(Robert Park has a Ph.D. in physics and an often testy impatience with those who appear to subvert the orderly procedures of science. Although he occasionally strikes back through the Op-Ed pages, he can be counted on more regularly in a weekly bulletin his Washington, DC, office prepares for members of the American Physical Society and friends. Each issue closes with this parenthetical notice: "Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the APS, but they should be." Some recent excerpts follow.)
November 17, 1995
NUCLEAR RETALIATION: BEAUJOLAIS BOYCOTT BOLSTERS BEER BUYERS. The initial reports on 1995 Beaujolais Nouveau are ecstatic, but H.R.2529, introduced by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), would impose a prohibitive tariff on imports of the fruity red wine. The 800% increase in duty would apply until President Clinton certifies to Congress that the government of France has terminated its nuclear test program and begun dismantling its nuclear test facilities in the South Pacific. An international Beaujolais boycott to protest the tests has calmed the annual madness that greets the new crop, but importers say U.S. sales are about normal. That could mean protestors here haven't quite gotten the hang of how a boycott works. In a demonstration in Washington yesterday, protesters dumped Beaujolais Nouveau on the sidewalk. The French producers don't care where the wine is poured. Concern that reduced red wine consumption could increase heart disease were eased by a new Harvard study that found it's only the alcohol that's important. Beer, it seems, works just as well. Science comes through again.
December 1. 1995
GROAN! "PSYCHIC SPYING RESEARCH PRODUCES CREDIBLE EVIDENCE," according to a news release from UC Davis. "The case for psychic functioning has been scientifically proven," statistics professor Jessica Utts explained, "resources should be directed to the pertinent question of how this ability works." Whoa! She based her claim on a 20-year program of "remote viewing" conducted by the CIA. The CIA views it a little differently--it wants to shut the program down as worthless. Kept alive at the insistence of a few members of the Senate, including Claiborne Pell (D-RI), who has reportedly been in touch with loved ones "on the other side," the program was directed by nuclear physicist Edwin May. Why, I keep asking myself, does it always have to be a physicist? Sigh.
December 8, 1995
THE "EAGLE ALLIANCE" IS FORMED TO PROMOTE NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. The chances of selling it to the American public are something like the odds that the Chicago Cubs will win a pennant, but an alliance led by the American Medical Association and the American Nuclear Society has been formed to revitalize nuclear science and technology. There hasn't been an order for a nuclear power plant in 15 years, nuclear waste depositories are political death, and even people who eat raw oysters wouldn't touch irradiated foods. But out of public view, evidence mounts showing that low-level ionizing radiation is not hazardous (WN 13 Dec 91; 13 Jan 95). At the Alliance's first meeting this week, even the once-ridiculed term "hormesis" could be heard; it refers to things that are good for you in small doses, but toxic in large amounts. What isn't?
December 15, 1995
STUDMUFFINS OR DWEEBS? "CAUSE SCIENTISTS AIN'T GOT RHYTHM!" Leon Lederman is developing a TV pilot to counter the negative image of scientists on the tube, and the 1996 Studmuffins of Science Calendar went on sale this week. (Well, they don't all look like Dr. January, but they at least look normal). So, is the dweeb image a new problem? We at WN decided to investigate. This week we review the 1937 movie version of Irving Berlin's "On the Avenue," with Dick Powell and Alice Faye. It begins with a scientist, played in triplicate by the Ritz brothers, peering through a giant telescope and singing, "I'm the loneliest guy in town," whereupon 50 chorus girls tap dance into the observatory singing, "Cause you ain't got no rhythm." "For what I learned about flies, I got the Nobel prize"; the chorus responds, "but you can't do the Charleston." "I'm a scientist to my fingertips"; response, "but you can't do nothing with your hips." We will try to keep our readers informed of further results of our research.
December 22, 1995
TOBACCO SMOKE OBSCURES THE ETHICS OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION. The American Thoracic Society decided that its journals will not publish the results of research funded by the tobacco industry. The industry has a shameful record of suppressing evidence of the deleterious effects of smoking, but censoring academic research funded by tobacco raises new ethical concerns, and impugns the integrity of academic scientists. Efforts to bar publication of work on the basis of funding source are not without precedent. During the Vietnam protest era, there was a motion in the Council of the American Physical Society to bar papers funded by DOD from publication in the Physical Review. The proposal was rejected.
December 29, 1995
DERIVATIVE: PHYSICISTS EXONERATED IN ORANGE COUNTY BANKRUPTCY! Who was to blame for the financial collapse of one of the richest counties in the nation? Physicists, according to "60 Minutes" on CBS back in March (WN 10 Mar 95); Wall Street hired physicists to concoct complex investments called derivatives "that no one can understand." Befuddled by these fiendishly clever physicists, the Orange County Treasurer, Robert Citron, lost $1.4B. According to Grand Jury testimony released this week, however, Citron relied on the advice of a local psychic and a mail-order astrologer for financial guidance. To be fair, the astrologer predicted December 1994 would be a bad month. The county declared bankruptcy Dec 6.
