Best bet for a successful presidency?

Do universities need presidents?

At $300,000 to $500,000 each, plus house and car for a middling institution (and often much more at grander schools), they’re the resource equivalent of a dozen or two adjuncts or at least several senior professors.

Leadership on many fronts is what the campus head is supposed to provide — most of all in raising money. Why, then, the heavily staffed development offices at the schools that regularly snare big gifts? Once the target has been softened up, couldn’t a provost or dean or chairman of trustees move in to clinch the deal?

Wise and productive orchestration of the institution’s many components — that’s what the effective chief provides, isn’t it? There’s the administration, the faculty, the students, the alumni, the trustees, the non-academic staff, the nearby community, and, for public...

Our scientists justifiably feel mistreated and neglected on important policy matters. Their expertise on climate change, stem cells, and other crucial matters has been rebuffed. When government-employed researchers want to dissent, they’re often muzzled. Scientists rank low in the pecking order of George W. Bush’s administration. Money for research is inadequate, causing layoffs at laboratories and cancellation of important projects. Now, in response to neglect and abuse, scientists are going political. Sort of.

By raising money and mobilizing votes for science-supporting candidates in the primaries and the coming election? No, that’s not the scientists’ mode of politicking. Though the grievances are great, the response is characteristically tepid.

Thousands of scientists, from Nobel laureates to lab technicians, as well as many others have signed a petition,

From what I’ve seen of it, I like the academic life, though for short stays only. Some people are meant to be professors; others, like me, descend into the news business. The part that I’m in deals with science policy and politics and research budgets, compelling stuff for academic scientists and administrators, which is why I’m sometimes invited to tell what I know in person.

Many years ago, I was invited to spend a month on a southern California campus. As I remember the ensuing dialogue, “Doing what?” I asked. “You’ll be a resource,” replied my host, who, as it turned out, was away at a conference when I arrived. No one seemed to know why I was there or what to do with me. I was eventually provided with an office. The neighbors were friendly, inviting me to several social events. There was a lot of griping about the administration, this or that chairman, schedules, and much else,...

Don’t worry about that sound. It’s just the ghost of C.P. Snow lamenting the persistent gulf between what he long ago labeled the two cultures — science and the rest of learning. The latest survey results have just come out on what laymen know about science, and the picture, mainly concerning Americans, is not pretty. But on the bright side, though most of us know relatively little about it, we generally like it.

The survey results are in a big report, “Science and Engineering Indicators 2008,” issued biennially by the National Science Board, the policy-making body of the U.S. National Science Foundation, which bankrolls university research outside of the medical sciences. The report states that some of the data “are subject to numerous sources of error and should be treated with caution” — rare candor in the survey business. With...

The regulation basketball hoop is 10 feet from the floor. Kenny George, point guard for the University of North Carolina-Asheville, is 7 feet 7 inches tall. He’s the tallest basketball player of all at this time, though surely not for long, as coaches scour the world for mega-humans. With ease, he blocks opponents’ shots and drops them in for his own team. Not much skill is involved. The most effective countermeasure is an opposing giant, not always available.

In football, high-school players in the 250-pound range are no rarity. In 2005, [i]The Washington Post’[/i]s pick of 44 top high-school players listed 19 over 250 pounds, and four who topped 300 pounds, including one who registered 340. (Where’s the war on obesity?) Among the pros, most offensive linemen top 300. It is not unreasonable to suspect that some, perhaps much, of this weight is not of natural origin, despite the...

Post-New Hampshire, suggestions for news consumers from a longtime reporter (me):

Be wary of predictions. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, not even the weather man, and certainly not the political pollsters. Extend this principle to many other matters, including rosy forecasts concerning new drugs and treatments, and outcomes in sports.

Ignore reports of what politicians think. Nobody knows what any one else thinks. What people say is knowable; so is what they’re observed doing. What they really think is unknowable, and in politics is often deliberately disguised.

Reject cosmic assertions, such as the many post-9/11 declarations that nothing will ever be the same. Some things are not the same, but most are.

Recognize that a news report is not an encyclopedia article. It’s generally a hurried assemblage of information available at deadline — and most are reasonably...

Asked on 60 Minutes whether he would take a polygraph test to support his denial of steroid use, Roger Clemens replied, “Yeah,” adding, “I don’t know whether they’re good or bad.”

Don’t do it, Roger. The polygraph is bad.

Based on measuring blood pressure and other physiological responses to neutral and provocative questions, it’s a voodoo device that can stain the innocent and exonerate the guilty. While projecting an aura of scientific certainty, the polygraph, or lie detector, has been repeatedly rejected by independent scientific reviews. Nevertheless, the FBI, various security agencies, and innumerable police forces regularly utilize the polygraph, though admissibility in court is severely restricted for lack of scientific evidence of reliability

With a little instruction, it’s said to be not difficult to beat the polygraph. Master spy Aldrich Ames, working deep inside the...

Asked on 60 Minutes whether he would take a polygraph test to support his denial of steroid use, Roger Clemens replied, “Yeah,” adding, “I don’t know whether they’re good or bad.”

Don’t do it, Roger. The polygraph is bad.

Based on measuring blood pressure and other physiological responses to neutral and provocative questions, it’s a voodoo device that can stain the innocent and exonerate the guilty. While projecting an aura of scientific certainty, the polygraph, or lie detector, has been repeatedly rejected by independent scientific reviews. Nevertheless, the FBI, various security agencies, and innumerable police forces regularly utilize the polygraph, though admissibility in court is severely restricted for lack of scientific evidence of reliability

With a little instruction, it’s said to be not difficult to beat the polygraph. Master spy Aldrich Ames, working deep inside the...

One of the durable oddities of American politics is the near absence of scientists and engineers (S&Es) from the ranks of office seekers — starting with the presidency and continuing down the elective scale. On the lobbying front, another venue for manifesting political interest, organized efforts by S&Es have been nonexistent in recent decades or feeble to the point of invisibility.

This is indeed odd, given the centrality of science and technology in contemporary affairs, S&Es dependence on Washington for money and policy direction, and the turn to political affairs that frequently occurs in conversations among scientists and engineers. They’re interested and they care, and apparently they turn out to vote in high numbers. But, with very rare exceptions, they don’t run for office or organize under their professional identities, as lawyers, physicians, bankers, and others regularly do...

Elevation of the public understanding of science is a heartfelt goal of the scientific establishment. Too many of our citizens do not know whether the earth moves around the sun or the sun moves around the earth, a deficiency that some scientists deem intolerable, though the extent of ill effects is debatable.

There is similar dismay over astrology, UFO sightings, Bigfoot reports, creationism, snake-oil medicines, and other phantasms of the scientifically untutored that are embedded in popular belief. Surely these dark-ages relics must be dispelled.

It would be churlish to disparage the sciences’ efforts to shepherd the benighted into modern times. But let me try.

My endeavor, though futile, is inspired by a concern for wise use of limited resources and a desire to curb missionary hallucinations within the research community, so that our scientists can get on with important...