Friday, 17 August 2001

1. THE AUGUST EFFECT: MICHAEL GUILLEN MEETS DEEPAK CHOPRA.
With Congress on its August break and the President in Crawford, TX, the media is left covering pet stories and the relations between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Even physics stories get warmed over. Monday, on ABC's "Downtown," Michael Guillen, ABC Science Correspondent (WN 3 Apr 98), reported on Athe power of distance healing." His starting point was a two year-old study at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City that claimed remote intercessory prayer by total strangers improved the health of heart patients . It was dismissed as statistical nonsense (WN 29 Oct 99), but Guillen, whose physics PhD is from Cornell, went deeper. He consulted Deepak Chopra: "Chopra's book about God and physics says these praying experiments prove there are healing forces in nature that science is only beginning to understand." Chopra clarified this: "What physicists are saying to us is that there is a realm of reality that goes beyond the physical, which we can influence from a distance." To demonstrate this, Chopra concentrated on a remote video image of Guillen, who was asked to clear his mind. Guillen complied effortlessly.

2. DISTANCE HEALING: EARLIER STUDY WAS OVERLOOKED.
Neither the study of intercessory prayer nor Michael Guillen mentioned any contrary results, such as Sir John Galton's classic study of longevity of English monarchs. Since they head the Church of England, the daily Order for Morning Prayer includes orisons for their health and long life, but Galton found no longevity effect compared to the general population, despite this concentration of prayers. OK, so even WN has trouble finding August stories.

3. DEFENSE BUDGET: MAKING ROOM FOR NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE.
The sharp drop in revenues due to the economic slowdown, coupled with the high cost of National Missile Defense and a tax refund, is making it difficult to keep defense spending within the strict limits of the Procrustean bed Congress itself created. There has been talk of major force reductions involving warships, aircraft wings or army divisions, but the Washington Post reported today that Secretary Rumsfeld may let the military branches themselves decide which body parts they would prefer to have lopped off.

4. OMB BOSS STRUGGLES TO KEEP LID ON SPENDING:
Mitchell Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has been sparring with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to keep federal spending in check. The White House had planned to use the massive tax cut as a tool to cap appropriations. Trouble is the anemic economy has so eroded federal revenues that the Medicare surplus is now in jeopardy. So Daniels has begun to jawbone congressional leaders, warning of presidential vetoes if appropriations bills aren't trimmed back to the level of the White House request. September could spell trouble for science.



Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.