Lennart,
I realize English is not your native language. I try my best to afford you generous leeway when I can't parse your English grammar. After all, I don't know your native language. That said, I must confess that in this circumstance I don't quite understand what the point was that you were trying to make. Here's my point. If the high school boy who brought in his science project had not looked like a Muslim, this regrettable chain of unfortunate events never would have become news. Authority based on suspicion and fear took over and never asked for technical help. For crying out loud, the student brought his home made digital clock to school to show his classmates and teachers what he had built with his own brain and hands. As far as we can tell he never behaved in a secretive way when he brought his home project to school. Would a terrorist have revealed to his teacher what he had built? [Glad you liked it, sir. Excuse me now while I go take it somewhere secretive where I can arm it.] I would have hoped that those in authority would have recognized the simple behavior of bringing a project to school to impress a teacher. Unfortunately, authority overwhelmed with prejudice took over. Technical help never had a chance to weigh in. What a friggin fiasco. I'm glad he gets to show his science project off at the White House. You can bet Ahmed's visit will make news. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson OrionWorks.com zazzle.com/orionworks From: Lennart Thornros [mailto:lenn...@thornros.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 8:21 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Ahmed Mohamed case and distrust of experts Jed, Read what you just wrote, This is those authorities, you think we should respect, in action. Where I grow up there was no laws that we should be inoculated. I think you are confusing technical expertise and authorities. There is no problem with technical expertise. However, when you bring in the principal it all becomes law and order and there is always a law nowadays. . . . I am glad we have the same opinion. Now just get the names right. Best Regards , Lennart Thornros www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com <http://www.StrategicLeadershipSac.com> lenn...@thornros.com <mailto:lenn...@thornros.com> +1 916 436 1899 202 Granite Park Court, Lincoln CA 95648 “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” PJM On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 5:57 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com <mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com> > wrote: The Ahmed Mohamed case has swept the Internet. I hope the kid gets a normal life back. Anyway, I would like to point out something about this that clicked in my mind regarding cold fusion. This is a technical high school, specializing in engineering. The first teacher he showed it to saw it was a clock. I expect there are dozens of other teachers there who would instantly recognize it is a clock. So, when suspicion arose, and the kid and his clock were sent the principal's office, the principal should have called in one of the engineering teachers and asked "what is this?" The misunderstanding would have been cleared up instantly. Instead, the principal called the police. As you see from the news accounts the police knew nothing about electronics or bombs. Decades ago, when a technical questions arose, technical experts were called in, and the public accepted their judgement. There were laws that all children have to be inoculated against infectious disease. No one questioned these laws. An "anti-vaxer" movement in the 1950s, when the polio vaccine had just been developed, would have been unthinkable. All adults back then understood how dangerous polio is. Perhaps respect for authority and for expertise was too high back then. There were cases of that. But I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way. The tragedy of cold fusion is not that experts were wrong, but rather that experts were ignored. Decision makers ignored the scientific literature and did not listen to experts who had actually performed experiments. They turned instead to science journalists, then to ordinary journalists, to scientists who had no knowledge of the subject and who had read nothing, and finally, to anonymous people at Wikipedia who name themselves after comic book characters. - - - - - - - - - - - The story includes one of the most stupid quotes from a police department spokesperson I have ever read: “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.” Asked what broader explanation the boy could have given, the spokesman explained: “It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?” Broad?!? Call it broad or narrow, the gadget was a clock, and that was the one and only explanation, for crying out loud. - Jed
