Comments for Scientific Philanthropy

Comment on Something for nothing? by Tom

Tom — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:56:19 +0000

I totally agree! Indirects are murky waters and them more I think about them the more like a scam they seem.

Comment on Enabling the Status Quo by Jane

Jane — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:15:12 +0000

Thanks for sharing that interesting perspective; already this festive season, I’ve seen a number of charities touting “cures” – a frowned upon but nonetheless common word used by well-meaning fundraisers in the nonprofit sector.

If you have a twitter account, please let me know so I can receive twitter updates from your blog.

Cheers and best wishes this festive season!

Comment on No sacred cows in science? by Stuff to read « Praj's Blog

Stuff to read « Praj's Blog — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:18:06 +0000

[...] Susan Fitzpatrick disagrees with Michio Kako on sacred cows in science (the second link behind a [...]

Comment on Another year? by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 21:07:13 +0000

Yes, failures. Our culture loves to label things as one static entity. Yet life is fluid, ever-changing and with the data from failures we may close one door but open another door.

Labeling, categorizing are surely a portion of science inquiry yet
the basis of science is that Life is a mystery that we continue to
explore and will never understand. How beautiful to have that !

Comment on A loss of discernment by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:04:01 +0000

“it is time for researchers and third sector funders to have honest, sophisticated conversations on why it is that problems do or do not yield to our current knowledge. Everything should be on the table and open to scrutiny.”

What a lovely thought, Perhaps you could arrange a forunm for
this ?

Best,
Ellen Fishman

Comment on Maybe it’s time to sweat the small stuff? by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:09:23 +0000

Yes, I question the intention of the disparity of funding, but then the systems involved have soemthing to do with it. Local schools wheer I hail from- Illinois- are not even 50 % funded by the state.
The rest comes from local tax revenue and any federal funding they are to receive. REmember the Federal Department of Education is only able to mandate things that are specific to Federal overseer which in the realm of Education limited because the power was given to the States by the Constitution (?).
So in essence it has never been an equal distribution of funds for students. The rural schools in Illinois which have little local revenue are typically lacking the glass and steel as you mention, however our local high school has some along with a far
ability to offer more computer classes, foreign language classes, etc.

Back to the intention, oh my speculation is that they really couldn’t articulate why except for the whole culture of our
funding as you have mentiond before is often swayed by the group mentality of glitz is important to signify better.

My question is as a nation what is our intention in
education? Could we possibly articulate one thing and then concentrate on it as a whole versus this piecemeal attempt to do all?

My hope is that we have some honest discussion also, place us in awareness of what our systems have become and what that says about the values of country. Isn’t our motto e pluribus unum ?

Comment on Stemming the tide by beyondbland

beyondbland — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:19:17 +0000

the “no” is a typo — I have corrected — THANKS

Comment on Stemming the tide by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:01:05 +0000

I am not sure I understand this ?

“Private funders – particularly those that are no disease-specific charities – have a real role to play in bringing the important issues to the fore and refocusing the discussions on what really matters scientifically and practically.”

Comment on The risks of taking risks by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 23:55:54 +0000

But at least you learn something.
Yes, opportunities abound to learn from most situations, the question is do we ?

Word usage is very interesting. So much of how we use words is tied to our culture of consumerism, we have to pronounce things (research included) to be SOMETHING. Research just can’t be as simple as “find (ing) out the new idea is not as good as the old idea.”

Have you noticed how words are getting more explicit in order to entice the consumer ? On a recent movie marquee I saw this movie title= Vampires Suck. Had to laugh, what else do they do ? I imagined the teenager who had to put up the letters on the marquee as laughing when he did it.
Or today in a newspaper article about a child pornographer-headline article-”Man seduced 20″. Hmm, not quite the way I would describe the situation, but I don’t need to sell newspapers.

Your business as you have noted is not immune to such influences,
no ?

Comment on Recognizing resilience by Ellen Fishman

Ellen Fishman — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:11:18 +0000

Another addition to your post is
another blog post
Building resilience into our lives
by Ken McLeod
Enjoy,
Ellen

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-mcleod/building-resilience-into_b_554077.html