Tabitha M. Powledge collects samples of skepticism and enthusiasm regarding the administration's new BRAIN initiative in this week's On Science Blogs.
One reason it's hard to know whether to be enthusiastic or skepical is that nobody yet knows exactly what the initiative will do, so one must rely on faith. I'm going to betray myself as an enthusiast, for two reasons. One, I think that more research is better than less research, and I don't buy the claims that big science is damaging to small science, any more that it was with the human genome project.
And the second reason is that I don't buy the now fashionable claim that neuroscience has been hyped and has been disappointing. All kinds of science gets hyped, and research is often disappointing–until it isn't. That is, nobody cares much about a monk breeding pea plants until suddenly it's clear that he has given us a profound new understanding of what happens when we breed.
Also see Powledge for more on the Jane Goodall book scandal, especially including this comment from Mike the Mad Biologist: "The reason she’s getting a ‘free pass’ is because no one believes she actually wrote the damn thing, which is just as damning."
-Paul Raeburn
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