Ivan

“In an editorial, the journal Nature warned that one of the dangers of winning the Nobel Prize is that people attempt to enlist you for all sorts of causes.' It particularly cited Scientists and Engineers for America and its opposition to Bush science policies, though "there is little doubt that US federal science has suffered under Bush," the editors wrote. By engaging in partisan behavior, the journal warned, scientists risk "seeming to be self-interested, grant-obsessed, and out of touch."
Actually, I think the reverse is true. It is remaining at the bench when times call for action that defines researchers as self-obsessed. As Burton Richter, a Stanford
physicist, Nobel laureate, and founder and board member of SEA wrote in response to the Nature editorial, the organization's aim "is to make available to society at large the evidence-based science relating to critical issues facing us all." He added, "We hope both to draw attention to underappreciated science issues and provide the advocacy necessary to get things done-not along party-political lines but scientifically."4”
― Cornelia Dean, Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public

“Stepping outside your comfort zone to reach out can have tremendous payoffs. Whether you are building your network of media contacts, writing an opinion piece for a newspaper or blog, arranging a meeting with your local Congressman, or engaged in a media blitz around your latest paper, you'll generate ripples that can lead to surprising and gratifying results.”
― Nancy Baron, Escape from the Ivory Tower: A Guide to Making Your Science Matter

“In eastern Washington, the territory around the Hanford reservation is promoted as the last stand of original shrub-sage habitat in the Columbia Basin, yet periodically deer and rabbits wander from the preserve and leave radioactive droppings on Richland’s lawns.”
― Kate Brown, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

“Though Americans have tremendous respect for the ability of engineers and scientists to solve important problems and answer important questions, polls indicate many of us worry that technology moves too fast, and that its benefits blind us to important spiritual concerns.”
― Cornelia Dean, Am I Making Myself Clear?: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public