Good to get away from Calista for a change, huh, Mr.Ford?

It's a great idea and I appreciate the donation that Harrison Ford has made. In the world of books and in-depth learning, it always helps when the book has been written in a literary way, to make the reading both informative and enjoyable. Rachel Carson would never have made the huge impact she did in writing Silent Spring, effectively launching the environmental movement, had her writing not been as much poetry as biochemistry.

Unfortunately, in today's world, the real crisis is not in the number of readible books available on critical scientific subjects but rather in the number of authoritative scientists who can speak articulately in sound-bites about complex, cross-disciplinary topics, such as climate change. Life and planet-threatening issues are often tossed about in the media in blitz interviews, where a scientist is pitted against a mud-slinging spokesperson and their two statements are weighed equally as if "opinions." In this format, scientists who have spent entire careers in labs and in the field are at distinct disadvantages against media showmen. Yet, people will listen to the blitz interview and decide how to vote! They are not stopping to read the authoritative, if literary, scientific book.

What's really needed is to have a program or a prize endowed that helps to train and motivate scientists to develop the skills to stand up for what their science research means against the likes of a Glenn Beck. We need scientific spokespeople who can hold their own against a nay-sayer who seeks sensationalism rather than facts! This is the state of our media and the source of much public information. Sadly, the foremost scientist both cognizant of this crisis and also capable of holding his own in the media, Dr. Stephen Schneider, recently died, leaving the scientific world much poorer as a result.

I learned about nanotechnology from one of Michael Crichton's novels ("Prey"), as well as the chaos theory in his book, "Jurassic Park." I'd have never read about these scientific concepts any other way, so I'm all for, as stated in the article, marrying literature with science information. A few years ago I taught a college course called "history in literature," and it was a fun and creative way to study history. One of the books used, for example, was Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The use of fiction is highly effective and one of many ways to teach to a subject.