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Nora and Ted Sterling Prize
Past Recipients
Systems Change Coordinator
Outspoken advocate for those who use drugs awarded SFU’s Sterling Prize
Nicole Luongo is the 2023 recipient of the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her support and commitment to fighting for those who are stigmatized and marginalized for using drugs, as well as her progressive approaches to drug policy, which have drawn criticism.
Associate Professor
Criminology
STERLING PRIZE 2022: Recipient shrugs off controversy by keeping focus on victims
Alexandra Lysova was the 2022 recipient of the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her years of dedicated research on male victims of domestic violence—a field that can at times be fraught with polarizing and politicized debate.
PhD Candidate
Sterling Prize 2021: Challenging the role of museums in an era of reconciliation
Sdahl K’awaas (also known as Lucy Bell) is the recipient of the 2021 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her bravery in calling out racism in the heritage field and advocating for change in an era of reconciliation.
Native Education College
Sterling Prize 2020: How Canada changed the definition of genocide while harming Indigenous Peoples
When Raphael Lemkin first drafted genocide as a crime, cultural erasure was a key component. Yet, when the United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention in 1948, only physical and biological definitions of genocide were included—cultural definitions were absent.
Recipients Pre-2020
Harvard University
September 17, 2019
Steven Pinker receives 2019 Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy
Steven Pinker, Harvard University experimental psychology professor and author, is the recipient of the 2019 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for his book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
“Though as a mild-mannered Canadian I don’t think of myself as particularly inflammatory, controversy has followed me throughout my career, from irregular verbs to human progress,” says Pinker.
Pinker’s Enlightenment Now argues that by analyzing 15 different measures of human wellbeing, life has improved since the Enlightenment due to its values of reason, science and humanism—counter to news headlines of disaster and downturn.
Written in 2018, the book received significant praise and generated controversy. Reviewers lauded it for its exhaustive research and data-driven analysis of human progress. Critics said that Pinker mischaracterized the Enlightenment, that he cherry-picked his data and minimized current human suffering and inequality.
Pinker has countered these criticisms, saying that each one gets things backwards, and that much of the current feelings of fatalism are perpetuated by a news media industry that plays to psychological biases rather than reporting on systematic trends.
“People who explore ideas outside the conventional wisdom are often slandered, silenced, or worse,” says Pinker. “Yet history tells us that ideas that are unexceptionable today were denounced in their time.
“Recognition of controversial thinkers can be a counterweight to the indignities they face, and ultimately a contributor to intellectual and moral progress. I’m honored by this prize, and hope to live up to its ideals.”
Pinker will receive the Sterling Prize at an award ceremony on Tuesday, October 29 at SFU’s newly expanded Surrey campus. Following the ceremony, Pinker will give a presentation on controversy and issues of free inquiry and free speech in universities. The lecture will be open to the public and free with registration.
WHY IT MATTERS:
The Sterling Prize was first awarded in 1993 and remains committed to recognizing work that provokes and contributes to the understanding of controversy, while presenting new ways of looking at the world and challenging complacency. The Prize recognizes work across disciplines and departments and is awarded annually by the Sterling Prize committee. Normally, it is awarded to a member of Simon Fraser University, but it can be awarded to someone unconnected to SFU if the candidate’s contribution has been of exceptional merit.
School of Communication
October 18, 2018
Layla Cameron receives 2018 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy
Cameron receives the prize for her research, film work, and activism against fat discrimination and stigma
Layla Cameron, a journalist, filmmaker, fat activist, and Simon Fraser University PhD student, is the recipient of the 2018 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her work on issues surrounding body size and image, including the institutional and systemic discrimination faced by fat people.
“While I would like to think that my work isn’t controversial, I know it is based on the backlash I experience on a daily basis,” says Cameron. “With fat-phobia, fatness is seen as a ‘looming threat’ where anyone could become fat and individuals ‘defend’ themselves in the name of ‘lifestyle’ and ‘health’ rather than recognizing fat-phobia as oppressive.”
Cameron says that the pathologization of fatness is harmful and entrenched in all aspects of society. Fat activists and fat studies scholars point to how ‘obesity’ has been used as a negative term to characterize fatness and to pathologize it as a disease and ‘epidemic’—despite not meeting the criteria for either.
As a Communication PhD student, Cameron’s dissertation research analyzes the participation of fat bodies in reality television and whether fat-positive representations are possible within the genre.
Cameron also produced her first film Fat Hiking Club—a documentary that follows Summer Michaud-Skog, the founder of Portland Oregon organization Fat Girls Hiking, and her mission to make the outdoors accessible for everybody and every body. Cameron’s film premiered at the 30th Vancouver Queer Film Festival in August. She is currently touring the film internationally and is integrating it into her research.
