Articles by Stan Fields (26 results)

Considering my career as a whole, I have had a major role in three hugely creative experiments. It might be instructive to examine the features common to the three. They were all carried out when I was relatively young and my title was assistant professor. They all occurred when I had relatively little funding. Perhaps…

A worrisome habit is arising among some American politicians. They don’t like what scientists conclude about some supposedly controversial topic so they try to defund the research. A good example of this tactic is climate change—in recent months, we’ve heard of efforts to limit NASA, EPA, NOAA, and NSF funding for research in geoscience. But…

For an American biologist, submitting a grant application to the NIH may feel like buying a lottery ticket for Powerball. Or perhaps it’s more like the inside of the bottlecap that reads, “Each participant has a 1 in 250,000 chance of winning the big prize.” Yet there may be a way to make the likelihood…

When I was a little kid and my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell her: “I want to be President ––– of the Genetics Society of America”….uh….maybe not. But electoral success came my way anyway. Think of the perks: the fancy house, the private plane, the…