MacArthur Foundation Announces Genius Grants

Chagasi writes: "The MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's 'Genius Grant' awards. The complete list of the 24 recipients can be read here(1) at their web site and here(2) via Google's news service. The winners include a robotics researcher from Dartmouth studying robotics, and a paleoethnobotanist from Penn State studying the ancient plants and foods of prehistoric peoples."

Comments

Re:There is no diversity!!!

[buswolley]

As others have pointed out there are fewer "minorities" on the list. However we must make the distinction between a genius, and a genius who 'does'something. There probably is as many 'natural' geniuses in every minority group, but fewer geniuses in the groups manage to do something about it because of the social conditions in which they are raised.

Ie. There are few major women scientists from the renasiance.[sp?] This is not because they are dumber. Its because the culture didn't allow them to discover the genius inside them, and go out and do something about it.

C'mon slashdotters.. this is simple logic ,no?

Re:Grants for open source developers

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Richard Stallman won one of these a few years ago; and he well deserved it too. Without the GPL or the toolset he created Linux would probably have languished in obscurity like Minix did.