“I’ve learned a lot in terms of what fat activist media looks like by making the film,” says Cameron. “In order to visualize a group of fat people hiking, I had to be conscious of portraying people while navigating tropes of fat people sweating or catching their breath that are so often used in reality television shows like The Biggest Loser.”
Cameron received the Sterling Prize at an award ceremony held on Thursday, October 18, 2018 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at SFU’s Vancouver campus.
The Sterling Prize was first awarded in 1993 and remains committed to recognizing work that provokes and contributes to the understanding of controversy, while presenting new ways of looking at the world and challenging complacency. The Prize recognizes work across disciplines and departments and is awarded annually by the Sterling Prize committee.
Faculty of Health Sciences
Donald MacPherson
October 10, 2017
2017 Sterling Prize Recipient
Donald MacPherson, the Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, is the recipient of the 2017 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for his work and influence in public health, human rights, and, drug policy reform in Canada.
“I am very honoured—it feels amazing to receive this award,” says MacPherson. “Simon Fraser University has been on the cutting edge of thinking around drug policy for 30 years if not longer.”
He will be presented with the Sterling Prize at an award ceremony held on Tuesday, October 10 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at SFU’s Vancouver campus.
MacPherson was working for the City of Vancouver as the Drug Policy Coordinator in 2001 when he drafted the A Framework For Action: A Four-Pillar Approach to Vancouver's Drug Problems (colloquially referred to as the Four Pillars Approach). Drawing on successful practices from European cities as well as ideas from within the community, the Four Pillars Approach advocated for drug prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement. The policy was radically progressive—with recommendations that would lead to the creation of the supervised drug injection facility Insite and prescription heroin addiction treatment programs.
“There should only be one side to this discussion: what is the best regulatory system to protect Canadians,” he says. “Drugs are problematic no matter how you look at it so we’re not looking for the perfect system, we’re looking for the least worst system of regulation. The worst system is the one we have right now—drug prohibition is the worst system and we have the numbers to prove it.”
MacPherson, through the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, continues to work with multiple organizations and governments to advocate for further reform. The recent opioid crisis that has spread across the country has increased the urgency for more political action on drug reform.
“The drug market is so toxic now that we have to end the illegal drug market,” MacPherson says. “The only way to do that is to begin to seek control of those drugs and regulate them—just as we’re doing with cannabis. Why should organized gangs and unregulated dealers get to operate this huge market in our country?”
MacPherson is no stranger to the controversy that drug reform holds within politics. The Four Pillars Approach and its advocacy for new prevention, treatment, and harm reduction methods was highly opposed by the conservative Harper government and even criticized by the Bush administration. The conservative viewpoint favouring drug criminalization and prohibition poses challenges to progressive politicians.
“We want to make it possible for politicians to talk about regulating drugs without risking their political lives,” he says. “We think it’s abhorrent that politicians play politics with peoples’ lives when the right thing to do is staring them right in the face—do what we do with all other substances and products—we regulate them.”
Biological Sciences
Dr. Bernard Crespi
October 17, 2016
2016 Sterling Prize Recipient
"Rethinking our understanding of human cognition, behaviour, and mental illness"
On October 17, 2016, the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy award was presented to Dr. Bernard Crespi for his research that re-envisions human mental illness through the lens of evolutionary biology.
Crespi’s Diametric Theory of Human Mental Illness, originally published with co-author and sociologist Christopher Badcock in 2008, proposes that psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia are diametric opposites on a mental illness spectrum. The theory also posits that human mental illness occurs in part from conflict between maternally and paternally-inherited genes.
According to the New York Times, Crespi’s theory is one of the most revolutionary ideas to psychiatry since Freud.
Dr. Bernard Crespi is a professor at Simon Fraser University’s department of Biological Sciences.
Lecture Summary
In his lecture, Dr. Bernard Crespi poses two questions:
One: How can evolutionary biology help in understanding, treating mental illness?
Two: What does the evolution of risk for mental illness tell us about ourselves and society?
Crespi answers this question by asking us to reimagine the past; what would have happened if Charles Darwin, instead of dropping out of medical school as he did, continued on, and graduated with a specialization in psychiatry? Perhaps, answers Crespi, he would have studied the relationship between mental health and evolution. And this is what Crespi himself decided to do; to study the correlation between evolution and mental health. This is highly controversial; arguing that there can be a relationship between mental health and evolution isn’t a readily accepted view. Yet Crespi looks at autism and schizophrenia, examining how they involve extremes of evolved adaptations, brought on through evolution.
