Bruce AlbertsNCSE congratulates Bruce Alberts on winning the Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Board. The award is bestowed upon truly exceptional lifelong leaders in science and technology who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the nation through public service activities in science, technology, and public policy. In a press release issued on April 1, 2010, Steven Beering, the chair of the National Science Board, commented, "We are pleased to recognize Bruce for his dedication to the creativity, openness and tolerance that define science, passion for improving the human condition and transformational and inspirational leadership in science education, international capacity building and the tireless pursuit of a 'scientific temperament' for the world."
"Many of my personal heroes of science have previously received the Vannevar Bush Award and it is, of course, an enormous privilege for me to join them," said Alberts in the same press release. "In this era of instantaneous, infinite information everywhere, it has become critical to our survival that a scientific way of analyzing problems, based on evidence and logic, become much more dominant around the globe. Those of us who are scientists thus have enormous challenges before us: challenges that will require that we expand our view of science and its role in society." He called upon scientists all around the world "to help create more rational, scientifically-based societies that find dogmatism intolerable." Alberts will receive the award at the National Science Board's Annual Awards Dinner in Washington DC on May 4, 2010.
Alberts is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, and the editor-in-chief of the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A Supporter of NCSE, Alberts received its Friend of Darwin award in 2004, in recognition of his support of and advocacy for the integrity of science education while at the National Academy of Sciences, when it published both Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998) and the second edition of Science and Creationism (1999). He also received the AIBS Education Award from the American Institute for Biological Sciences in 2009.