Friday, 29 May 1987 Washington, DC
1.
UNIVERSITY PORK BARREL SCIENCE ABOUNDS IN THE FY 87
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS BILLS
of both the House and Senate.
Supplemental appropriations bills are intended to cover
unforeseen emergencies. The Senate bill earmarks $8M for a
National Center for the Study of Weeds at North Dakota State.
Perhaps they have seen my front lawn. It also specifies a $10M
Nutrition Research Center at Louisiana State, possibly in
response to the sudden increase in popularity of Cajun "blackened
fish." The House set aside $16.2M for an agricultural research
facility at Penn State. A statement adopted two years ago by the
APS Council declares that "We deplore the inclusion in the
federal budget of scientific projects that have not been
subjected to the normal process of proposal submission and expert
review" (WN 25 Jan 85). The Association of American Universities
just last week voted 43 to 10 for a moratorium on seeking direct
Congressional funding, but the 10 institutions voting "no" are
not bound by the resolution. Opponents of earmarking are now
directing their efforts toward support for the Roe Bill that
would authorize a university research facilities program at NSF
(WN 17 Apr 87), but
some institutions will still choose the safer
political route.
2
. THE APS STUDY ON DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS HAS BEEN CHALLENGED
by a group of SDI supporters led by a distinguished former
President of the APS, Frederick Seitz. He declared in a briefing
on Capitol Hill that the DEW
report (WN 24 Apr 87) is "not worthy
of serious consideration." He went on to draw a parallel between
the publication of the DEW report in Reviews of Modern Physics
and the decline in the quality of German physics journals under
the Nazis. He next compared it to the acquiescence of Soviet
geneticists to official dogma supporting the theories of
Lysenko. Dr. Seitz, who is Chairman of the Science and
Engineering Committee for a Secure World, also complained that
the report did not examine Pentagon proposals to deploy ballistic
missile defenses utilizing Kinetic Energy Weapons in the mid
1990's. A non-technical discussion supporting the Pentagon's
plans is contained in a report issued by the George C. Marshall
Institute, whose Chairman is -- Frederick Seitz. He also serves
as Chairman of the Pentagon's SDI Advisory Committee. Acting on
the advice of that committee, the Pentagon wants to create a new
federally funded research and development center to give
technical advice to the SDI Organization (WN 8 May 87). They
propose to issue a sole-source contract to manage this $300M
institute to a group that includes -- Frederick Seitz.
A detailed technical review of the APS Report by Dr. Gregory
Canavan of Los Alamos did uncover some inconsistencies between
the text and conclusions that survived the review and editing
process and purports to find errors in the math. The APS study
panel is currently preparing a response to Canavan's review.
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