He challenges conventional medical views of mental illness, which, Crespi argues, boils down to the following three points: that mental illness is due to bad genes, bad mutations; that it involves deficits in cognition; and that people are categorized into diagnoses based on said deficits. His evolutionary view of mental illness, however; involves extremes of evolved adaptations; involves both deficits and enhancements in cognitive traits; and considers people in the context of individual variation.
The implications of his assertion are revolutionary. Reassessing how we view mental health changes how we treat it; Crespi’s argument for stressing the individual circumstances of people makes a strong case for more personalized treatment, to a greater degree than is currently practiced. His conclusion is that neurodiversity, with mental illnesses at the extremes, has driven the evolution of our society: arts and humanities, and science and technology; all are part of the rich fabric of our society, constantly changing and transforming our lives and each other.
English and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Stephen Collis & Lynne Quarmby
October 16, 2015
"When Democracy Becomes Controversial: Climate Change and the Corporate State"
On October 13, 2015, the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy award was presented to Dr. Lynne Quarmby and Dr. Stephen Collis.
Stephen Collis is a poet, editor and professor. His many books of poetry include The Commons (Talon Books 2008; second edition 2014), On the Material (Talon Books 2010—awarded the BC Book Prize for Poetry), To the Barricades (Talon Books 2013), and (with Jordan Scott) DECOMP (Coach House 2013). He has also written two books of literary criticism, a book of essays on the Occupy Movement, Dispatches from the Occupation (Talon Books 2012), and a novel,The Red Album (BookThug 2013). In 2014, while involved in anti-pipeline activism, he was sued for $5.6 million by US energy giant Kinder Morgan, whose lawyers read his writing in court as “evidence.” His forthcoming book is Once in Blockadia (Talon Books 2016); he lives near Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish Territory, and teaches at Simon Fraser University.
Lynne Quarmby is a cell biologist and professor of molecular biology & biochemistry. Her research explores a set of molecular machines that serve as cellular antennae, receiving signals from the world outside the cell. Lynne is fascinated by the essence of life and thrilled that some of her group’s discoveries have helped us understand diseases as diverse as Polycystic Kidney Disease and Cancer. In 2011, the Natural Engineering and Research Council of Canada recognized Lynne with an Accelerator Award for her “originality and innovation.” Described by the media as a “soft-spoken biochemist,” in 2014 Lynne was arrested in an act of civil disobedience while protesting the Kinder Morgan pipeline/tanker project on Burnaby Mountain. At the time, she described civil disobedience as the loudest a citizen can speak in the face of an abuse of power by government.
Lecture Summary
Our democratic system is vulnerable and has been slowly dismantled by those in power, most egregiously by the Harper Conservatives. Citizens today must wrestle with the contradiction of participating in a broken system - voting, supporting parties and candidates, participating in public debate, even running for office — at the same time, recognizing that the most pressing issues we face (such as climate change, the geographical displacement of populations, and Indigenous rights and land claims), require us to take direct action outside of the electoral and representative apparatus of governance.
Freedom as Controversy: Indigenous Women and Girls and the Abolition of Prostitution
On October 16, 2014, the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy award was presented to Cherry Smiley, MFA. From the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) and Dine' (Navajo) Nations, Smiley is an artist, Indigenous feminist activist, and prostitution abolitionist. A front line anti-violence worker and accomplished public speaker on sexualized colonial violence against Indigenous women and girls, Cherry is a co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry (IWASI). IWASI is an unfunded group of Indigenous women and girls that work toward ending prostitution and advocate for the restoration of traditional Indigenous beliefs and structures that value women and girls. A recently graduated Master of Fine Arts student, Cherry's art practice is one that is deeply passionate and inherently political, grounded in her experiences as an Indigenous woman, radical feminist theory, and in the teachings handed down to her by her Elders. In 2013, Cherry received a Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case (youth) for her work in the interest of women's equality. In 2014, she exhibited Revolution Songs, an installation that focused on the experiences of prostituted women and women affected by prostitution. cherrysmiley.com
Economics
Anke Kessler
October 15, 2013
Does Misinformation Demobilize the Electorate?
The 2013 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy has been awarded to Simon Fraser University Department of Economics Professor Anke Kessler for her research into the robo-call allegations during the 2011 Canadian federal election.
The award ceremony took place on October 15 at SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and was followed by a lecture entitled Does Misinformation Demobilize the Electorate? Measuring the Impact of “Robocalls” on the 2011 Canadian Federal Election.
The Sterling Prize honours work that provokes and/or contributes to the understanding of controversy. Kessler’s 2012 discussion paper found that robo-calling, if the phenomenon did occur, could have significantly influenced voter turnout and ballot results in the last federal election.
The award also emphasizes the importance of challenging complacency.
Kessler, who regularly studies political institutions, government structure and elections, hopes that receiving this award will mean a renewal in public interest toward the matter of voter demobilization. She predicts that we will see these kinds of voter suppression strategies increasingly in the future.