January 12, 1996
WHAT'S CUCKOO: HIGH-TECH DOWSING ROD LOCATES TIMID LABORATORY. The Quadro Corporation, which markets the QRS 250G Detector, a dowsing rod with an antenna that outperforms old fashioned willow branches, says the device can locate anything from weapons to buried treasure--well worth the price of $995 each. But a Sandia National Labs scientist thought it might be a good idea to test one. It failed to locate anything; dissection found just plastic! Sandia sources tell WN that management directed scientists to remain silent in the face of a threat of legal action by Quadro.
Jauary 19, 1996
DOWSING: CREDULOUS SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE ARTICLE FINDS QUACKS. New Age dowsers claim pendulums work just as will as twigs. We at WN would stake our reputation on it. What's more, you can dowse on a map without trudging around on foot. And it's not just water now; dowsing can even locate an intestinal blockage. An editor defended the article, saying readers would not take it seriously. Does the Smithsonian have any idea what people take seriously?
January 26, 1996
DOWSED: THE FBI CLOSES DOWN QUADRO AND ARRESTS ITS OFFICERS. WN reported on Quadro's high-tech dowsing rods two weeks ago (WN 12 Jan 96). Saturday, the FBI moved in and charged the company's officers with fraud in the sale of more than a thousand of its "Trackers," mostly to law enforcement agencies and schools. Ace quack buster James Randi described what the FBI found at Quadro's "secret research facility" in Harleyville, SC: To "tune" Trackers to substances such as cocaine, a Polaroid photo of cocaine powder was repeatedly enlarged with an office copier until the molecular structure could be seen. A tiny piece of the final picture was inserted into the device. A lawyer for the Quadro Corporation said "It's clear that the FBI doesn't understand how it works."
IBM SCIENCE: BEAM ME UP SCOTTY, IT'S GETTING CRAZY DOWN HERE. "Stand by. I'll teleport you some goulash...An IBM scientist and his colleagues have discovered a way to make objects disintegrate in one place and reappear intact in another," according to an ad in February's Scientific American. Tipped off by a WN reader, I sent an e-mail to "askIBM" requesting more information. "Hello Bob," came back, "This is still under development and no further information is currently available. Thank You for using askIBM. Roseann." Are they having trouble with the di-lithium crystals?
February 2, 1996
IBM: TOO MUCH PAPRIKA LEAVES SCIENTISTS WITH A BITTER TASTE. The "goulash" ad (WN 26 Jan 96), which ran in magazines ranging from Scientific American to Rolling Stone, claims "IBM scientists have discovered a way to make an object disintegrate in one place and reappear intact in another." Do you believe that? Well, neither does IBM! An article in IBM Research Magazine says, "it is well to make clear at the start that teleportation has nothing to do with beaming people or material particles from one place to another." So what's going on? There are several theories. One reader noted that many research scientists, disintegrated at IBM labs, have been observed to reappear intact at universities.
February 9, 1996
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: READY FOR A REMAKE OF PONS & FLEISCHMANN? An ABC News story this week followed a familiar script: credulous reporter interviews smiling man in white smock, who explains that when he coats tiny beads with copper, nickel and palladium, puts them in salt water, and then runs a current through the mess, he gets 100 times more energy out than he puts in. Reporter touches cell and exclaims, "It's warm!" How does it work? Inventor says he has no idea. Reporter puts on his serious face and looks into the camera: "There have been dozens of claims of ideal energy sources, but this device is different. It has attracted serious interest from major companies and been verified by scientists at prestigious universities." Now insert a seven-second sound bite from a skeptic for "balance," and then one final shot of the inventor, James Patterson, writing science stuff on a blackboard.
February 16, 1996
OAM: THERE WERE SOME VERY STRANGE TALKS AT THE AAAS MEETING. One of the strangest was by Wayne Jonas, director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at NIH. Speaking in a session on Life Long Health: Beyond the Medical Model, Jonas explained that OAM is examining therapies that are not based on the Western model of medicine. In the hall afterwards, he was asked if OAM had found ANY alternative techniques that did NOT look promising. Jonas was unable to name even one. In a related session, one speaker described experiments showing enhanced growth of plants that are prayed for. I recall experiments 25-30 years ago in which growth rate was used to rank the efficacy of different prayers. Alas, this promising line of research fell out of favor after a group appealing to satanic forces observed still faster growth.
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