IWatchWormsHaveSex

"I would allow each state to decide and not the federal government what the rules of marriage are."

Why? Do you feel that marriage and its attendant legal and economic benefits are not a civil right? How much would your "traditionalist" upbringing affect other areas of legislation?

Sorry to hijack, but to add to this question, what does this mean in terms of federal marital benefits vs. state marital benefits? Say one state allows gay marriage and another does not, does the federal government then recognize the marriage from the state that does, but not the marriage from the state that does not? Would you be in favor of federally recognized civil unions for all couples, as opposed to "marriage licenses"? If you are not in favor of any federal recognition of marriage, what do you propose should be done with things like social security?

Do you do any kind of outreach for local school kids?

Excellent point. As a student working towards my Ph.D, honestly the most discouraging thing about the prospect of becoming a professor is the reality that most of your time is spent writing grants, because funding is never certain. Why should I go through years of "training" in bench science (which is something I actually enjoy) so that I can have a career sitting in front of a computer thinking of new and creative ways to beg for money?

I do, however, agree with Dr. Lander that the time to first faculty position needs to be shortened. But of course the solution to that is more faculty positions. The problem now is that there are fewer faculty positions than people looking for them, so they are very selective. Which means that in order to qualify, you have to be super productive as a grad student/postdoc, which often takes a really long time. If there were more faculty jobs to go around, perhaps we wouldn't need 5 Nature papers in order to even be considered.