“My hope is that political commentators and the public will stay vigilant, and that legislative steps will be taken to address potential abuse, and restore Canadians' level of confidence in an electoral process that is fair and free from deceptive practices.”
“It’s an honour to receive the prize, particularly for some rather serious research that was being directed at contemporary policy, and quite a pressing issue at the time,” states Kessler.
Statistics & Biology
Rick Routledge & Alexandra Morton
October 24, 2012
Salmon Farms and Disease
SFU fish statistician Rick Routledge and independent biologist Alexandra Morton have won the university’s Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for their research documenting potential threats to B.C.’s wild salmon from coastal fish farms.
The pair received their prize during an evening ceremony October 24 at SFU’s Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue before delivering their Sterling lecture, Salmon Farms and Disease: The Importance of Both Academic Freedom and Community-Engaged Research.
The Sterling Prize honours work that provokes and/or contributes to the understanding of controversy, but the two researchers say the recognition does nothing to mitigate the damage caused by the debate surrounding fish farms.
“The controversy has been very counterproductive,” says Routledge, who coastal fish farmers have labeled an activist.
“It has delayed vitally important regulatory changes that are needed if we are to reduce the currently unacceptable risks to the preservation of abundant runs of wild Pacific salmon.”
Morton agrees, but noted government and industry ridicule of their research has had an ironic impact on public support.
“What they don’t understand is the more we get attacked the higher our credibility rises,” says Morton.
“I simply remain dedicated to using science to measure and define the impact of farm-salmon pathogens on wild salmon. My observations suggest the impact is very serious and government is afraid to do anything about it.”
The duo have been alternately vilified, lauded and dismissed since they first teamed up in the early 2000s when they linked sea-lice infested Broughton Archipelago fish farms to passing juvenile wild salmon deaths and declining salmon runs.
Since then other researchers have corroborated their research and extended their findings.
Most recently, Routledge and Morton incurred fish farmers’ wrath when they announced they’d discovered infectious salmon anemia, a viral disease affecting farm-raised Atlantic salmon, in wild salmon in Rivers Inlet.
Faculty of Health Sciences
Bruce Lanphear
October 19, 2011
Crime of the Century: The failure to prevent the lead poisoning pandemic
Bruce Lanphear is both outspoken and an educator, but the 2011 recipient of SFU's Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy can also quickly flip an interview on the interviewer, in this instance, to the subject of Rachel Carson.
"Have you heard of Rachel Carson? How old are you?" asks Lanphear, caught in mid-preparation for his Plagues, Pollutants and Poverty: The Origins and Evolution of Public Health class he is offering this fall as Professor with the Faculty of Health Sciences. "[Carson] effectively started the environmental movement in the 1950's, she talked about pesticides, air and water pollution, she blazed a trail, but in a lot of ways we still haven't progressed."
Carson was a trailblazer in advancing the global environmental movement and perhaps Lanphear is channeling her spirit in his efforts to protect the world's children from the devastating health effects of lead. Since his first major study in 1994, Lanphear has been consistently fighting to reduce lead in our environment in an effort to reduce preventable illness.
In 2008, Lanphear was involved with the first national study that linked childhood lead exposure with conduct disorder, while another study demonstrated that childhood lead exposure was a risk factor for criminal arrests, especially arrests for violent behaviours in young adults.
"I was raised by parents who not only believed but expected you to change the world," says Lanphear, who moved away from the study of tropical medicine and infectious disease in 1992 to focus on lead. "[Lead] was and still is a major environmental risk factor affecting children. It's a distinct poison that causes behavioral effects in children, but there are still millions of homes that contain lead based paint, we have homes that have lead pipes that are contaminating water, there is often at times a failure to learn."
School of Resource and Environmental Management
Mark Jaccard
October 05, 2010
"Most governments have been unwilling to implement strong climate policies, although they talk a good line about ambitious targets and faking-it policies."
Mark Jaccard is an environmental economist whose unconventional research on climate policy and energy strategies has earned him both criticism and great acclaim. For almost two decades, Jaccard has maintained we will not reduce greenhouse gas emission unless our climate policies are dominated by strong emissions pricing and regulations.
Jaccard has agued that our energy options should not be portrayed as a choice between good and evil-between fossil fuels and renewable energy. All of Jaccard's positions have been controversial and unpopular with key interests at various times, including politicians, industry, some leading environmental groups and certain media. As a result, Jaccard has frequently been the object of attacks, sometimes of a very personal nature.
Biology
Michael Worobey
October 13, 2009
Michael Worobey is an evolutionary biologist whose pioneering, but highly controversial research into the origins of HIV, prompted attacks from the scientific community, the media, on the Internet and from the public - from rappers to ambassadors. His research was called "junk science" and racially motivated. His safety was threatened; his integrity questioned.
