WHAT:	"Science in Crisis at the Millennium," an international symposium presented by the Center for History of Recent Science at The George Washington University. The symposium brings together two dozen highly-placed experts -- scientis ts, funding executives from foundations and government, lawyers, journalists -- to diagnose the signs and symptoms of science in crisis. Keynote speaker is John Gibbons, science advisor to President Bill Clinton.
WHEN:	Thursday, September 19, 1996 8:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. Symposium Program follows.
WHERE:	The George Washington University Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre Marvin Center 800 21st Street, NW Washington, DC (Two blocks from Foggy Bottom metro)
COST:	Free and open to the public.

Background:

"Science in Crisis at the Millennium" investigates the signs and symptoms of crisis and their underlying causes. Scientists are increasingly affected by crises of quality of work done, of the limits of knowledge, of funding, of the consequences of our unprecedented knowledge of human genetics, of misconduct, of peer review, of science and the press and of science and the law. The symposium brings these apparantly disparate indicators to gether, and demonstrates that they are produced in large part by deep and rapid changes in the ways that science is organized.

The crisis of funding requires special treatment, and the symposium addresses it with a forum comprising iconoclastic and original panelists. Controversially, several participants will argue that funding need not be a problem if we would stop paying for marginal projects and start being elitist. One of the panelists is Julian Jack, deputy chairman of the Wellcome Trust in London, the richest private foundation supporting biomedical research.

All the various crises contribute to the crisis of morale in the scientific community -- a problem that is rarely examined, yet is grave. Robert Pollack, distinguished biologist at Columbia University, holds that the demoralization of scientists is perva sive -- a breakdown of community that affects the scientist's sense of why one does science, of the ambiance in which one does it, of one's place in the larger community.

Underlying everything else is the transition to the steady state. This is the relentless, the Malthusian change driving the rest. On this topic, the English physicist and sociologist-of-science John Ziman holds the patent. He will explore the extraordina ry implications of this state.

The symposium is the inaugural event of the Center for History of Recent Science, established at The George Washington University a year ago. Director of the Center and host for the symposium is Horace Freeland Judson, research professor of history at GW and author of, among other books, the highly regarded history of molecular biology, "The Eighth Day of Creation."

8:30 a.m. Introduction Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of The George Washington University and professor of public administration

8:45 a.m. Keynote John H. Gibbons, Ph.D., assistant to President Bill Clinton for science and technology

9:15 a.m. The Crisis of Quality Horace Freeland Judson, director, Center for the History of Recent Science, The George Washington University

10:00 a.m. The Crisis of Knowledge John Horgan, "Scientific American;" author of "The End of Science: The Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age"

10:45 a.m. BREAK

11:00 a.m. The Crisis of Human Genetics Francis S. Collins, MD, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Human Genome Research

11:45 a.m. The Crisis of Funding: A Panel Discussion Julian Jack, MB, ChB, Ph.D., deputy chairman, The Wellcome Trust, London; Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., deputy director for extramural research, National Institutes of Health; Peter N. Kyros, Kyros and Cummins Associates

1:00 p.m. LUNCH

1:45 p.m. The Crisis of Peer Review Edward J. Hackett, Ph.D., National Science Foundation

2:30 p.m. The Crisis of Misconduct C.K. Gunsalus, JD, associate vice-chancellor for academic affairs, University of Illinois; Horace Freeland Judson

3:30 p.m. The Crisis of Science and the Press Gary Taubes, author of "Nobel Dreams" and "Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion"

4:00 p.m. BREAK

4:15 p.m. The Crisis of Science and the Law S. Leslie Misrock, Esq., managing partner, Pennie & Edmonds

5:00 p.m. The Crisis of Morale Robert Pollack, Ph.D., professor of biology, Columbia University

5:45 p.m. The Transition to the Steady State Professor John Ziman, FRS, emeritus professor of physics, University of Bristol; founding director of the Science Policy Support Group, London; author of "Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State"

©1996-2010 The George Washington University Office of University Relations, Washington, D.C.
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