with the knowledge and practice of how to think like a scientist.

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AIBS recently received the following request from the National Science Foundation to help get the word out on an exciting new program, and we're happy to assist!

NSF has created a new track in the Research Coordination Network program that is aimed at undergraduate biology education. We’d like to get news of this funding opportunity distributed as widely as possible. Would you please make sure to pass on this information to the appropriate people at AIBS so that it can be posted on your website, listserves, and in any relevant bulletins. See the announcement at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08035/nsf08035.jsp .

Dan Udovic, Program Officer, DUE/NSF, Phone: 703-292-4766, e-mail: dudovic@nsf.gov

NSF's RCN grants are innovative funding vehicles to encourage and foster interactions among scientists to create new research directions or advance a field. In this case, quoting from the announcement, it's "an opportunity to request support for networks that will catalyze positive changes in biology undergraduate education. Application of new technologies to enhance pedagogy, increased use of inquiry based learning, enhancement of curricula with ideas from the frontiers of science, and building research into curricula to motivate the next generation of scientists all may benefit from increased collaboration among those who develop and offer undergraduate biology curricula. Research Coordination Networks – Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE) will provide opportunities to join biology and education researchers and practitioners in networks that enhance the exchange of ideas and innovative practices."

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My previous blog on this topic noted that AIBS is pleased to see momentum growing for the Science Debate 2008 initiative, the goal of which is to bring about a public debate in which this year's U.S. presidential candidates share their views on science, technology, and the economy.

AIBS has now officially endorsed Science Debate 2008; I sent the organizers a note today on behalf of AIBS President Rita Colwell and the AIBS Board of Directors.

The scientific, education, and business communities are coming together in truly impressive breadth and numbers to move this call for a debate ahead. As my friend Lee Allison (State Geologist and Director of the Arizona Geological Survey, as well as a fellow organizer of the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science) writes at Arizona Geology, American leadership -- economic and political -- is suffering, due in large part to our falling behind in science and technology. We simply must have more information about where our presidential candidates stand on their understanding and appreciation of the issues and challenges.

Here's a sampling of the organizations and individuals that have endorsed Science Debate 2008 over only the last ten days or so:

02/02/2008 Columbia, Case Western Reserve, and AIBS officially sign on

02/01/2008 PBS Online NewsHour: Scientists, Journalists Push for Science-based Election Debate

02/01/2008 U.C. Berkeley, Chancellor Birgeneau, & Friends of the Earth sign on

01/31/2008 The "Science 57": Fifty-seven universities and other organizations join

01/31/2008 Nobelist Laureates Holland and Watson, Columbia President Bollinger, Congressman Baird, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Mason join

01/30/2008 U of Maryland & ASU presidents sign on; also former NIST director William Jeffrey

01/29/2008 Council on Competitiveness supports a Presidential Debate on Science & Economy; becomes official cosponsor

01/29/2008 Richard Meserve, President, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and George Scalise, President, Semiconductor Industry Association, Member, President Bush's Science & Technology Advisory Committee, sign on

01/28/2008 Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, endorses us, as does the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

01/23/2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science calls for presidential debate on science & economy

01/20/2008 Intel's Craig Barrett: Flagging economy needs science investments

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AIBS and many other scientific organizations are pleased to see momentum growing for the Science Debate 2008 initiative, the goal of which is to bring about a U.S. presidential debate this year on science, technology, and the economy. I myself have signed up as a supporter, and I know other scientists who have, too. Above all, the initiative shows the scientific community's moxie and ability to organize.

This week's announcement of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's endorsement of Science Debate 2008 gives even more of a boost. And social networking sites such as The Intersection blog, the Uncommon Ground blog (I could go on--it's a long list of related blogs) and Science Debate 2008's own Facebook group are bringing many more people into the efforts.

All this said, it's still easy to find doubt within yourself that this initiative will ever succeed, even as you applaud its goals. Dan Greenberg's posting on the Brainstorm blog, A Debate on Science? Ho-Hum provides a cold half-empty glass of water in the face assessment of the challenges that lie ahead, as do, to provide only one other example, some of the readers' comments at The Intersection. Not until nationwide business interests are also truly on-board with the effort, the cautions say, will a presidential debate on science have a chance of moving forward and being taken seriously.

This is all true enough and the challenges should not be taken lightly, but let's return to the aforementioned moxie and ability to organize being demonstrated by the scientific community. It's galling to see science's and scientists' success in improving the human condition being taken for granted by too many policy makers--those in office and those running for election alike. These attitudes are treating science as a public good that can always be counted on to be there, producing material and economic prosperity, regardless of how poorly treated and neglected it might be.

You can't win if you're not in the game. So, a presidential debate on science, technology, and the economy? Heck yeah.

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When I arrived at AIBS in 1997, the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (CNIE) was already in full swing, having been founded in 1990 to improve the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking. By 2000, CNIE had transformed into the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE--an acronym, by the way, that is shared with another of AIBS's good friends, the National Center for Science Education.

AIBS has worked with CNIE / NCSE over the years, and this year it's a special pleasure to see that both organizations are making climate science a focus of their annual meetings in Washington DC. NCSE's annual meeting is next week, 16 - 18 January, on "Climate Change: Science and Solutions"; AIBS's annual meeting is 12 - 13 May , on "Climate, Environment, and Infectious Diseases."