Through it all... "Dr. Worobey has remained true to his purpose of trying to understand the spread of HIV, and apply this knowledge to the battle against HIV/AIDS."
A graduate of Simon Fraser University, Rhodes scholar and faculty member at the University of Arizona, Dr. Worbey, is now recognized and honoured for his work: a research fellowship at St. John's College, Oxford, a Packard Foundation fellowship, the Frontiers of Science Kavli fellowship of the US National Academy of Science and the 2009 Sterling Prize.
Resources
Sociology
Heribert Adam
October 16, 2008
"... Seeking humane solutions to entrenched ethnic and racial conflicts." ... from a letter of nomination
From South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy to the seemingly intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, SFU Sociologist Heribert Adam has spent his academic career immersed in the thorough and rigorous study of some of the most volatile political situations on the planet. The Sterling Prize honors his extraordinary contribution to the understanding of conflict in ethnically divided societies. Now Professor Emeritus, he continues to teach in Graduate Liberal Studies. A prolific author, his most recent book is "Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking Between Israelis and Palestinians," co-authored with UBC's Kogila Moodley.
Psychology
Bruce Alexander
October 16, 2007
"Bruce Alexander has successfully integrated the academic and socio-political spheres of his life. In the process he has become a public intellectual and has frequently been vilified for his activist stances. His willingness to withstand the brickbats of firmly entrenched public opinion to the contrary and to confront it with carefully reasoned and empirically supported objections makes him a most worthy recipient of the Sterling Prize." … from a letter of nomination
Bruce K. Alexander, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at SFU, whose research discoveries and communication skills have brought science-based facts and measured commentary to the intensely polarized discussion of drug addiction and its effects on people and communities, was the 2007 winner of the Sterling Prize for Controversy.
Dr. Alexander has devoted the last 25 years to developing and defending his "adaptive" view of human addiction. Some regard addictions as moral failings, others as violations of religious beliefs, but most see addiction as a physical or psychological malfunction that requires medical intervention, public health measures, and the forces of law and order. The adaptive model posits that addictions result from failure to achieve the level of social acceptance, competence, self-confidence and personal autonomy required of individuals in the society in which they live.
Resources
English
"I am honoured by this recognition, and I would like to see the creation of more awards that recognize struggle," says Roy Miki. "Most awards simply recognize achievement, but it's important to acknowledge people who have gone against the system in order to eventually improve it."
Born in Manitoba on a sugar beet farm where his parents had been forcibly sent, Roy Miki is a third generation Japanese-Canadian. A leader in the successful Redress Movement to bring justice to those wronged by the government's action, he is Professor Emeritus of English at Simon Fraser University. An editor and biographer, his book, Surrender, received a 2002 Governor-General's Award.
In 2006 Dr. Miki has received three major awards: The Order of Canada for contributions to community and the arts; The Gandhi Peace Award and the Thakore Visiting Scholar award for his commitment truth, justice, human rights and non-violence, and The Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy.
Resources
Criminology
On October 29, 2005, at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Kim Rossmo became the second SFU graduate to receive the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy. His research on geographic profiling of serial crime is now used internationally. He was one of the very first to warn that there was a serial killer preying on women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He is a research professor in criminal justice at Texas State University, San Marcos.
Resources
Economics
Herbert Grubel, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University, was the 2004 winner of the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in support of controversy.
Grubel, a former Reform MP, has often challenged conventional wisdom and is well used to controversy. Whether it is supply management, unemployment insurance, the brain drain, immigration or North American monetary union “his advocacy, based on scholarly research, exemplifies the role the university should play in society,” says Barry Beyerstein, SFU Psychologist and Chair of the selection committee.
“It’s significant that although some members of the committee had some philosophical differences with Dr. Grubel’s views, they voted unanimously for the award. They recognized that his advocacy in these public debates has been principled and research-driven, forcing all concerned to examine their own beliefs and the evidence upon which they are based.”
Born in Germany, Grubel earned his doctorate in Economics from Yale in 1963. He taught at Stanford, Chicago and Pennsylvania before joining SFU in 1972. He had held temporary teaching and research appointments in Australia, England, Germany, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore.
The author of 23 books and nearly 200 articles in refereed journals, Grubel is one of Canada’s best-known economists. In 1995 he received the Kiel University Bernard Harms medal, marking his outstanding contribution to international economics.
Between 1993 and 1997 Grubel represented Capilano-Howe Sound in Parliament, serving as his party’s finance critic between 1995-‘97. He returned to SFU following the ‘97 election and, after mandatory retirement in 1999, has been a senior fellow and holder of the David Somerville chair in taxation and finance at the Fraser Institute.
