-----Forwarded Message----- >From: What's New <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Dec 1, 2006 7:01 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday December 1, 2006 > >WHAT?S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Dec 06 Washington, DC > >1. FRAUD IN SCIENCE: SCIENCE MAGAZINE HAS DELIVERED A RESPONSE. It is not >unethical to be wrong. Every scientist will at times be wrong, but we >assume that authors of science papers THINK they got it right. The >rewards of success are so high in certain areas, however, that it must be >tempting to guess the answer without doing the research. We saw it in >2002 with Jan Hendrik Schoen at Bell Labs, and again in 2004 with the stem >cell work of Woo Suk Hwang at Seoul National University. In the Hwang >case, Science, which published the work, immediately retracted the two >papers and began a thorough review of the peer review procedure. The >report urges scientists to give special attention to research results that >are especially visible or influential. Today, in a Science editorial, >Donald Kennedy invites comments. > >2. INCONVENIENT REFUSAL: SO MAYBE SCIENCE TEACHERS LIKE IT HOT. If you >haven?t seen it, Al Gore made a film about global warming. It received >overwhelming endorsement by scientists. On Sunday, the Wash Post ran an >opinion piece by Laurie David, a producer of the film. She thought it was >educational. Of course, so did the Discovery Institute when it >distributed, Unlocking ?The Mystery of Life: The Scientific Case for >Intelligent Design.? When the company that made Inconvenient Truth >offered the National Science Teachers Association 50,000 free DVDs for use >in classrooms, the NSTA said ?no.? I wouldn?t want them pushing Mystery >of Life either, but NSTA seemed more worried about its ?capital campaign? >contributors, including Exxon, Shell and the coal industry. > >3. EXPORTING CREATIONISM: NO LONGER JUST AN AMERICAN PROBLEM? For years >American scientists endured the barbs of colleagues in Europe about >fundamentalist Christianity in the US. A Special Report in Nature this >week warns that creationism is beginning to threaten science in Europe. >Teaching creationism in public schools was outlawed by the Supreme Court >in 1968 in Epperson v. Arkansas. It has been in retreat ever since with >one name change after another. The latest was ?intelligent design.? >Meanwhile, the UK is finding it necessary to teach remedial evolution to >college students. Turks, and Islamic immigrants throughout Europe, cannot >imagine anything happening except by God hand. > >4. THE LIMITS OF GROWTH: BEWARE OF THOSE EXPONENTIALS. Yesterday in the >NY Times, Thomas Homer-Dixon reminded us of a famous wager 26 years ago. >Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich bet the price of certain metals would >increase in a decade as they were depleted. The late Julian Simon, a U. >Maryland professor, bet they would get cheaper as substitutes and new >deposits were found. Simon won. He asked me why the physicists had all >bet with Ehrlich. ?Because, Julian, they understand exponentials,? I >said. Today, Homer-Dixon points out, Ehrlich would win easily. > >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
