Nathan Myhrvold Quotes
Elections, for their part, are typically popularity contests rather than measures of candidates' relative competency or effectiveness. Imagine if scientific truth were determined according to which scientist was most popular. To be successful, scientists would have to be charismatic and attractive - and human knowledge would suffer terribly.
Myhrvold, Nathan. "Government Efficiency." Slate, 1997.
This is a very material quotation with regard to Congress creating science-related policies and legislation. The members of Congress know the least about scientific matters than almost anything else that they have to legislate about. So typically they rely on scientific experts. Scientists are witnesses at Congressional hearings and often the political, polarized staff arrange to have scientists who disagree in something. They both have PhDs in the field, but one may be a great scientists and the other, a lightweight. This is where Alverez’s point becomes so critical. The Congress and staff have to learn how to differentiate between a “second rater” or a “Fermi” one of the great physicists of all time.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston
Nathan Paul Myhrvold, formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures and the principal author of Modernist Cuisine and its successor books. Myhrvold was listed as co-inventor on 17 U.S. patents at Microsoft and is co-inventor on over 900 other U.S. patents issued to his corporation and its affiliates.
