Slow Science Manifesto

Alexis Carrel (Nobel Prize in Medicine 1912)


-THE REMAKING OF MAN- The error 'responsible for pur sufferings' comes from 'a wrong interpretation' of a genial idea of Galileo. Galileo, as is well known, distinguished the primary qualities of things, dimensions and weight, which are easily measurable, from their secondary qualities, form, color, odor, which cannot be measured. The quantitative was separated from the qualitative. The quantitative, expressed in mathematical language, brought science to humanity. The qualitative was neglected. The abstraction of the primary qualities of objects was legitimate. But the overlooking of the secondary qualities was not. This mistake had momentous consequences. In man, the things which are not measurable are more important than those which are measurable. The existence of thought is as fundamental as, for instance, the physicochemical equilibria of blood serum. The separation of the qualitative from the quantitative grew still wider when Descartes created the dualism of the body & the soul. Then, the manifestations of the mind became inexplicable. The material was definitely isolated from the spiritual. Organic structures & physiological mechanisms assumed a far greater reality than thought, pleasure, sorrow, and beauty. This error switched civilization to the road which led science to triumph and man to degradation...


Sir. Andre Geim (Nobel Prize in Physics 2010)


Sir. Andre Geim, Hij ergerde zich aan het verouderde Germanistische systeem op de Nederlandse universiteiten waar één hoogleraar de baas is in een vakgroep en de overige onder hem staan. Hij weigerde een langer verblijf in Nijmegen alsmede een aanstelling aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven en werd hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Manchester. Hij is sinds februari 2010 als bijzonder hoogleraar verbonden aan het Instituut voor Moleculen en Materialen van de Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen. Sinds 2007 maakt hij deel uit van de Britse Royal Society. In 2009 ontving hij eredoctoraten van de TU Delft en de ETH Zürich. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010: was awarded jointly to Andre Geim & Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"


Elizabeth Blackburn (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009)


Elizabeth Blackburn's dramatic laboratory discovery made her a scientific superstar & launched a burgeoning cancer research field. Yet it's not her lauded laboratory work that has led to her recent renown in the scientific community. These days, Blackburn is better known as the outspoken advocate of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning whom the Bush administration fired from the President's Council on Bioethics last month. The 55-year-old scientist has become a cause celebre for many researchers who complain that the White House's science policy is distorted by politics. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/science/2004-03-19-fired-bioethicist_x.htm


Jan Myrdal (born 19 July 1927 in Bromma, Stockholm) is a Swedish author, leftist-political writer and columnist. He is an honorary doctor of literature at Upsala College in New Jersey, US, and a PhD at Nankai University in Tianjin in China. He has lived at various times in the United States, Afghanistan, Iran and India. He is the son of the Social Democrats and Nobel Laureates Alva Myrdal and Gunnar Myrdal; he broke completely with both at an early age for personal reasons while keeping them in esteem for their public achievements. He was married to Gun Kessle, a photographer, graphic artist and writer, until her death in 2007. She illustrated many of his works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Myrdal