Brief Description: Each year the science website Edge.org asks leaders in various fields to address a particular question. The question for 2003 asks the writer to assume the persona of an applicant to be scientific adviser to the President, asked as an “audition” to write a memo on the following question:
"What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?"
I use this as a formal exercise, but it can easily be adapted to less formal ends. Each year John Brockman, publisher of the science website Edge.org, asks leading minds in various fields to address a particular question. The question for 2003 asks the writer to assume the persona of an applicant to be scientific adviser to the President, asked as an “audition” to write a memo on the following question: "What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?" I ask students write short memos addressing this question and then read a range of published answers. The respondents as of January 7, 2003 include Freeman Dyson, Mary Catherine Bateson, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, and approximately eighty others in fields such as astrophysics, linguistics, environmental studies, science education, cognitive science, and many others. Previous years’ questions and answers are also worth exploring. They have included “What questions have disappeared?” and “What is today’s most important underreported story?”
