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4 JUNE 14,1993 C&EN
LETTERS
Think of academe as a business I am not sure, but I think that Barry M. Jacobson might have missed his mark in his letter (C&EN, March 22, page 5). Aca deme is a business in the sense that it has customers (students), delivers a product (an education) to them, and collects a fee (tuition) for this service. That is why it costs more to go to Harvard than to Podunk University. Podunk University is the cheap oleomargarine, and Harvard is the high-priced spread. In my opinion, universities and colleg es could benefit from thinking of them selves in this way. They might then ask themselves such questions as: How can we deliver the best education for the least cost to the students? and, What types of majors offer the best value to the students in terms of their life after school? Almost any endeavor can be thought of in this way, and the people involved can benefit from an analysis such as sug gested by the questions above. Such anal ysis helps people to clearly analyze what they do, and how they might do it better. Michael G. Kinnaird Durham, N.C.
Research is a part of education I have read with interest the ongoing se ries of letters on ' 'stimulating chemical research" (C&EN, Jan. 11, page 2; April 15, page 2; May 3, page 4). Forgive me if I am hopelessly naive, but isn't the pri mary purpose of chemical research in academia to serve as a vehicle for the ed ucation of students in science? Isn't the reason basic research is focused in uni versity settings that academia must be free to consider research problems prima rily in terms of their pedagogical poten tial rather than their potential for eco nomic benefit? What has happened is that laudable educational objectives have metastasized into ugly scrambles for power and mon ey. It is no wonder that we bicker over how to convince an increasingly skeptical public that scientific research in educa tional institutions is worthy of support. There certainly should continue to be, as there always has been, some support by the state or by private institutions for the Galileos and Einsteins among us, to allow them to make fundamental contri butions to our civilization. An academic
setting is the best place for these scholars to carry out their activities. But for most academics, research should be chosen based largely on its potential to illustrate the art and science of chemistry at its most sophisticated and subtle levels. In this context, scientific research is seen as a by-product of the educational process rath er than as an end unto itself. If we focus on the educational objectives of scientific re search, we mitigate public perceptions of academia as a place in which faculty pur sue their own, rather than educational, agendas. We avoid pointless arguments about basic versus applied research in aca demia. We recapture public support for our successful, if unfocused and wasteful, educational endeavors. Academia, particularly in its hiring and tenure practices, should redirect its atten tion to its educational mission. Industry, if it wants educational institutions prima rily to be places where students develop specialized skills in knob-twiddling, should establish them. The major criterion for what research should be done in academia should be the extent to which it furthers education al goals. The end product of university research should be the creation of schol ars in science. Gerard R. Dobson Regents Professor University of North Texas, Denton
Value of esoteric research During the past two years there have been numerous letters in C&EN that dis cuss the relative merits and liabilities of "curiosity-driven" research versus "goaloriented" research, and their benefits to
Corrections • May 24, page 19: The size of the market for magnesium hydroxide in wastewater treatment is 400,000 tons, not 40,000 tons as stated. • May 24, page 33: Derek A. Dav enport, professor of chemistry at Purdue University, is a former chair man of two ACS divisions (not com mittees)—Chemical Education and History of Chemistry. • May 31, page 4: Ken A. Eriksen was also an author of the safety letter, "cumene hydroperoxide explosion."