Resources
Biology
Champion of Genetically-Modified Plants Honored
Simon Fraser University biologist and plant pathologist Zamir Punja, an international leader in the development of genetically-modified plants, was the 2003 winner of the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in support of controversy.
The world’s first genetically-engineered strains of carrot and ginseng came from Punja’s pioneering research. Throughout his career he has championed scientific evidence in the face of emotion and prejudice in an area that has lacked appropriate information and is often swamped with misinformation coupled with a lack of balanced debate. “There has been a lot of misguided doom-and-gloom predictions about the impact of genetically modified foods on our environment and concerns regarding consumer health," says Punja.
“Consumers have readily accepted earlier attempts at genetic alterations of crop plants because they have enhanced the quality of our food and in many parts of the world these genetic advancements have helped to stave off starvation for millions of people. Genetically modified foods are being developed with the same principles in mind.”
Originally from Tanzania, Dr. Punja did his undergraduate work at UBC and received his master and doctoral degrees at the University of California, Davis. Before joining SFU in 1989 he was a research scientist and manager with the Campbell Soup Company. His research has been published widely and is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, in addition to numerous public and private sector organizations.
The Sterling Prize was presented to Dr. Punja on Wednesday, October 15 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue where he spoke on Genetically Modified Foods: The myths, realities and controversies.
Resources
Psychology
What Daddy Did in the War
I came to Simon Fraser University in the fall of 1966 to teach differential psychology, data analysis, and measurement, as well as to do research in one or more of these areas. I taught our introductory course in data analysis, as well as undergraduate courses in individual differences, psychological measurement, personality, cognition, and the history of psychology, and took a small part in the turmoil of the fist decade of Simon Fraser. My primary area of research was on applying theories of scientific parsimony to the rotation and the determination of the number of factors in factor analysis. I also did some research on the relationship between intelligence and creativity. Some of the results of my efforts were published in Psychometrika, the British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, the Psychological Bulletin, the Journal of Multivariate Behavioral Research, the Canadian Journal Psychology, the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, and the American Psychologist. Occasionally, I see a reference to some of these old papers.
After about a dozen years on the job I realized that I had done pretty well all that I could do on factor analysis and decided to look for new areas in which to teach and do research. I chose behaviour genetics for several reasons. First, I had had a long time interest in genetics. Second, the models of quantitative genetics are similar to those of classical psychological test theory and I hoped for some positive transfer of training. Third, I had developed the theory that those who were high in creativity would be high in “innate” intelligence and low in “learned” aspects of intelligence. I thought that knowledge of behaviour genetics might help me estimate the innate intelligence of individuals so that I might have some hope of testing my theory.
I learned a lot about quantitative behaviour genetics on a year’s sabbatical at the Institute of Behavior Genetics at the University of Colorado. However, I was disappointed in the power of genetics to give deep expiations of behaviour. It seemed to me that heritabilities, and even finding genes for traits, did not provide a satisfying explanation for their existence and function. The fellow in the next office was a fish biologist on sabbatical leave from the University of Hawaii. He introduced me to evolutionary behavioural biology and sociobiology and it changed my life.
I decided to recycle myself as a sociobiologist. I became associate chair of the department in the early 1980s and facilitated my metamorphosis by assigning myself animal behaviour courses to teach. My enthusiasm for Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, my attraction to theoretical and methodological issues in psychology, the promotional and entrepreneurial side of my character, and my physical limitations shaped my research and teaching activities for the last 20 years. I began the development of research in animal and human sociobiology and became involved in promoting, first, sociobiology, and, later, evolutionary psychology at Simon Fraser University.
Members of my lab group have done research: on sex-biased parental investment in animals and humans; the impact of kinship and reproductive value on behaviour; fluctuating body asymmetry and personality, and health; waist-to-hip ratio and attractiveness; perceptions of the costs and benefits of helping; and the reproductive suppression model of anorexic behaviour. Some of the articles that came out of this research are cited in relevant places and figures from them are reprinted in some texts and academic books. However, I was never able to obtain the financial and intellectual resources necessary to turn any of these areas of research into a highly productive endeavour.
My integrative-theoretical efforts resulted in several articles in well-known journals and two edited books. My favourite articles are my two American Psychologist articles: “George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Arthur Jensen: Are they compatible” and “Sociobiology: An environmentalist discipline.” Crawford, Smith, & Krebs (1987) Sociobiology and psychology: Ideas, issues, and applications, Erlbaum, was one of the first books attempting to bring modern evolutionary theory and psychology together. Sandra Scarr, a well known developmental psychologist, gave it a major review in Contemporary Psychology titled “Sociobiology: The psychology of sex, violence, and oppression.” It resulted in an exchange of letters between Scarr and me in the journal. I believe I came out on top, but others may disagree.
