Posterminaries
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Preaching To The Choir MRS Bulletin: Just last week I read a com- that is possible. We don't control great pelling editorial. Can't recall if it ran in monolithic voting blocks. We can't conScience or in Physics Today, but the gist of ittribute huge sums to campaign war was that greater attention needs to be chests. And, we certainly don't get invitfocused on funding basic research and ed to pen editorial pieces for Time, training in the sciences. Apparently we are Newsweek, or any Capitol Hill daily. currently withdrawing more from the bank Dr. SS: Step functions are the only way. of knowledge than we are putting back Ah! I see from your puzzled expression and technological bankruptcy is on the that I've lost you again. All of us, includhorizon if we don't change course soon. ing those who dole out the research funds, Dr. Science I. M. Sage: Let me ask you are differential beings. Our responses are proportionate to the steepness of the slope what your own discipline is. of events. It may even be a logarithmic MRSB: Why, I hold a PhD in physics and response, a sort of pseudo-decibel scale. have been doing materials research for Unfortunately we tend not to care much many years, but I thought I was supabout gradual trends in the larger status posed to be interviewing you! quo. We're too impatient to wait for benefits of healthy trends and relegate remediaDr. SS: Of course you are. You're going to tion of unhealthy trends to generations coax some pearls of wisdom out of me hence. "The safest road to hell is the gradand publish them in your magazine, ual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, right? MRSB: Right. Is that not what we agreed? without sudden turnings, 1without milestones, without signposts." On the other Dr. SS: Of course again, though I think hand, the reaction to large, fast, nearly disyou're missing my point. Who reads your continuous, unexpected change is dispromagazine? Other scientists just like you, portionate the other way. A victorious yes? They will immediately recognize the underdog, hints of life on Mars, a heinous validity of my arguments, not to mention terrorist act—all stimulate exaggerated their blinding eloquence, and probably tell responses such as Congressional resolutheir friends about it just as you just told tions, grassroots donations, instant paperme about that cliched rehash of the stan- back books and made-for-TV movies. The dard "we're eating our seed corn" drivel. sad truth is that a fast bomb that brings MRSB: Surely you're not dismissing that down a building will get our attention and a slow bomb like air pollution or eating problem. If memory serves, you have seed corn won't. Sometimes our attention complained about the same phenomenon span is long enough, once if s raised at all, in previous interviews with us. Are you to actually institute a change before the now reversing your position or just trivistatus quo reasserts itself or a new and difalizing the issue? ferent step function distracts. We become Dr. SS: Neither! If s obviously a problem. easily inured to a series of
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