WHAT'S NEW Friday, November 19, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park  Friday, 18 Nov 04  Washington, DC

1. PUTIN'S BOMB: A NEW GENERATION OF RUSSIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS? 
Maybe the Russian President announced a revolutionary nuclear
missile at this time because of sagging moral in the military,
or perhaps it was a belated entry for the Excalibur Prize. 
Putin said it would consist of "systems that other nuclear
states do not have and will not have in the immediate years to
come."  With nothing more than that to go on, some analysts
suggest Putin was talking about a ballistic missile capable of
evasive action.  Russia is thought to have been working on
such a missile, but there have been few details, and little
money to work with.

2. ANTI-MISSILE LASER: THE CHEMICAL-LASER LOBBY IS BACK AGAIN.
Nature.com this week reported uncritically on the test of an
infrared chemical laser meant to shoot down launch-phase enemy
missiles from a modified 747.  Well, the test wasn't exactly
airborne; it was in a hangar at Edwards AFB.  And they didn't
exactly shoot down anything, but one of the contractors said
it was "an exceptional achievement."  It certainly was for the
contractors   they've been milking this one for 20 years.  In
a 1988 book, While Others Build, a former Senate Intelligence
Committee staff member, Angelo Codevilla, declared the
chemical laser was ready to deploy.  This week, an Air Farce
contracting officer, Darleen Druyan, pled guilty to channeling
billions in contracts to Boeing in exchange for a job offer,
and the vaunted anti-missile chemical laser is still a
preposterous boondoggle.

3. "THE GOD GENE": NEW BOOK SAYS FAITH IS HARDWIRED IN OUR
GENES. Psychology, like just about everything else, has been
transformed by the genetics revolution.  Dean Hamer, a
behavioral geneticist at NCI, has now examined the genetic
basis of spirituality in an important book that explains why
we're predisposed to believe in God.  Evangelicals hate the
idea that they are motivated by a trick of brain chemistry. 
As near as WN can tell "the God gene" is just "the belief
gene," in Park's 2000 book, Voodoo Science.  The power of the
God gene was demonstrated this week when Diana Duyser put a
10-year old grilled cheese sandwich bearing an image of the
Virgin Mary up for sale on eBay.  It sold for $5,100.

4. MELBA PHILLIPS: SHE WAS, "A MODEL OF A PRINCIPLED
SCIENTIST."  When I saw in the Washington Post that Melba
Phillips had died at 97, I pulled down my copy of Classical
Electricity and Magnetism by Panofsky and Phillips.  I
imagined I could see on its pages stains of my sweat and
tears.  Said to be a great teacher, I knew her only from that
textbook, written while she was unemployed.  She had been
fired from Brooklyn College for refusing to answer questions
from the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee during the
McCarthy era.  Brooklyn College publicly apologized in 1987,
and later held a day-long symposium in her honor and
established a scholarship in her name.  Awarded the APS Joseph
Burton Award last year, she was cited as "a model of a
principled scientist."


THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.  
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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