Crawford & Krebs (1998) Handbook of evolutionary psychology: Ideas, issues, and application, Erlbaum, came out eleven years later. Contemporary Psychology again gave it a major review. I was hoping the editor would choose Sandra Scarr as the reviewer because I wanted to see if she had changed her mind on evolutionary psychology, and to have another go with her if she hadn’t. However, it was not to be. The handbook received a positive, though I thought innocuous, review by someone who I did not know.
I became involved in promoting evolutionary psychology at Simon Fraser for two reasons: my enthusiasm for promotional activities and my belief that it was one of the few avenues for the department to rise above the several hundred similar departments of psychology that exist in the English-speaking world. (I am not sure which was the most important motivator.) The senior administration was sympathetic to my efforts and over the last 20 years provided funds to bring a variety of well known evolutionary scientists, such as Jane Goodall, Edward O. Wilson, John Maynard-Smith, Martin Daly and David Buss to Simon Fraser for public lectures and research colloquia. Their lectures made it possible for me to produce the two edited books and gave evolutionary psychology at Simon Fraser a presence that it would not otherwise have achieved.
Of all my promotional activities my favourites were bringing Jane Goodall and Edward O. Wilson to Simon Fraser. Fifteen hundred people came to the Jane Goodall lecture even although there was a bus strike and getting to the top of the hill wasn’t easy. After Ed. Wilson received his honorary degree he packed the Images Theatre twice: once for a lecture on evolution and human behaviour and once for a lecture on insect social behaviour. He then gave another talk arguing that cognitive, evolutionary, neuroscience had great promise for the future of psychology.
To the extent that I did anything in the teaching area worth mentioning, it was the development of Psyc 385, Evolution and Social Behaviour. When I began teaching the course it was titled “Animal Behaviour,” and enrolled less than 20 students per year. In its most successful year (2000-2001), when the Distance Education version was still operating, it enrolled around 450 students. Moreover, it was a technically rigorous course, yet it had only Psyc 201 and 210 as prerequisites. I believe that more undergraduate students took a rigorous evolutionary psychology course at Simon Fraser than at any other university in the world.
After 2002
Dr. Catherine Salmon, my Michael Smith Foundation Post doctoral Fellow, and I will be doing research on the reproduction suppression model of anorexic behaviour until the fall of 2003. We have also signed a contract with Erlbaum Associates for an edited book titled Evolutionary psychology: Public policy and personal decisions that grew out of a lecture series we organized at Harbour Centre a couple of years ago. The publishers have agreed to bring out both hard and soft cover versions for the fall of 2003. I have been carrying on a battle with the Psychological Bulletin over an article titled “Adaptations, environments, and behaviour: Then and now” that I am not yet ready to give up on.
I have material for another Psychological Bulletin type article titled “Psychopathology: Genetic and evolutionary perspectives” that I would also like to complete. Maria Janicki and I developed a 250-page course guide for the Distance Education version of Psyc 385. If Maria gets a full time job in the next year, we may turn it into a more sophisticated text on evolutionary psychology than is now available. My editor at Erlbaum says he would like to do another edition of the handbook of evolutionary psychology. I will do it if he agrees to two volumes and a hard and soft cover edition published at the same time.
As I see it, the science of differential psychology is concerned with the psychological, biological, and sociological basis of individual differences in personality, intelligence, and social behaviour, as well as the methodology for their study. I have been doing it for the past 40 years and I plan to do it for a few more.
Business Administration
"It's not easy telling the Emperor he has no clothes. In order to discredit my findings, my critics have ridiculed my results and attacked me personally. My reply is that research studies should be judged by methodology, not by one's beliefs."
Gary Mauser's research has focused on separating fact from fiction in Canada's attempts to control guns. His research findings have brought him head to head with legal reformers, politicians and special interest groups, as well as, sometimes, other researchers. At the same time, activists have attempted to use his research as justificiation for their own agendas.
Gun control is supposed to make us feel safer, but are we? Does criminal violence usually involve guns? Do Canadians use guns for self-protection? Is gun ownership associated with increased crime? Gary Mauser's rsearch has led to conclusions that are disturbing and have brought much controversy to his door.
Gary A. Mauser is a Professor in the Faculty of Business Administration and in the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies. His work has been published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, Canadian Journal of Criminology, Evaluation Review, Journal of Firearms and Public Policy, Political Communications, Criminal Law Forum and Government and Policy. He has testified before the House of Commons, the Senate of Canada, and he as served as an expert witness before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Psychology
"She [Lesley Rogers] concludes that there is no proof that fetal hormones make any contribution to sex difference in human behavior. Among the researchers she takes to task ... Kimura is the top target."
