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Growing Trust in Science GROWING TRUST IN SCIENCE A Speech by Ralph J. Cicerone, President National Academy of Sciences Presented at the Academy’s 147th Annual Meeting April 26, 2010 Good morning and welcome to the members that its history will be honored by the resto- of the National Academy of Sciences and their ration, while its usefulness will be improved guests to the 147th Annual Meeting of the by updating a number of core facilities and National Academy of Sciences. I offer a special utilities. The plan is that the project will welcome to the President of the Royal Society, be completed well before the 2012 Annual Lord Martin Rees. 2010 is the 350th anniver- Meeting of the NAS. sary of the Royal Society. There won’t be any celebration next year - 351 isn’t even a prime Events of the Past Year number. At last year’s Annual Meeting, we welcomed a newly elected President Obama, and he The National Academy of Sciences addressed us at this same time slot one year Building ago. Sorry, this year it is only your friendly, We are here at the Gaylord Hotel in National local NAS President. Harbor on the south side of the District of By this time last year, Columbia. It is a facility with many advan- the U.S. President tages and our staff and Home Secretary John had already involved Brauman put a great deal of effort into finding a number of NAS this location and then matching our Annual members in his new Meeting activities with the facilities here. administration, and I However, it is not our own National Academy listed them. I would of Sciences building on Constitution Avenue. now like to recognize Since the NAS building was opened and and thank five more dedicated in April of 1924, every NAS Annual NAS members who are Meeting or at least part of each meeting, has serving in the Obama been held on Constitution Avenue. As you Administration. Francis know, the planned restoration and renovation Collins is Director of the NAS building is about to begin, and of the National Insti- we have started moving out. We are enthu- tutes of Health; Roger siastic about the improvements that will be Beachy is Director of Ralph J. Cicerone, President, made to the Academy’s home and are sure the National Institute of National Academy of Sciences while she has also opposed the entrance of Proceedings of the creationism and intelligent design into science National Academy of Sciences classrooms. Editor-in-Chief We celebrated 2009 as another terrific year Randy Schekman in which American scientists were awarded Associate Editors most of the Nobel Prizes in science; and five David Chandler of them, NAS members Elizabeth Black- Alan Fersht burn, Carol Greider, Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Jack Halpern Steitz and Jack Szostak, will conduct a special Dolores Piperno session later today for their NAS colleagues Solomon Snyder B. L. Turner, II and guests and a number of Washington- Peter Vogt area high school students. The session will be Susan Wessler moderated by 1997 Nobel Laureate Stanley Prusiner. Figure 1 Leadership of the PNAS Editorial Board During the past year, our flagship journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Food and Agriculture and also Chief Scien- Sciences, continued to attract and publish tist, U.S. Department of Agriculture; William stunning new research results across all fields Brinkman is Director of the Office of Science, of science. We should recognize and applaud U.S. Department of Energy; Marcia McNutt the research contributions and the reviewing is Director of the U.S. Geological Survey; and editing of many NAS members and other and Carl Wieman has been nominated to be scientists. Certainly, the 170 editors of PNAS Associate Director for Science of the White who have edited a very large number of PNAS House Office of Science and Technology submissions, along with our eight associate Policy. [In addition, at the 2010 NAS Annual editors and Editor-in-Chief, Randy Schekman Meeting, one day after I presented this speech, are greatly appreciated by all of us [Figure 1]. Steven Koonin was elected to NAS member- The year 2009 was also one of high ship. He is serving as Under Secretary for activity for our Finance Committee chaired Science at the Department of Energy.] The NAS and its members offer our appreciation to each of these individuals for their service to National Academy of Sciences our government and our nation. Finance Committee At yesterday’s NAS Awards Ceremony, Jeremiah Ostriker, Chair Elwyn Berlekamp we presented our medals and awards for an Ralph Cicerone array of achievements. Today I want to note Robert Engle the winner of the 2010 Public Welfare Medal, Ronald Graham Eugenie Scott. Working as Executive Director Lawrence Klein of the National Center for Science Educa- William Rutter tion, Dr. Scott has been a leader in advancing Maxine Singer the teaching of evolution nationwide and is a strong advocate for all of science education, Figure 2 Membership of the NAS Finance Committee 2 by our Treasurer, Jeremiah Ostriker [Figure 2]. Our Constitution and Bylaws specify