Red Queen' Race

My first broken new year resolution: Get caught up on my reading. Though I failed on the big goal, I did manage to stay in place (like the Red Queen, running full speed to stay in place). Here are a few quotes from my recent reading that I want to remember.

From The Particle at the End of the Universe, by Sean Carroll, reporting of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy in 1969:

When asked if there were national security benefits to funding the multi-billion dollar Superconducting Super Collider, physicist Robert Wilson of Fermilab replied,

"It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending."

And second, this opinion article, Silencing the Science on Gun Research, from the Journal of the American Medical Association should be part of the national conversation on the topic of gun-related deaths:

"Injury prevention research can have real and lasting effects. Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans dying in motor vehicle crashes has decreased by 31%.1 Deaths from fires and drowning have been reduced even more, by 38% and 52%, respectively.1 This progress was achieved without banning automobiles, swimming pools, or matches. Instead, it came from translating research findings into effective interventions."

jg