WHAT'S NEW Friday, February 25, 2005

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 25 Feb 05   Washington, DC

1. MISSILE DEFENSE: CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER FINALLY DECIDES: "NO!" 
With US interceptor missiles refusing to come out of their silos,
http://www.aps.org/WN/index.cfm, Canadian Prime Minister Paul
Martin did the same, declaring that Canada would concentrate its
defense efforts elsewhere.  President Bush had personally lobbied
the PM since August to join the US in ballistic missile defense
http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn082704.cfm.  Martin appeared to be
leaning toward joining, agreeing in August to share information on
incoming missiles, but the plan had virtually no public support.  

2. JUICED: CANSECO WANT'S A POLYGRAPH EXAM ON PAY-PER-VIEW TV. 
Why should science concern itself with baseball's steroid-enhanced
bad boy?  It shouldn't.  But the best-selling author of Juiced
wants to prove he's telling the truth about those other over-paid,
bulging, mesomorphic icons who used the needle.  For telling the
truth, Canseco thinks he should make a lot of money.  He believes
the polygraph detects lies.  So does Rep. Joe Barton (D-TX), chair
of the House Energy Committee, who thinks we could round up all
those spies at Los Alamos http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn073004.cfm. 
Does anyone pay any attention to what science says?  For 20 years
WN has reported overwhelming scientific evidence that polygraphs
can't tell a lie from the sex act.  Does anyone listen to science?

3. ABC: PETER JENNINGS REPORTS ON "UFOs   SEEING IS BELIEVING." 
Yawn!  ABC advertised it as "a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon,"
but there was Stanton Friedman, author of Crash at Corona and a
major creator of the highly-profitable Roswell myth.  ABC called
it, "the enduring mystery of Roswell."  There was no mystery, but
it was a gold mine, shamelessly exploited on TV documentaries, and
nothing has changed.  It ended with "one of the world's leading
physicists," who looked a lot like Michio Kaku, saying "You simply
cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these objects are from
a civilization millions of years ahead of us in technology." Sigh.

4. SCIENCE MEETS SOCIETY: AAAS AND "NON-OVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA." 
On Saturday, six distinguished scholars solemnly discussed the
late Stephen Jay Gould's idea that both science and religion have
their place in a full life, but do not overlap.  Those of us who
are fortunate enough to have chosen science as a career have an
obligation to share with the public what we learn about how the
world works.  Not because scientists have any claim to greater
intellect or virtue, but because science is the only way we have
of separating the truth from ideology, or fraud or foolishness. 
It pains me that some of us get so little gratification from this
that they carry on a separate affair with this Magisteria person.

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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