Miles O’Brien, Susan Wood, Paul Nurse to be panelists at public ‘Science and Politics’ event
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A public event on science and politics, to take place at Rockefeller University on April 29, will feature panelists from science, journalism and government discussing obstacles to reasoned debate and sound policies in science. The discussion, called “Conversations on Science and Politics,” will be moderated by WNYC’s Leonard Lopate. It will be held in Rockefeller’s Caspary Auditorium at 7 p.m.
Many of the biggest problems facing our society, like global warming, dwindling oil and unaffordable health care, are at their core scientific problems. Yet the national conversation on science tends toward oversimplification and pandering — never more so than in an election year. The result: a confused public who gets neither the straight story nor good policy. From the debate on embryonic stem cell research to the battle over evolution in schools, we’ve seen the same patterns of sound bites trumping substance.
The panelists, leaders in their fields, each bring a different perspective to the issues surrounding the politicization of science:
Paul Nurse, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and Rockefeller University’s ninth president, has been an outspoken advocate for science and has called on policymakers to increase investment in basic research in order to fuel technological innovation and economic growth. He has also made numerous media appearances in an effort to improve communication between scientists and the public. He has served as cohost of the “Charlie Rose Science Series,” a monthly public affairs show devoted to scientific issues, on PBS. Before coming to Rockefeller, Nurse spent more than three decades as a research scientist in the United Kingdom, where he was born. His research focuses on the molecular machinery that drives cell division and controls cell shape.
Miles O’Brien is an Emmy Award-winning broadcast news veteran who serves as CNN’s chief technology and environment correspondent. He anchored CNN’s Alfred I. duPont Award- and George Foster Peabody Award-winning coverage of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, and he followed up with a series of reports probing the failures of the federal government to address the environmental consequences of extensive flood control projects in the Mississippi Delta. More recently, O’Brien produced a documentary examining the Bush administration’s track record dealing with the environment, titled Broken Government: Scorched Earth, offering proof that the federal government has abandoned commitments to enforce the Endangered Species and Superfund Acts, while stifling scientists who do not toe the line.
Susan F. Wood served as director of the Office of Women’s Health at the United States Food and Drug Administration from 2000 until 2005, when she resigned in response to the FDA’s politically motivated decision to delay approval of over-the-counter status for emergency contraception despite the recommendation of scientific staff and advisory committees. Wood, who has a Ph.D. in biology from Boston University, has worked as a research scientist in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine neuroscience department, as science adviser and later deputy director for the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and as director for policy and program development at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health.
Lopate, host of The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC radio, has been with WNYC since 1985, talking with politicians, scientists, poets, painters, novelists, filmmakers, actors, dancers and many others. He has received two Associated Press awards for best interview — with Jimmy Carter and with Tony Bennett — and two consecutive James Beard Awards for best radio show on food. Lopate appears regularly at the 92nd Street Y, one of New York’s most prestigious cultural venues, where he interviews celebrities and moderates his on-going panel discussion series,Comparing Notes.
“Conversations on Science and Politics” is free and open to the public. Seating will be on a first-come first-served basis; reservations are not accepted. The auditorium is located at 1230 York Avenue, at East 66th Street, in Manhattan.
