Make plans now to attend the Heroes of Chemistry gala dinner and awards ceremony honoring the 2017 Heroes of Chemistry at the 254th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Washington, DC. The black tie event will be held on Sunday, August 20 at the J.W. Marriott Grand Ballroom, 1331 Pennsylvania Ave. The reception begins at 6:30 PM, followed by the dinner at 7:30 PM and awards presentation at 8:30 PM. Tickets are $130.00 each and can be purchased through the national meeting’s social event registration site. For more information, please email chemhero@acs.org.
Congratulations to the winners, and I hope you can attend.
What is a hero? Heroes are brave. They are selfless. They put their lives on the line, meaning they sometimes pay the ultimate price.
ReplyDeleteThey jump onto subway tracks to save someone who has fallen onto them-while a train is approaching in New York City. They defend Muslim women in Oregon who are being harassed by Alt-right racists. They diffuse improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.
Are these heroes of chemistry heroes?
I agree. Being a hero should be completely independent of intelligence. I really don't agree that someone can be a hero simply by having great recombination events in the 1st meiotic division so that he/she got the correct DNA base sequences to be intelligent enough to do research in an R1 school or higher.
DeletePerhaps the question should be: 'Chemists whose work you like, maybe even admire" I say maybe because we dont want to bloat any egos at these schools.
I agree that there are some unfortunate connotations. It makes me think of people such as Galileo, Marie Curie, the 'Fluorine Martyrs', and so on ... men and women who died in the course of research and teaching.
DeleteFrom dictionary.com
DeleteHero:
1. a person noted for courageous acts or nobility of character:
He became a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
2.a person who, in the opinion of others, has special achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is regarded as a role model or ideal:
This event is using definition number two.