-----Forwarded Message-----by Akira Kawasaii
>From: What's New <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: May 18, 2007 5:36 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 18, 2007 WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 18 May 07 Washington, DC 1. DOE POLYGRAPH PROGRAM: COUNTER INTELLIGENCE TAKEN LITERALLY. A 30 Apr 07 memo notified Los Alamos employees that random polygraph tests of 8,000 personnel in high-risk categories will be conducted by the DOE as part of a new counter-intelligence program. Three years ago, a National Academy of Sciences study done at the request of the DOE, The Polygraph and Lie Detection, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn041803.html concluded that the high incidence of false positives made the polygraph worse than useless. Nothing indicates it will work any better for randomly chosen personnel. The polygraph, in fact, has ruined careers, but never uncovered a single spy. If you have an orgasm while being tested and lie about it, the operator can probably tell. For anything else, it’s a coin toss. 2. COLLAPSING BUBBLE: PURDUE LAUNCHES A NEW PROBE OF TALEYARKAN. Our last episode in the continuing Rusi Taleyarkhan sonofusion mystery ended as Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), chair of the Science Investigations Subcommittee, asked for the report http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN07/wn032307.html . Last week, the subcommittee concluded that, although Purdue had bungled the investigation, the still-secret internal report reveals serious deviations from accepted scientific practices. In today’s installment, according to Science, there are new allegations, as a result of which the University is undertaking a broader study, expected to take another 3 months. It’s already been a year. 3. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: CREATIONIST ASTRONOMER DENIED TENURE. Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University. The Discovery Institute was shocked at this blatant disregard of the cherished principle of “viewpoint diversity.” With Jay Richards, a theologian, Gonzalez wrote The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery. It’s a daffy twist on the anthropic principle, which was already daffy enough. The simple fact is that his colleagues voted him off the island. It’s not like he was tenured and then fired. 4. TENURE: IT DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU’LL BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. Something happens to scientists who think too much about the anthropic principle. Frank Tipler and John Barrow wrote The Anthropic Cosmological Principle in 1986. Last year it won Barrow the $1.4M Templeton Prize. Tipler probably thinks he should have gotten it in 1994 for The Physics of Immortality, but he’s not giving up. In his new book, The Physics of Christianity, out this month, Tipler equates the Holy Trinity with the cosmological singularity. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnew&A=1
