Soundbites

Here is a sampling of quotations from Cornell University faculty, students and staff that have appeared recently in the national and international news media:

"You know, I am very lucky that I received recognition and honors early in my career, so that by the time I started making real waves I already had stature. ... [peer review] rewards small steps but discourages bold ideas and the very sort of cross-discipline thinking that can provide the greatest breakthroughs. I don't think there's any question that we produced more great ideas in the first half of the 20th century than we have in the second."

--Thomas Gold, professor emeritus of astronomy, discussing his controversial theories in a profile of his life and work in The Washington Post, Nov. 1.

"Clearly, mediation can be successful with couples who want to do right by each other and aren't trying to manipulate each other. But, in mandatory mediation, it often doesn't work and adds an extra layer of cost and time. Often the assets are frozen and the person who isn't the primary wage-earner is at a financial disadvantage and might make concessions to speed things up. ... Why not just use law? What does mediation add?"

--Martha Fineman, Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence in the Law School, commenting on the growing use of mediation in the United States to settle divorce disputes, in The Washington Post, Nov. 1

"The Leubners could argue they own a trademark to [the name] Tim's Pumpkin Patch because they believe their business is synonymous with the name and that people immediately think of their pumpkin patch and no other when they hear that name. But it would be a tough case [to prove] because both owners are named Tim and both have used the name for years."

--Peter Martin, professor of law, commenting on a trademark infringement dispute between the owners of two pumpkin patches in adjacent Syracuse suburbs, in the Syracuse, N.Y., newspaper The Post-Standard, Oct. 28.

"There is general scientific outrage at the Lancet for publishing data that its own reviewers rejected as unscientific. If it was anything else, like a way to prevent heart disease or cancer, they would never publish shoddy work."

--Charles Arntzen, president of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell, criticizing publication by the medical journal Lancet of a controversial study in Scotland involving gene-altered potatoes, in The Washington Post, Oct. 15.

"You pass more biological milestones before you're born than after. What happens to you in the womb can program your health for a lifetime."

--Peter W. Nathanielsz, the James Law Professor of Reproductive Physiology, discussing his book Life in the Womb: The Origin of Health and Disease, in The Washington Post, Sept. 28.