National Academy of Sciences

Notes toward an article

• private, non-profit, self-perpetuating "society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare"
• has a mandate that requires it to advise the US government on scientific and technical matters
• charter granted by Congress in 1863.
• membership is approximately 1,900 members and 300 foreign associates -- more than 170 have won Nobel Prizes
• election to academy is in recognition of achievements in original research -- considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer
• also includes
  • National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
  • Institute of Medicine[?] (IOM)
  • National Research Council (NRC)
  • collectively called the National Academies

Global Warming issue

CNN reported that a prestigious 2001 National Academy of Sciences report represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."

Response:The CNN report was inaccurate. Richard Lindzen of MIT, one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, has said so, repeatedly. As he has said, there were a wide variety of scientific views to be presented in that report and, "the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them." It should be added that the same is true of all of the U.N.'s International Panel on Climate Change studies on which the notion of global warming is based. Journalists who claim that studies reporting a diversity of opinion are unanimous or nearly so are guilty of false reporting. [1] (http://www.nationalcenter.org/TSR72302)

Awards

The Academy presents a number of different awards:

• Engineering
  • Gibbs Brothers Medal - naval architecture, marine engineering
  • NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering[?] - aeronautical engineering

Links

• http://nationalacademies.org/nas/ -- homepage for the Academy
• http://www.pnas.org/ -- website for the PNAS journal