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Out to Lunch with Karen Grief,
brain scientist, biologist
--- Jan. 28, 2004
In this series of interviews, I talk to people in Summit County about
how they feel and think about politics. This week I had coffee at
Bonjour Bakery in Copper Mountain with Karen Grief (Gr-eye-ff) who is a
researcher and biology professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
Grief is in town, along with 500 of her colleagues, for the Winter
Conference on Brain Research. As the daughter of Swiss and German
parents, she learned to ski at an early age on the ice of New England,
then studied biology and psychology at Brown University, got a
doctorate in psycho-biology and teaches, among other subjects, a course
on science and public policy. She’s also a classical oboe player.
Talty: Do politics have
anything to do with science funding?
Grief: Purportedly not. Historically, based on the outline originally
laid out by Vandimar Bush about how science would be funded, funding of
research is supposed to be independent of politics. The selection is
done by peer review, so a panel of scientist with expertise in the
field will review the quality of the research to determine if it is
designed properly, the investigator has appropriate training to carry
it out, and that it’s likely to make a significant advance. Peer review
has been strongly criticized for being risk adverse - they tend to go
for things that are sure bets. If you have something wild, and you
don’t have preliminary data that suggests it might work - Einstein
wouldn’t be funded today.
Talty: Is there a better way to
hand out money for research?
Grief: I don’t think peer review is going to go away; I think it’s the
best way to go.
In the past few months there’s been political pressure placed on NIH
(National Institute of Health) from both Congress and conservative
lobbying groups to politically review proposals. I think it was in
November, conservatives asked Congress to rescind some grants that they
deemed morally inappropriate - a lot dealt with trying to control the
spread of HIV-AIDS and sexually practices. The vote was very close, but
it did fail.
Talty: What changes are needed
regarding public policy and science?
Grief: The most important thing is for scientists to realize they have
the responsibility to communicate. Otherwise, they can’t expect the
politicians to understand the background of the science. Historically,
there have been these views, and it’s still quite pervasive, that if
you as a scientist make an effort to communicate science to the public
and politicians, and interact with the media so that accurate stories
are out there, somehow you’re pandering and you’re not a serious
scientist. People like Carl Sagan, who was an enormous popularizer of
science and actually a very productive scholar, was viewed with
tremendous contempt because he was a popularizer.
It’s starting to change because the benign view the public had of
science - that scientists are going to change our lives for the better
- has changed a lot, and there is now a suspicion about what
scientists do. There’s a lot of concern about genetic modification of
food or animals, or gene therapy - people don’t understand what that
means. They hear genetic modification and they think that means were
making monsters — frankenfoods. A genetically modified corn is still
corn, and actually in agriculture we’ve been genetically modifying
agricultural products since we took up agriculture - we’re just doing
it in a more precise manner.
Talty: What about stem cell
research?
Grief: We don’t know the potential. Many of the concerns have nothing
to do with science; we get into religion. Scientists can make whatever
argument they want, but the science is not the only contributor to a
discussion like that. And, policy makers can’t make decisions ignoring
all the other factors, and that may be incredibly frustrating to
scientists, but that’s what happens. These decision can’t be made in a
vacuum.
Talty: Does every view now have
it’s own scientists?
Grief: The individual scientist is not this high minded pure believing
individual that has no other influences. If you’re a scientist, who may
understand the implication of stem cell research, but because of your
own personal beliefs finds it extremely morally troublesome to work
with embryos, your interpretation might be that this whole thing is
hyped, that there isn’t any promise to this research and we shouldn’t
be doing this because it’s immoral. If you see the same information and
are not troubled using embryos, your interpretation might be that there
is enormous potential here, that it’s an untapped resource and it’s our
responsibility to look. It’s not our interpretation of the science,
it’s the other stuff that everyone as an individual brings.
Talty: Do you think the policy
decision made about stems cells was correct?
Grief: Personally, I do not. The right decision is to provide the
support so that we can determine what the importance of stem cells are,
and we don’t have enough cell lines to do that properly.
One of the difficulties with any issue that deals with reproduction is
that everything is inextricable tied with the abortion issue. And,
abortion is one issue where there is nothing that can be contributed
from science. It’s not a scientific issue. When life begins is not
something a scientist can answer. The end of that spectrum is the right
to die, euthanasia, but it’s not a scientific issue either; it’s a
philosophical one. The scientific community gets asked to weigh in on
these issues where it doesn't have a scientific answer.
Talty: Brain death isn’t a
scientific answer to when death occurs?
Grief: Brain death is a convenient definition. Back in the good old
days, people stopped breathing and their hearts stopped. There was no
question as to whether their brain was dead or not. The idea of coming
up with the definition of brain death was driven by issues of organ
transplantation. If you waited until the person was dead by natural
conditions, the organs would no longer be suitable for transplant. It’s
a legal definition.
Talty: And the woman in Florida
who’s husband wants to pull the plug?
Grief: I find that case deeply troubling because - the right to die,
who has responsibility, the right to refuse treatment - all these
things have been fought out in the courts, and have reaffirmed over and
over that Terri Shiavo’s husband has the authority to make decisions
for her, and they are satisfied the evidence is there that she would
not wish to live in this persistent vegetative state. And, what the
Florida legislature did was go up against amble legal precedent,
including Supreme Court decisions, and congressional legislation. We
have the right to refuse medical treatment even if it causes us to die.
Her parents believe she is going to recover, even though there is a
preponderance of evident that says she’s not going to recover. But you
can’t scientifically prove that they’re wrong. In these very difficult
decisions there is a legal framework, and what the State of Florida did
was turn all that law on its ears. Terri Shiavo’s husband is suing and
I can’t image that this law is going to be upheld, because it’s
unconstitutional.
Talty: Have you thought about
Mad Cow lately?
Grief: I’ve certainly thought about it, and what’s so interesting about
the way things have transpired in the past few weeks is this notion
that this is the first case of Mad Cow disease in the United States. I
think that’s pretty nonsensical because we know the laws were lax, that
there can be spontaneous cases, as well as transmission to animals from
being feed animalistic feed.
Talty: What to do test all cows?
Grief: Maybe all downer cows that aren’t down from something as obvious
as a broken leg. The thing that should be done is to stop using animal
protein in animal feed. Whether it’s cows, chickens or pigs we
shouldn’t do that because there are other diseases which have the
potential for being transmitted the same way.
That being said, am I going to change the way I eat? No. I don’t eat
very much red meat, because I try to eat a healthy diet, but I’m going
to eat my steak, and not worry about it. The news about farmed salmon
being high in PCB’s? Life is too short to worry about everything. Too
much water will kill you.
If we want people to respond based on knowledge not just emotions, as I
said, scientists have to communicate.
Talty: Is part of the problem the ‘dumbing down of America’?
Grief: I think certainly the base level of scientific understanding has
declined. I notice at Bryn Mawr, where we have a highly selective
population of students coming to the college, their overall preparation
in science is weak. I think it’s not because (students) not motivated,
or interested, but because we’ve drifted so heavily into this
fact-based knowledge. Individual pieces of information are not what you
need. (Students) don’t know how to synthesize, they can’t reason
through. The other thing that certainly has happened, as I’ve talked to
long-time teachers in public schools, some are not allowed to ask as
much of students as they used to. The general expectations are lower,
or at some of these elite schools where the demands are ridiculously
high - hours and hours of homework - it’s not selective. They have this
tremendous workload, but so much of it is approaching busywork, rather
than stuff that really challenges them to go beyond the material.
Based on my limited exposure to students in the Summit County school
system, the kids have great science compared to other schools. They are
engaged and interested. Most school systems are not like this one.
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