Interesting article; thanks for passing it along.
However, if the premise of the survey was that the NAS was the best place to
find a majority of "leading" scientists I would have to dispute that. The
NAS certainly has its share, but most of its members are not "leading"
scientists (I've been invited to join a dozen times in as many years, and I
am certainly not a "leading" scientist). I doubt that they can even claim
the membership of most of the "leading" scientists in America, though I
couldn't guess at what percentage could be members. Certainly the American
Chemical Society or the American Association for the Advancement of Science
have members that are "leading" scientists that are not members of the NAS;
probably more since NAS membership is by invitation only.
My point is that the people who conducted the survey didn't try to single
out "leading" scientists in every organization, but instead surveyed the
general membership of a single organization. As such, I would say that the
results tell us more about the opinions of the membership of the NAS than it
does "leading" scientists in general.
Kevin L. O'Brien