

Physics Nobel Prize Winner Steven Chu Nominated to be Secretary of Energy - Anon84
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/12/10/steven-chu-nominated-to-be-secretary-of-energy/

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aheilbut
To be fair it should be noted that Samuel Bodman, the current Secretary of
Energy, is probably not a fool even though he doesn't have a nobel prize. He
does hold an Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT and was a prof there,
though this may be negated a bit by a long career in finance.

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Retric
In 1965, he completed his ScD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For
the next six years he served as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering
at MIT. But after 1972 he seems to have avoided any hands on work in the field
focusing on:

"From there, Secretary Bodman went to Fidelity Venture Associates, a division
of the Fidelity Investments. In 1983 he was named President and Chief
Operating Officer of Fidelity Investments and a Director of the Fidelity Group
of Mutual Funds. In 1987, he joined Cabot Corporation, a Boston-based Fortune
300 company with global business activities in specialty chemicals and
materials, where he served as Chairman, CEO, and a Director. Over the years,
he has been a Director of many other publicly owned corporations."

So clearly he is intelligent, has management experience, and a reasonable if
dated science background, but WTF is he doing overseeing the department of
energy?

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echair
Not an owner of a network of car dealerships in Texas? I'd forgotten this sort
of thing was even possible.

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nsrivast
NYT headline in five years (or WSJ headline in one year): "When Intelligence
Fails"

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Eliezer
I'm not totally sure that the talent set to win a Nobel Prize is the same as
the talent set for being Secretary of Energy. I hope he's had some economics
training.

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nihilocrat
I don't know, we haven't had much experience with actually qualified people
holding positions of power near the highest office of the country. I see this
as a minor triumph for meritocracy.

Smart people tend to be quick and adaptable learners, so the biggest problem I
can see is him burning out because he has to work with the US bureaucracy.

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anamax
What makes you think that a physics nobel qualifies Chu to be Energy
secretary?

I'm reminded of the book "The Best and the Brightest" - it documents their
failure.

In other news, the US energy problems are not technical in nature.
Technologists tend to overstate the importance of technology, despite being
surrounded by evidence that it isn't all that important.

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bbgm
And that department does some of the best work on alternative energy out
there, so he knows how to attract (and presumably manage) talent. Wonderful

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flashgordon
wow obama is really standing up to increase the tech-ness of his team...
wondering if it is all for show or will they actually deliver...

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quantumhobbit
Obama showed in the election that he understood the web. He was a professor.
Now he's hiring a physicist. Could he be a nerd? Is that possible?

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sown
He collects Spider-Man comics.

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jimbokun
I am _SO_ telling my sons this (4 and 6 years old, starting to really get into
the superhero thing).

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Anon84
It looks like we might have in office someone that actually knows what he his
talking about. That doesn't seem to be that common...