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the society that pays for them. Given the magnitude of the economic problems facing our nation, it is not surprising that chemists and other scientists are discussing the origin, nature, and possible alternatives to these motivations for planning scientific research. However, much of the discussion has been accusatory and confrontational rather than conciliatory, and has contributed little toward resolving the disagreements. At least some of the heat in this discussion comes from responses to such intemperate statements as that of Rustum Roy when he characterized scientists involved in basic research as "welfare queens . . . in white coats" (C&EN, Jan. 11, page 2). The response from many university scientists and government laboratory scientists whose research is funded primarily by U.S. tax dollars has been, not surprisingly, largely indignant (C&EN, Feb. 22, page 2). Part of the basic science that has been done is indeed quite esoteric and may never yield a commercial product or perceived direct benefit to society. However, many important scientific discoveries and inventions result from such "curiositydriven" basic research. Some specific examples have been mentioned in a number of recent letters to the editor. Numerous other examples could be given. Most applications and spin-offs from basic research occur in an indirect and less obvious manner. I will give two examples. Millions of organic and inorganic compounds have been synthesized by chemists, and many of these compounds have been characterized by infrared and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, by their chromatographic retention times, and by mass spectrometry. The majority of these compounds will never find commercial applications. However, numerous spectrometers have been purchased for use in environmental analysis because of the availability of published spectra, which then allows these instruments to be used for identifying environmental unknowns. Thus, an appreciable financial effect results from the accumulation of a large number of such spectra, even though the spectra for many individual systems have little or no apparent economic impact when viewed in isolation. As a second example, I note that experimental thermodynamic data have been reported for many pure compounds and their mixtures. Some of these systems are technologically or environmentally important, whereas others were studied for more fundamental reasons such as to determine group contributions to thermodynamic properties of organic compounds or the effect of crystal structure
changes on the relative stabilities of structural polymorphs of the same compound. However, even those systems that were studied solely because of scientific curiosity have indirect economic value. Many of these data have been compiled into thermochemical databases. Scientists buy copies of the computerized databases for use in their thermodynamic modeling calculations, and they buy computers on which to run those modeling programs. Again, a significant financial impact arises from the accumulation of such experimental results, even though it may be lacking for a particular data set. The scientists who did the experimental measurements may never know that their data were involved in these applications. Joseph A. Rard Livermore, Calif.
Indestructible plastic? As a longtime fan of Sir Alec Guinness movies, I wonder whether Maurice Ward and Sir Ronald Mason have subjected Starlite (C&EN, April 26, page 7) to moonlight, as in "The Man in the White Suit?" Richard D. Stacy Tucson, Ariz.
50-year ACS members Although the list is quite long, one of the nice things about having the names of 50-year ACS members published in C&EN (May 10, page 41), is that you can see who of your longtime friends are still here and still enjoying chemistry. So congratulations and best wishes for continued good health to Art Anderson Jr., Don Bailey, Dave Curtin, Bill Dauben, Carl Djerassi, Bob Dunlap, Henry Feuer, Max Gergel, Dave Gutsche, Mort Harfenist, Harold Heine, E. R. H. Jones, Norm Lichtin, Elliot Marvell, Joe Matt, George Wyman, and any other friends I may have missed in scanning the list. Harold Hart 51-year member Professor Emeritus Michigan State University, East Lansing As I was reading through the May 10 issue, I came across the list of this year's 50-year members. It was of interest to me to check for names of chemists I had worked with—I found several. I achieved 50-year status a couple of years ago. I wondered if anyone had checked the demographics of that list, so I computerized it and the following statistics became
apparent. Many 50-year members live in either California or Florida (of the 1204 members listed, 208 or over 17%, live in those two sunny states). However, some apparently stayed in the communities where they had worked. Over 35% now reside in New York (7.6%), New Jersey (7.2%), Pennsylvania (7.0%), Ohio (6.1%), Illinois (4.9%), and Texas (4.0%). One of the most surprising figures appeared when cities were considered. The city with the highest number was from the second smallest state. Wilmington, Del., had 30 followed remotely by Houston (15), Chicago (14), Cincinnati (13), New York City (10), and Berkeley, Calif. (10). Only two states were not represented, Alaska and North Dakota (I guess old chemists do not like cold weather). Foreign countries were represented by 16 50year members (1.3%), of which Canada accounted for 6 and Israel for 3. Wallace W. Thompson Tarzana, Calif.
Ancient wisdom, modern medicine An article in C&EN (Feb. 22, page 19) reveals that shark liver and gall contain squalamine, a potentially potent and useful antibiotic. This report is remarkably congruent with the cures reported in a Jewish folklore story, the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha, which was written in about 200 B.C. Tobit's son Tobias catches a fish (actual type not stated) in the Tigris River and is told by his companion (later revealed to be the angel Raphael) to save the liver, heart, and gall. These are later used to effect amazing cures for his bride-to-be's emotional problems and his father's blindness. In the current intensive explorations of folk medicines and remedies, perhaps careful scrutiny should be made of ancient writings to learn what our remote ancestors may have known about medical cures and perhaps other matters that could be of great value to us today. Milton A. Glaser Emeritus Member Glencoe, III.
Letters to the Editor C&EN encourages readers to contribute to this letters section. However, please keep letters reasonably short—400 words or fewer. Because we receive a heavy volume of letters, persons writing letters are limited, as a general rule, to one letter within any given six-month period.
JUNE 14,1993 C&EN 5