that the Finance Committee is to consist of NAS members, including the Treasurer and President, who will oversee any and all of our investments such as those in our endowment. In 2009 we saw the passing of a long-time member of this committee, our colleague Paul Samuelson. Two new members of the Finance Committee, Robert Engle and Maxine Singer, began service recently, replacing Paul Samuelson, as well as Claude Canizares and David Kipnis, who had completed their terms. Activities of the National Research Council I want to illustrate the important work of the National Research Council by describing four reports which were completed during the past year. Figure 3 A New Biology for the 21st Century, published by the National Academies Press New Biology for the 21st Century in 2009. This study [Figure 3] was requested by the National Institutes of Health, the National systems, creating alternatives to fossil fuels Science Foundation and the Department of and various human-health problems. The Energy, partly to add some biological thought initiative would require the engagement of to the agenda that had been developed for physicists, engineers, chemists, mathemati- physical sciences and engineering in our 2006 cians and computer scientists along with report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. The biologists, and it assumes that support for authoring committee, co-chaired by NAS fundamental biology would continue. The member Phillip Sharp, noted that recent proposed focus on these large, practical progress in understanding biological mecha- challenges could attract a new generation of nisms and entities, along with emerging data talented young scientists. such as genome sequences, creates potential for progress on major world problems. The America’s Energy Future committee proposed a new national initia- This major study culminated in a report of tive to last at least ten years that would be over 700 pages [Figure 4]. It examined current multi-agency and multidisciplinary. Such an facts and prospects for the next few years for initiative could yield important progress on energy efficiency, liquid fuels from coal and problems like food insecurity, environmental biomass for transportation, electricity from monitoring and repair of environmental renewable resources, the commercial viability 3 of nuclear power, feasibility of reducing Verifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions: greenhouse-gas emissions, and gains to be Methods to Support International Climate realized through modernizing electrical Agreements power grids. Barriers to future improvements The committee, chaired by NAS member were identified so that while the report is Stephen Pacala, was asked to estimate the not policy-prescriptive, it should be useful accuracy of current methods to quantify as a foundation for future policy analyses annual emissions for greenhouse gases of and choices. Many NAS and NAE members individual nations, considering methods participated in this project as co-authors and based on self-reported inventories along with reviewers (including Steven Chu until he was methods based on physical measurements nominated to be Secretary of Energy). The and tracer-transport calculations. Current overall chairman was Harold Shapiro, an IOM capabilities can satisfy the needs of likely member. international agreements for carbon dioxide emissions due to fossil-fuel usage from many countries. However, to attain similar accura- cies for emissions from land-usage requires several kinds of research and development, as for emissions of methane, nitrous oxide and various fluorine-containing gases. Advantages of applying independent methods simultane- ously are apparent. NAS member Inez Fung was a co-author. This project was initiated by the NAS and was supported by federal agencies. Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility and Stewardship of Research Data in a Digital Age The committee led by NAS members Daniel Kleppner and Phillip Sharp recognized that advances in computing, communications, sensors and data storage are revolutionizing how data are gathered, analyzed, published Scientific community Figure 4 America’s Energy Future, published by and stored. Their report [Figure 5] addresses the National Academies Press in 2009. how to maintain data integrity and how to provide access to data, recognizing differences between fields of science and types of data. The actions advised in this report will advance science and demonstrate a forward-looking sense of responsibility amongst scientists. To encourage implementation of this report’s recommendations, we convened a special 4 session at the 2010 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Four other NAS members and the 2009 Public Welfare medalist served on this committee along with two NAE members. During the past year, each of these reports and many others have benefited from the efforts of many NAS members, from our colleagues in the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine and a large number of other expert study partici- pants.
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