ABSTRACT
Leonard Silk, a science writer who covers economics for The New York Times, not long ago listened for several days to a group of scientists discussing various aspects of aging processes. Scientists, he observed, love to dissect and reduce problems to the level at which they are intellectually comfortable but demonstrate little affection for putting the pieces back together. Mr. Silk, originally trained as an academic, understood but regretted the intellectual, political, and practical forces which impel scientists to specialize and to focus on a narrow range of problems which they believe they can solve with available disciplinary theory and methods. He would, therefore, be pleased to note the existence of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (ABMR), the legislatively mandated commitment of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to multidisciplinary research, and the interest of NIA and the Institute of Medicine in promoting discussion of interrelationships among health, behavior, and aging.