Doreen Kimura's research has focussed on biological influences on human intellectual functions, especially brain mechanisms and hormonal factors.
Her recent research has looked at biocognitive differences between men and women. For example, on average, men excel on certain spatial abilities and mathematical reasoning; women on verbal memory and some kinds of verbal fluency. Performance on male-favouring spatial tasks is known to be related to early as well as current levels of male sex hormones, in both men and women; whereas performance on female-favouring tasks like verbal memory may relate to levels of estrogen.
This work has made Professor Kimura a target of criticism from those who consider all sex differences to be culturally based.
Criminology
"Crime is normal, even natural behaviour," Ezzat Fattah contends.
Decriminalization of drugs, modernization of the criminal law, abolition of the death penalty and of prisons, the struggle for human rights and for social justice have been some of the controversial lifelong focal issues for the critical research and social activism of Ezzat Fattah.
Among several crusading international missions he undertook for Amnesty International, the one to Libya stands out because of his pivotal address to the People’s Assembly and the session he had with Colonel Khaddafi pleading for the commutation of sentences of those on death row.
Founder of the SFU School of Criminology and one of the early pioneers in the young discipline of victimology, Dr. Ezzat Fattah’s research led him to become an outspoken critic of the victim movement, whose demands he sees as punitive and vindictive. He advocates instead a humane system of restorative justice, based on the notions of healing, reparation and restitution.
Biology
“Our gravest mistake has been waging an unwinnable war against pests. The effect of our chosen role in nature as dominators rather than stewards has been to turn ourselves into nature’s losers,” Mark Winston argues in his book, Nature Wars: People vs. Pests (Harvard University Press 1997).
A biologist and a member of SFU’s Centre for Pest Management and an international expert in the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and behaviour of honey bees and the social insects, Mark Winston argues that pests provide an excellent example to understand how our attempts to have dominion over nature have backfired. Instead, he proposes a new pest management ethic that favors biologically based alternatives with chemical pesticides used only as a last resort.
Modern pest control has become a war against nature, contends Winston. “I’m hoping that one of the things this book does is jolt people into thinking twice the next time they pick up a spray can or go to the grocery store.”
Criminology
“I challenge politicians at every level of government in the country to respond to research and arguments I will present at the award ceremony,” say John Lowman as the 1997 recipient of the Sterling Prize for Controversy.
A Professor in the SFU School of Criminology and a Canadian authority on prostitution, John Lowman, through his work, has challenged attitudes and understandings held by the general public, justice agencies and politicians. The fact that prostitution is legal in Canada, while soliciting is not, exemplifies the hypocrisy addressed by Lowman’s work.
“To reduce harm to all concerned, we urgently need to cut the hypocrisy and work out what we want prostitution law and social policy to accomplish,” Lowman contends. Dr. Lowman calls on Canadians to commit to four goals in a decriminalization process: for prevention of sexual procurement of children and youth; for protection of prostitutes from pimp coercion and customer violence; for encouragement of prostitute self-employment, cooperatives or non-profit management; and for protection of bystanders and of neighbourhoods from nuisance.
Criminology
“Ethical research need not be tamed,” argues Russel Ogden when receiving the 1995 Sterling Prize for his controversial research on AIDS and euthanasia for an MA in SFU’s School of Criminology.
Ogden’s research became a point of contention when he was asked to identify his subjects in his research in BC Coroner’s Court. He risked contempt of court by refusing to break the confidentiality that binds the researcher to his subjects. After defending his thesis, he gained international attention in, for example, the New York Times and on CNN. Since then, he has been invited to present his research findings in Canada, the US and the UK and was called to testify before a senate committee studying euthanasia and assisted suicide.
“His research is controversial, his method is daring, and his findings contribute to the assisted death debate,” says Marilyn Bowman, Psychology, Chair of the 1995 Sterling Prize Selection Committee.
Economics
"I never deliberately sought controversy, but I am attracted to problems that require solutions and to conventional wisdoms that need to be challenged," Copes argues when receiving the 1994 Sterling Prize.
The recent sharp decline of Newfoundland’s fish stocks, as well as those off the coast of British Columbia, accompanied by extreme levels of unemployment, have reaffirmed Copes’ work. Parzival Copes created a national controversy in predicting that Newfoundland’s economy would be unable to provide jobs for a large segment of its population in his 1961 salient study, St. John’s and Newfoundland—An Economic Survey, followed by his 1972 report, The Resettlement of Fishing Communities in Newfoundland, along with his critical analysis of "individual fishing quotas."
The accuracy of his predictions have been widely acknowledged as both provinces enacted closures of their fisheries and which, in the case of Newfoundland, resulted in struggles for economic survival.