AIBS News June 2000

From the pages of BioScience magazine, the online version of our current events column, with discussions of the latest happenings at AIBS in support of our mission.

• AIBS Public Policy Office launches biweekly updates to members

  The AIBS Public Policy Office provides analysis and representation for the AIBS board of directors, the headquarters office, and the Public Policy Review Committee on various issues of interest to AIBS member societies and organizations. Biweekly reports on the office’s activities are now being distributed broadly by e-mail and will soon be archived on the AIBS Web site. Send questions or comments to Ellen Paul, AIBS public policy representative, e-mail: epaul@aibs.org; tel.: 202/ 628-1500, ext. 250.

• AIBS participates in White House budget meeting

  On 29 February, AIBS Executive Director Richard O’Grady attended a meeting at the White House convened by Neal Lane, former director of the National Science Foundation and now President Clinton’s science adviser, and John Podesta, the president’s chief of staff. The purpose of the meeting, which brought together leaders of national scientific associations, was to rally support for the president’s FY 2001 budget requests for scientific, engineering, and technical research (see “President Clinton seeks budget increase for NSF” below). The attend-ees, in turn, expressed their members’ appreciation of the president’s funding initiatives and general support for the sciences.

  Participants noted that scientists can help bolster support for science among the American public—and therefore in Congress—in several ways. First, scientists from one discipline (biology, for example) should support other scientific disciplines (such as chemistry or physics) as vigorously as they do their own, inasmuch as different areas of scientific activity are becoming increasingly interconnected and complementary and Congress and the American public tend to view science as a single, comprehensive enterprise. Second, scientists should better demonstrate the causal links between the long-term support of basic scientific research and the benefits, both human and economic, derived from advances in applied scientific research. Third, scientists need to better communicate their concerns through the local print and broadcast media and through visits to their elected representatives in their home districts (the AIBS online media guide can facilitate such communications; see BioScience 50: 467). Finally, scientists’ explanations and defense of science to Congress and the general public should be presented in the broad, fundamental terms of freedom of inquiry, individual initiative, openness, accountability, and improvement of the human condition—that is, in a way that will resonate with voting constituents—not in terms that evoke ivory-tower detachment or special claims to knowledge.

• President Clinton seeks budget increase for NSF

  President Clinton’s budget request for FY 2001 seeks a 17.3 percent increase for the National Science Foundation. The additional $675 million would bring the total NSF budget to $4.68 billion. Nearly half of the increase would fund core activities, including an additional $96.71 million for the Directorate for Biological Sciences; $355 million would fund specific initiatives (for example, the initiative concerning biocomplexity in the environment would receive an additional $86 million). The National Ecological Observatory Network effort would receive $12 million for the purchase of research equipment and additional funding for development and research.

• AIBS and NABT hold town meeting on teaching evolution

  As part of its annual meeting, held 22–24 March 2000 in Washington, DC, AIBS collaborated with the National Association of Biology Teach ers, one of its member societies, to bring high school and undergraduate biology educators together with scientific researchers and education experts in a town meeting to discuss the current landscape for teaching evolution in the United States. More than 200people attended the event.

  “The number of states that encourage, permit, or tolerate—not to mention respect—the teaching of evolution and the study of natural origins has decreased substantially in the past year. The scientific community has to take a stand and get organized to counteract this trend,” explained AIBS Executive Director Richard O’Grady. NABT Executive Director Wayne Carley said: “In response to a prevalent and very real threat, we felt compelled to present accurate scientific information in a forum where a plan could start to be put together to prevent more states from following suit.”

  Five panelists addressed a broad range of scientific, pedagogic, and sociopolitical factors that affect the teaching of evolution across the educational spectrum. The panelists were Rodger Bybee, executive director of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (www.bscs.org); Jon Herron, zoology lecturer at the University of Washington; Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (www.natcenscied.org); David Wake, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley; and Brad Williamson, AP biology teacher at Olathe East High School, Olathe, Kansas. The event was moderated by M. Patricia Morse, acting professor on the faculty of the Zoology Department at the University of Washington, chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Attracting Science and Mathematics PhDs to K–12 Education, and head of an AIBS project funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to review high school biology instructional materials

  To purchase an audiotape of the town meeting, contact the AIBS Communications Office (tel.: 202/628-1500, ext. 261; fax: 202/628-1509; or e-mail: cmoulton@aibs.org); the cost is $10 per tape, plus shipping and handling.

• Additional BioOne documents now available

  The following new documents for the BioOne online journals initiative are now available online in the BioOne section of the AIBS Web site or in print from the AIBS Communi-cations Office:

  • An e-mail message dated 10 March 2000 from AIBS President Alan Covich to the AIBS membership

  • The BioOne business plan

  • The BioOne comprehensive financial package for AIBS member societies and organizations

  • BioOne’s bylaws

  • The March 2000 revision of the Bio- One electronic licensing agreement for journal publishers

  For the printed version, contact the Communications Office (tel.: 202/628-1500, ext. 261; fax: 202/628-1509; or e-mail: cmoulton@aibs.org).

  To obtain the publishers discount, AIBS members should complete the order form that appears in every issue of BioScience and on the AIBS Web site (www.aibs.org) and send it to AIBS at 1444 Eye Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005 (fax: 202/628-1509). For more information, contact AIBS at 202/628-1500, ext. 261.

  Other participants in the AIBS publishers discount program are Annual Reviews, Gordon & Breach/Harwood Academic (and all Gordon and Breach imprints), Island Press, Kluwer Academic, Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, Sinauer Associates, Taylor & Francis, John Wiley & Sons (and all Wiley imprints), and Science Publishers.

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