Monday, October 13, 2008
Shuttle Driver Shares Nobel Work
When you live in a small town like Woods Hole, with six scientific institutions, during Nobel Prize season, it's like living close enough to Fenway to smell the popcorn when the Sox are contenders. I'm not especially a Red Sox fan, but I am a Nobel Prize groupie. Yeah! Go Krugman! (even though I never was in the same room with him). Go Ahtisaari! (I shook his hand once). And rah, rah, rah for Shimamura, Chalfie and Tsien for winning the chemistry Prize for their amazingly useful work in flourescent proteins, much of which was done in Woods Hole, first at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and then at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
Then I saw this story about former Woods Hole scientist Douglas Prasher, 57, who now drives the shuttle at the Huntsville, Alabama Toyota dealership for $10 an hour. Prasher did much of the groundbreaking work on the fluorescent protein that won the Prize for the other three. One of the named Nobel Laureates said, "[Prasher's] work was critical and essential for the work we did in our lab . . . They could've easily given the prize to Douglas and the other two and left me out."
Prasher, it turns out, isolated the gene for the glowing protein, then lost his grant, took a series of science jobs outside his field, and then his science career hit a dead end. Before he left, though, he passed his findings on to the people who Won The Prize. The story recounts this as an act of altruism, but I see it as normative science behavior, because despite all the accolades given to (and deserved by) the science equivalent of Yaz or Ted Williams or Babe Ruth, we Woods Holians, who see science done every day, know that it is a team sport.
I am sensitive. I've been deinstitutionalized for over a decade (except for a brief stint at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society). I prefer to work independently. Call it a personality flaw if you wish. But the fact is that my work is valued by my colleagues. However, when colleagues once-removed don't see Harvard or Bell Labs or the equivalent, they tend to discount it just a wee little bit. Thus my empathy with Prasher's story.
[Speaking of team sports, thanks to Jorge Ortiz, who found this Woods Hole story way down in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, and called it to my attention!]
Then I saw this story about former Woods Hole scientist Douglas Prasher, 57, who now drives the shuttle at the Huntsville, Alabama Toyota dealership for $10 an hour. Prasher did much of the groundbreaking work on the fluorescent protein that won the Prize for the other three. One of the named Nobel Laureates said, "[Prasher's] work was critical and essential for the work we did in our lab . . . They could've easily given the prize to Douglas and the other two and left me out."
Prasher, it turns out, isolated the gene for the glowing protein, then lost his grant, took a series of science jobs outside his field, and then his science career hit a dead end. Before he left, though, he passed his findings on to the people who Won The Prize. The story recounts this as an act of altruism, but I see it as normative science behavior, because despite all the accolades given to (and deserved by) the science equivalent of Yaz or Ted Williams or Babe Ruth, we Woods Holians, who see science done every day, know that it is a team sport.
I am sensitive. I've been deinstitutionalized for over a decade (except for a brief stint at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society). I prefer to work independently. Call it a personality flaw if you wish. But the fact is that my work is valued by my colleagues. However, when colleagues once-removed don't see Harvard or Bell Labs or the equivalent, they tend to discount it just a wee little bit. Thus my empathy with Prasher's story.
[Speaking of team sports, thanks to Jorge Ortiz, who found this Woods Hole story way down in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, and called it to my attention!]
Technorati Tags: NobelPrize, Science, WoodsHole
Comments:
This is my first post. After reading "The Rise of the Stupid Network" years ago, I've been following your blog with interest. This story so grabbed me that I just had to comment.
This is the saddest story I will read today. What is wrong with this country that a serious scientist capable of doing important work cannot connect with employment? It also illuminates why two harmful conditions exist in America today. First, why so few US-born PhDs? The answer is easy: Do the math. If you start driving a taxi right out of high school, you don't have to pay off any student loans! Second, why is so much scientific information that should be public domain protected by patents and copyrights? Equally easy answer: So you can get paid for your work, since you won't have a job if you share the information freely. These are not the enlightened situations that should exist. Perhaps the current economic situation will illuminate the falseness of the anarchocapitalism that has been with us since 1980.
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This is the saddest story I will read today. What is wrong with this country that a serious scientist capable of doing important work cannot connect with employment? It also illuminates why two harmful conditions exist in America today. First, why so few US-born PhDs? The answer is easy: Do the math. If you start driving a taxi right out of high school, you don't have to pay off any student loans! Second, why is so much scientific information that should be public domain protected by patents and copyrights? Equally easy answer: So you can get paid for your work, since you won't have a job if you share the information freely. These are not the enlightened situations that should exist. Perhaps the current economic situation will illuminate the falseness of the anarchocapitalism that has been with us since 1980.
# posted by 
: 10/14/2008 12:02 PM
: 10/14/2008 12:02 PM
