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Bashing Science: It Could be Worse
Others have done it, too, but has President Bush exceeded his predecessors in twisting and abusing science to suit his political purposes? Indeed he has, even allowing for Richard Nixon, who angrily abolished the White
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Presidential Column: Reaching for Relevance
Twenty-five years ago, when I was in graduate school, my advisor received a phone call from a newspaper reporter. My advisor had just received a large grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to
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All That’s Gold Does Not Glitter
Keenly targeted to a popular press that was eager for stories of government malfeasance, the Golden Fleece helped catapult Senator William Proxmire onto the national scene. In the process, it dramatically affected the lives of
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Why Bowlers Smile
In March 1980, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisc) awarded the National Institute for Mental Health a Golden Fleece Award for funding research on why bowlers, hockey fans, and pedestrians smile. According to the press release accompanying
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The Golden Fleece Award: Love’s Labours Almost Lost
In 1975, I and two of my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Mary Utne O’Brien and Jane Traupmann Pillemer, were collaborating on a major research program. We were attempting to determine the extent to
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What We Can Do
The Golden Fleece is a thing of the past, but the threat to our field that his Award represented is very much alive. Many in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government have
