Vartan Gregorian Quotes
There is no such thing as a private institution in America; there is no such thing as a public institution. Private institutions go after public money and public institutions go after private money.
Vartan Gregorian, President, Brown University, Interview, C-SPAN, Booknotes, June 29, 2003
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The vast majority of public funding for science is decided upon by peer review by scientists themselves. The government officials do not make most of the decisions. They rely on panels of scientists. The reason some of Venter’s early ideas were not funded was that the majority of scientists did not think Venter’s research was a good bet. Venter however is one of those scientists whose ideas have been very unorthodox and his great strength is that he does attack problems in unusual ways and he has had a number of major scientific breakthroughs. Venter is very persuasive and has found it easier to convince businessmen to fund him than the scientists who sit on the government science panels. However, American government money has funded many of the major breakthrough’s of our society including, manufacturing with interchangeable parts, railroads, the telegraph, computers, atomic energy, and the Internet.
His Virgin Group companies founded a biofuels research and production company.
He was discussion the role of the media in terms of psychological national security in the wake of the September 11 attack.
Hamilton, then the Treasury Secretary, had proposed the creation of a national bank with the seemingly incredible notion of having it run by private individuals and not responsive to Congress. The experience of Europe and the individual states convinced Hamilton and some others that no government, monarchy or republic, could resist the temptation to print money rather than deal with basic economic problems. If in private hands, and least to protect their wealth, the bankers would not debase the national currency. Hamilton’s view actually prevailed with some Jacksonian adjustments and interruptions along the way. Today, the Federal Reserve Banks are to a great extent private. But neither Congress nor the President can control the money supply. There are some who object for just the reason that they feel that in a democracy all the levers of government should be under the control of the representatives of the people.
2nd Viscount Melbourne
Vartan Gregorian was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian. He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021.
