Neat Quotes - Bob Park

In 1982 he opened the American Physical Society's (APS) Washington office. (I think that was a sabbatical year.) He wrote Voodoo Science which I highly recommend.

His What's New weekly newsletter has several short no-nonsense items each week. I like his style. It would be fun to collect his comments on alternative medicine or the International Space Station.

Here are a few of my favorites.

• ASLEEP ON MARS: THE "WASHINGTON MONUMENT" PLOY?
  It's a lot easier to get Congress to create popular new initiatives than to pay the cost of keeping them up. The most popular tourist attraction in the Capital is the Washington Monument; if Congress threatens to cut its operating budget the Park Service announces it will have to close the Monument. Told on Tuesday that the cost of the Mars Rover mission must be cut 40%, Steve Squyres of Cornell, the PI, announced that either Spirit or Opportunity would have to be euthanized or at least hibernate for the rest of the fiscal year. Are they kidding? The cyber generation has bonded with the rovers. Designed for a three month lifetime, the cuddly rovers have been going for four years, living on sunshine and never complaining about the cold nights. You might as well announce that the National Zoo plans to cut expenses by tossing the panda cubs into the pirana tank. That was clear to, Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator, and on Wednesday he ordered the budget cut rescinded immediately.

• SCIENCE DEBATE 2008: SOME DAYS GET REALLY LONG.
  The "Compassion Forum" on Sunday night at Messiah College was not exactly the debate scientists had hoped for. It wasn’t a debate at all; Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were interviewed separately. Jon Meacham of Newsweek asked Senator Clinton straight out, "do you personally believe life begins at conception?" "I believe the potential for life begins at conception," she began. Would she now try to explain to this Christian- conservative audience why a single cell is not just a very small person? Not a chance; she wandered off into a discussion of her Methodist roots. It would be up to Senator Obama. Campbell Brown of CNN, Meacham’s co- host, asked Obama what he would say to one of his daughters if she asked him if God really created the universe in six days. Glory! It was the opening scientists pray for, a chance for an audacious young man to tell the story of creation to the entire nation. "No dear, the story of the beginning of the universe is far grander than that. It is 14 billion years old and still changing. Science has learned much, but there is far more still to be learned . . ." Of course he did not say that. He said, "Six days in the bible may not be 24-hour days." Sigh! They debated again on Wednesday - nothing to report.

• PASSAGE: STEPHEN E. STRAUS, 60, DIED OF BRAIN CANCER.
  The first director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH, his task was to turn the quack-dominated Office of Alternative Medicine, created by Congress, into a scientific center. He did it with grace, the only way possible, subjecting one quack cure after another to randomized double-blind tests, while enduring attacks from scientists who thought he moved too slowly. One after another all failed. Anything else would have invited interference from Congress. I was fortunate to serve on his Steering Committee.