Author: jlolds

Native Angeleno, professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy at George Mason University

Nicholas Lemann’s vision for the American Research University….

He is the dean of journalism at Columbia and his important long piece is here, from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

There are many excellent points in the article, not the least of which is that very few academic leaders focus on actually making the case for the research to the stakeholders of US research universities. The other interesting insight is that tenured faculty self-identify on the basis of their discipline rather than their employer (e.g. I am a neuroscientist, not I work for George Mason University). I believe this, and I’m guessing that it creates an ersatz dialectic between the talent (the faculty) and their employer which works against making the larger case.

So I would say this is an excellent read. I hope it’s read by many college presidents.

The Future? It’s all good….

New Pew survey result here.

Money quote:

  • 81% expect that within the next 50 years, people needing new organs will have them custom grown in a lab.
  • 51% expect that computers will be able to create art that is indistinguishable from that produced by humans.
  • 39% expect that scientists will have developed the technology to teleport objects.
  • 33% expect that humans will have colonized planets other than Earth.
  • 19% expect that humans will be able to control the weather in the foreseeable future.

I’n really dubious about teleportation. And I’ll be happily surprised if we’ll have colonized other planets or fixed the weather issue.