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Myron is slowly catching up on his e-mail back
log.
----- Original Message -----
From: myron
pollycove
To: Jim Muckerheide ; RAD-SCI-L
Cc: "Jerry Cuttler"
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 3:00 PM
Subject: Re: Junk science threatening the health of science itself,
from The Week That Was, December 20, 2003 As Jim repeatedly emphasizes, official agencies that establish guidelines and adopt rules for public safety persistently disregard valid reproducible observations that contradict the LNT rule. Their unscientific disregard of exceptions to LNT is understandable by the desires to "follow the money" and for "power and influence." Nobel Prize physicist Richard P. Feynman gave a series of three lectures in April 1963 at the University of Washington, Seattle: "The Uncertainty of Science," "The Uncertainty of Values," and "This Unscientific Age" --- 40 years before the Michael Crichton lecture at Caltech. These Feynman lectures were published in 1998 by Perseus Books: "The Meaning of It All....Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist." To quote Feynman from "The Uncertainty of Science": "The third aspect of my subject is that of science as a method of finding things out. This method is based on the principle that observation is the judge of whether something is so or not. All other aspects and characteristics of science can be understood directly when we understand that observation is the ultimate and final judge of the truth of an idea. But 'prove' used in this way really means 'test,' in the same way that a hundred-proof alcohol is a test of the alcohol, and for people today the idea should really be translated as, 'The exception proves that the rule is wrong.' That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong. The exceptions to any rule are most interesting in themselves, for they show us that the old rule is wrong. And it is most exciting, then, to find out what the right rule, if any, is. The exception is studied, along with other conditions that produce similar effects. The scientist tries to find more exceptions and to determine the characteristics of the exceptions, a process that is continually exciting as it develops. He does not try to avoid showing that the rules are wrong; there is progress and excitement in the exact opposite. He tries to prove himself wrong as quickly as possible." Myron Pollycove 11441 Hollowstone Drive North Bethesda, MD 20852 Ph: (301)816-3119 Fax: (301)816-2863 E-mail: pollycove@comcast.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Muckerheide" <jmuckerheide@cnts.wpi.edu> To: "RAD-SCI-L" <rad-sci-l@WPI.EDU> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 4:45 PM Subject: RE: Junk science threatening the health of science itself, from The Week That Was, December 20, 2003 > Friends, > The following msg by Jerry Cuttler, with a large attachment from Fred > Singer's SEPP web site, bounced. Please read the full paper at: > http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/GW-Aliens-Crichton.html > > This is a powerful indictment of the present state of science, and > should be widely read, distributed, and applied repeatedly in > questioning current "science" as we know it. > > Thanks. > Regards, Jim > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-rad-sci-l@WPI.EDU [mailto:owner-rad-sci-l@WPI.EDU] On > Behalf > > Of Jerry Cuttler > > Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 2:39 PM > > To: cdn-nucl-l (E-mail); RAD-SCI-L > > Subject: Junk science threatening the health of science itself, from > The > > Week That Was, December 20, 2003 > > > > By relating aliens to global warming, Michael Crichton presents a > > brilliant exposition of how junk science came to distort public > > policy - and ultimately threaten the health of science itself. It > > is a rather long lecture, delivered at Caltech, but well worth > reading. > |