Comments on: MacArthur Mashup

By: John Branch

John Branch — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:16:09 +0000

Another problem with the phrase “genius grant” is that it sounds like an award in recognition of something that one is. Instead, a MacArthur Fellowship recognizes what one has done and facilitates what one may do. It’s not about being a genius.

As Forrest Gump (or his mother) might say, genius is as genius does.

By: jay

jay — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:43:55 +0000

Yes, you are right. We have to see the trend reavealed only by observing for many years. Biology is certainly at the crossroad of everything even including arts and humanities. And our brain activity and thus the process of knowing something is none other than biological processes. (Of course, who can deny every cell consists of atoms?) Understanding what we mean by understanding is becoming more and more important. In this sense biology is playing ever more important role in our efforts to grasp our surroundings as well as ourselves.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:34:10 +0000

I don’t see why any one year (or any one fellowship awarding body) can really give that indication. You’d have to look over a number of years and over a number of awarding bodies and identify a trend. My own feeling is that there’s so much out there that is blurring the borders between biology and the other fields (including physics, chemistry, various forms of engineering, etc) that it is hard to legitimately make the “century of biology” remark that is so often made in the sense that there’s so much of everything else all nicely tangled up.

Cheers,

-cvj

By: jay

jay — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:25:20 +0000

This year there isn’t any recipient whose field of research is physics related while I see many biologists or bio-related researchers. Does this also tell us this century will be that of biology?

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:05:57 +0000

To be fair, lots of the planet’s population of 6 billion (or so) did not make the list of 24. Taken on its own, that’s not evidence that they’re not doing good work…

-cvj

By: Just Another Grad Student

Just Another Grad Student — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:15:29 +0000

That’s odd, I didn’t see Lee Smolin on the list…

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:36:15 +0000

I don’t like Hollywood movies about child prodigies much, either.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:02:11 +0000

Hi Michelle… that’s pretty much what I was getting at. Thanks!

-cvj

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:53:30 +0000

There is a problem with the “genius” term. It evokes someone who is different and special and fantastically talented in a way that is beyond the reach of ordinary individuals. Over-emphasizing talent relative to curiosity, effort, and determination can discourage anyone not confident of their own innate brilliance. Among physicists, there is a certain cult of greatness surrounding Einstein, and also Feynman to some extent, that I don’t find very helpful. While some do take inspiration from “geniuses” and aspire to be like them, it takes quite a bit of ego to pull off.

By: Yvette

Yvette — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:20:13 +0000

Don’t know any from this year (though the projects all sound very interesting/ awesome), but I did know one recipient from a few years ago. She’d graduated from my high school twenty years prior and got the award for her microbiology work, and while she seemed very nice when she visited it got old very quickly as the school essentially beat the topic to death. (Private schools very dependent on image tend to do that, particularly when it’s an all-girls one and they get a “genius” in science who graduated from there. But I digress.)

I always love the MacArthur awards though, to be honest, because it always allows for me to take a look into some things I hadn’t thought about before!

By: Clifford

Clifford — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:11:28 +0000

I’ll have a look. Whenever I run into Len he always asks me good questions about cosmology and string theory, so in return I can ask him things about the basics of DNA origami…. A fair swap.

Thanks!

-cvj

By: Sophia

Sophia — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:48:31 +0000

Paul Rothemund’s project is actually very neat — “DNA Origami” is what he calls it. He was a grad student under Len Adelman (Turing Award ‘06) here at USC and then went to post-doc at CalTech. Aside from being a very modest guy, Paul’s work may one day help us build computer chips that are 10x smaller than what we currently use. He just uses random sequences of DNA to build elaborate nano-structures. It’s definitely worth looking into his research if you’ve got the time and inclination.