348: National Medals of Science

Eight Receive President's National Medal of Science | Science Blog:

Receiving the 2003 National Medals of Science were:

R. Duncan Luce, the Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine, awarded the medal in behavioral and social sciences, has been world-renowned as a theoretical mathematician of behavior of the past 50 years. … Luce’s early work in demonstrating the laws governing behavior in humans and his development of measurement theory helped shape research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and sociology for more than three decades. It formed part of the theoretical base on which computer modeling of behavior was developed.

Three medals were bestowed on researchers in the biological sciences.

J. Michael Bishop, Chancellor and University Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a leading contributor to cancer research for the past 30 years. He shared the Nobel Prize in 1989 with Harold E. Varmus for demonstrating that normal cells contain genes capable of becoming cancer-causing genes, a revolutionary finding that inaugurated a new era of research on the genetic origins of cancer. Bishop’s subsequent analysis of genetic changes in human cancers also influenced scientists worldwide. …

Also in the biological sciences, Solomon H. Snyder, the Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was acknowledged for discoveries that form the basis of most modern neurobiology. He transformed scientists’ understanding of neurotransmitters and their receptors in the nervous system. He pioneered the labeling of receptors and extended the technique by which numerous other neurotransmitter receptors in the brain are identified. His techniques became universally applied to the rational design of new drugs for psychiatric disorders and other conditions. …

Meanwhile, Charles Yanofsky, the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology at Stanford University was honored for discovering an essential element in the genetic code – the linear relationship between the structures of genes and their protein products – the one gene-one protein relationship. This was an important foundation to his subsequent experiments on the regulation of gene expression. His work has revealed how controlled alterations in RNA structure allow RNA to serve as a regulatory molecule in both bacterial and animal cells. …

In engineering, John M. Prausnitz, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, received the medal for a career reputation as one of the main architects of chemical manufacturing processes in the United States. …

Carl R. de Boor, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, Madison, received the Medal of Science in mathematics. …

In the physical sciences, G. Brent Dalrymple, Dean and Professor Emeritus, at Oregon State University, was honored for his work that improved the measurement of geologic time to new levels of precision, accuracy and application in the research of Earth’s past climates, as well as biological histories and major tectonic processes. He spent most of his career applying careful measurements to acquire the ages of rocks and minerals to verify and determine the timing and sequence of significant events in the history of the Earth and solar system. His methods were applied to dating the Lunar rocks that were returned from the Apollo 17 landing, for example.

Dalrymple was a leader in the plate-tectonic revolution, building and operating the Menlo Park Laboratory for precise dating of Earth’s magnetic-field reversals. …

Riccardo Giacconi, Research Professor at The Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physics & Astronomy … won the 2002 Nobel Prize in physics for laying the foundations of cosmic X-ray astronomy.

So, of the 8, I count 5 whose research is grounded in evolution or generates specific evolutionary hypotheses. Models of behavior which rely on game theory are fundamentally evolutionary. We've discussed evolution in cancer within the human body. Understanding neurotransmitters in mice tells us about human brains because of common descent. Understanding the genetic code is applicable to all of life for the same reason. Did you see that about bacterial and animal cells? Common descent, too.

The kicker is the guy dating ancient rocks and fossils.

That's pretty impressive for a theory that's supposed to be in crisis.