[EAS] Fwd: What's New Robert L. Park March 19, 2010

[Peter J. Kindlmann]

A sobering testament to our society's helplessness vis-a-vis charlatans.

    --PJK


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>Date:         Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:09:08 -0400
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>Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New   Robert L. Park  March 19,  2010
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>WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 19 Mar 2010   Washington, DC
>
>1.  IMAGINARY SCIENCE: THE GREAT DRUG WAR SOUTH OF THE BORDER.
>The United States and Mexico are separated by a 3000 km border that
>stretches across the most forbidding desert in North America. Mexican drug
>traffickers, for whom the US drug market is El Dorado, are fighting a
>bloody war with the democratically elected government of Mexico over
>control of the border.  According to Monday's New York Times, outgunned
>Mexican officials spent more than $10 million to purchase high-tech dowsing
>rods to detect caches of drugs, or weapons or anything else you have in
>mind.  The first application was as a golf-ball finder sold in Golf-Pro
>shops, http://bobpark.org/WN96/wn012696.html .  The Mexican army says the
>devices are extremely helpful.  Made in the UK by Global Technologies Ltd.,
>the GT 200 has no sensors.  Priced at more than $20,000, it's a plastic rod
>attached to a hand grip by a swivel, allowing the rod to point in any
>direction depending on the orientation of the handle.  That also describes
>the ADE 650 sold by ATSC Ltd., another UK company which recently sold 1,500
>imaginary detectors to the Iraqis to search for explosives at checkpoints
>http://bobpark.org/WN09/wn110609.html .    Could Global Technologies and
>ATSC be the same company, switching names and locations to avoid exposure.
>
>2.  IMAGINARY PENALTIES: AT WHAT POINT IS IMAGINARY SCIENCE CRIMINAL?
>The British government took action, notifying Mexico and other countries
>that the GT 200 "may not work."  Of course it "works"; it just doesn't
>detect anything.  That's not its purpose.  Human Rights Watch is worried
>that people are actually being arrested and charged solely on the basis of
>readings from the device.  That could happen; in the United States,
>however, local law enforcement agencies use these devices to justify
>probable-cause for searches.  Whether it's done with a willow branch or a
>GT 200, dowsing falls in a special category of voodoo science, along with
>homeopathy and prayer, that we might call "pretend science."  We treat
>pretend science much too lightly.  It ignores the most basic principle of
>science: cause and effect.  Causality should be stressed in the education
>of every child.  The British government is said to be considering
>legislation to stop exports of the GT 200 and similar devices, but a
>British diplomat in Mexico said of the GT 200, "It's now up to the Mexican
>authorities."  Why is it that the people who market imaginary science never
>seem to go to jail?  I served several State Attorneys General as a expert
>witness in cases involving charges of fraudulent science. Every case ended
>with a consent decree in which the perpetrator agreed to stop cheating
>residents of that state.
>
>3.   CELL PHONES: THEY CERTAINLY HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE HUMAN BRAIN.
>Whether the effect has anything to do with cancer is another matter.  The
>ubiquitous presence of cell phones only started about a decade ago. If
>there is a more lengthy incubation period associated with cell-phone
>radiation we could be headed for a virtual epidemic.  Just in case, the
>media has now taken to reporting the relative intensity levels of various
>models. That sort of listing does not put people's minds at rest, but so
>far there is nothing to implicate the cell phone in brain cancer.  To the
>observation that microwave photons are not energetic enough to break a
>chemical bond in DNA, several readers observed that that microwaves can
>heat tissue, w evolution which is certainly true. However, the very large
>blood flow in the brain serves as an effective coolant.
>
>4.  NSF: NEW DIRECTOR IS PICKED TO HEAD THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION.
>Subra Suresh, 53, dean of engineering at MIT, is the White House choice to
>succeed Arden Bement as head of the National Science Foundation.
>
>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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