WHAT'S NEW Friday, 11 Jul 03

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 11 Jul 03   Washington, DC

(Andrew Essin contributed to this issue of What's New.)

1. ERROR: NASA REFUTES STORY ABOUT A MAN WHO LIVES ON SUNLIGHT.  
Last week, WN picked up the story from Space Daily, which got it
from the Hindustan Times, about a guy in India who claims he can
survive on water and sunlight and who was invited to the US by
NASA.  WN called NASA and thought it confirmed the invitation.
However, NASA insists they said there had been no contact with
him.  WN deeply regrets the confusion.  It will now be WN policy
to avoid anything that photosynthesizes lest it fall on Bob Park. 

2. INTELLIGENT DESIGN: THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO TEXAS.  A plague of
Biblical proportions threatens civilization.  The frog population
may not explode, nor the Mississippi turn to blood, but school
boards across the land are being stalked.  The name of the beast
is Intelligent Design (ID), and it seeks to rip evolution from
children's textbooks.  ID recently turned up in Texas, where the
State School Board has begun to review biology textbooks.  It is
such a huge market that what happens there will determine
textbooks in dozens of other states.  The Seattle-based Discovery
Institute (DI) is behind the effort to rid the books of "factual
errors" (evolution).  The Board of Education holds its next
public hearing in September; if Texas scientists make themselves
heard, instead of wailing and gnashing of teeth, there will be
rejoicing in the states.         

3. FDA: IS SALMON A FOOD OR A DIETARY SUPPLEMENT?  The FDA will
soon revise food labeling regulations, allowing companies to make
health claims for their products with little scientific evidence. 
Currently, a health claim has to enjoy significant consensus from
the scientific community to go on the package.  Instead, claims
will carry a grade from "generally accepted" to "you can't be
serious."  This is nearly as bad as dietary supplements, which
can claim anything except to cure a disease.  That was spelled
out by the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act,
perhaps the worst "health" legislation ever passed (WN 27 Nov
98). Congress apparently punted in the food labeling rules.

4. JUNK SCIENCE: MEDICAL SOCIETIES REVIEW "EXPERT" TESTIMONY.  
No scientific claim is so preposterous that an "expert" witness
cannot be hired to vouch for it.  But just 10 years ago in its
"Daubert" decision, the Supreme Court instructed federal judges
to act as "gatekeepers," ensuring that juries are not exposed to
scientific nonsense.  Medical societies now impose sanctions on
doctors whose testimony doesn't meet scientific standards.

5. MISSILE DEFENSE: UH, THIS SPACE STUFF IS GONNA TAKE LONGER. 
Unlike the current race to implement ground-based missile defense
(WN 6 Jun 03), the Missile Defense Agency has decided to extend
the research timetable for space-based interceptors by three
years.  Who knows, maybe by 2008 someone will have the brains to
kill the program altogether.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND and THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY.  
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University or the American Physical Society, but they should be.
---
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