Furthermore, NCSE is running a session at the AIBS meeting on "Climate Change and Human Health: Developing Collaborations with the Public Health Community." This will fit nicely with the rest of the AIBS meeting's program, whose speakers include Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives and co-author with Terry L. Maple of the new book, "A Contract with the Earth" and James Hansen, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, speaking on climate change models and predictions.

Chaired by AIBS President Rita Colwell, the AIBS meeting this May will examine how the interrelationships of climate, environment, and human health are manifested in infectious disease patterns, notably seasonality. Vector borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, Avian influenza, SARS, and related diseases are known to be closely linked to the environment and, more recently, to climate. Interactions between climate, climate change, and the environment have been studied extensively by investigators in the US and abroad. The AIBS annual meeting will address these issues, and it is a pleasure have NCSE joining us.

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It is entirely befitting AIBS's status as an umbrella organization for the biological sciences with almost 200 member societies and organizations that we have joined the institutional councils of two extremely ambitious and large-scale science projects that are both now well underway: the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).

EOL aims to serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described. EOL will be used as both a teaching and a learning tool, helping scientists, educators, students, and the community at large gain a better understanding of this planet and all who inhabit it.

AIBS joins the EOL Institutional Council:

* To provide strategic advice and guidance to the EOL Board
* To promote awareness of EOL internationally
* To bring a broader perspective to the EOL Board from a wide range of institutions and programs
* To identify individuals, programs and other activities for possible involvement in EOL
* To provide advice on possible funding and other resources
* To assist in evaluating performance against EOL’s planned outcomes

AIBS's appointees to the EOL Council are AIBS Executive Director Richard O'Grady and Paula Mabee, Dept. of Biology, University of South Dakota, a former President of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

NEON is a continental-scale research platform for discovering and understanding the impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species on ecology. NEON will gather long-term data on ecological responses of the biosphere to changes in land use and climate, and on feedbacks with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. NEON is a national observatory, not a collection of regional observatories. It will consist of distributed sensor networks and experiments, linked by advanced cyberinfrastructure to record and archive ecological data for at least 30 years. Using standardized protocols and an open data policy, NEON will gather essential data for developing the scientific understanding and theory required to manage the nation’s ecological challenges.

AIBS has been the recipient of NEON-planning funds from the National Science Foundation since 2002 and now becomes a Founding Member of the Institutional Council of the NEON Inc. organization that will build and run NEON. Institutional members include colleges, universities, museums, scientific associations, and ecological or environmental non-profit institutions interested in promoting the purposes and activities of NEON.

AIBS's appointees to the NEON Inc. Council are AIBS Executive Director Richard O'Grady and AIBS Board-member Eric S. Nagy, Department of Biology, University of Virginia, the Associate Director of the Mountain Lake Biological Station.

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This blog entry is an easy one to write--all I have to do is draw your attention to the November 26th posting on the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science's (COPUS) blog, On Making Scientific Research More Accessible to the Public.

The blogger is Holly Menninger, a Public Policy Associate at AIBS and AIBS's COPUS Activities Manager. Holly works on COPUS issues for AIBS with fellow staff-member Sheri Potter, who is the COPUS Network Project Manager--see the Media and Outreach section of the COPUS website for more information.

AIBS is getting ready to release a guide for biologists and other scientists on how to work with the media on science-communication issues. Holly's leading this project, which includes the offer of services from AIBS to run science-communication workshops and "bootcamps." Quoting from her November 26th COPUS blog, "You too can do something to improve the communication channels between scientists and the public. Be it through media interviews, volunteering your time working with visitors at your neighborhood nature center, or writing a science column for your local newspaper, we each can contribute to the translation of science."

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It’s a real pleasure to note the national honor bestowed yesterday upon the Ecological Society of America, an AIBS member society, for their innovative Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) mentoring program. I quote excerpts here from the ESA press release:

President Bush announced on November 16 that the Ecological Society of America ( ESA ) is one of the recipients of the 2006 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). ESA is the only organization to receive the 2006 PAESMEM award; the other awardees are all individuals. The award, the highest of its kind in the United States, is supported and administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and includes a $10,000 grant for continued mentoring work.

ESA ‘s program, Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability (SEEDS), garnered the presidential award. Made possible by generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Society established the program in 1996 to anchor its diversity initiatives.

“We view the ESA SEEDS Program as the jewel in our crown,” said ESA President Norman Christensen. “It is truly one of the initiatives of which we are most proud and today’s award underscores its tremendous value.”

Over the years, ESA has partnered on SEEDS with the United Negro College Fund, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges , the Institute of Ecosystem Studies , and others. With the goal of diversifying and advancing the profession of ecology, the SEEDS program provides a full spectrum of mentoring and learning opportunities to underrepresented undergraduate students.

Managed by ESA ‘s Office of Education and Diversity Programs, these include SEEDS ecology clubs and chapters, research fellowships, group field trips, and travel to the ESA Annual Meeting where students are assigned a mentor for the duration of the meeting. SEEDS directly serves over 200 students and its chapters serve nearly 2,000 students. These students credit SEEDS with enabling them to pursue a career in ecological science and to forge lasting relationships with both peers and mentors that help support their academic pursuits.

Further details are available from ESA here.

More information about the 2006 PAESMEM Award program can be found on the NSF website.

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