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Showing posts from January, 2012

New Merit Review - Intro

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  There are 13 team members listed in development of the NSF-MRC: John Bruer, Alan Leshner, Louis Lanzerotti, Doug Randall, Diane Souvaine, Thomas Taylor, Ray Bowen, etc. To the general email address for the National Science Board, I sent the following request for an explanation: Title: Transformative Research and NSB/MR-11-22   Good Day, From what I gather out of the latest NSB report on NSF Merit Review Criteria, neither the team itself nor “stakeholders” identified by SRI included a single specialist in the history of scientific revolutions to inform the report’s definitions & understanding of “transformative”.  As this type is explicitly defined as the highest value, and the top Foundation support priority within the domain of projects “of the highest quality”, such absence seems to warrant explanation. Substantial knowledge has been gained during the past half-century, making NSB inclusion of vague and naïve preconceptions baffling.  Ex