Word: physicists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Scientists are generally skeptical about Lunan's fantastic scenario. Says British Radio Astronomer Sir Martin Ryle: "Lunan gave no evidence, only beliefs." M.I.T. Physicist Philip Morrison, who believes in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, adds: "Chances are nine in ten the whole story is a hoax." Astronomer Bracewell himself doubts that the echoes were deliberate; he suspects that they were caused by a still-undiscovered natural effect in the atmosphere. Fanciful or not, Lunan's theory is not being dismissed altogether. At the London meeting, a leading British computer expert, Anthony Lawton, announced that Lunan's theory...
...features are horrid. Examination of such claims called for special experience and test precautions that are not part of a physicist's expertise. The premature publicity itself is simply unpardonable and may seriously damage the scientific image of parapsychology. Yet these men may be less amateurish than they appear, and they are certainly brave. Let us wait for the full report...
...good candidate, for they too have suffered official governmental discrimination. However their economic and educational position is now superior to that of the average American. Does the past history of discrimination against Chinese and Japanese mean that the son of a Hong Kong millionaire or an immigrant Japanese physicist should have the benefit of quota employment today? "Spanish-surnamed Americans" complete the list of minorities affected by governmental affirmative action plans. But they include Sephardic Jews, Spaniards, Cubans, Colombians--perhaps an occasional Irishman bearing a Spanish name. Do they all deserve official protection through quotas too? And what...
...easy target. He does not rely on mathematical models or statistical samples. He is a comparative and historical sociologist who "makes sense of other people's data." His interest in religion, in fact, may be one reason he is held in low esteem by some scientists. As Institute Physicist Freeman Dyson notes: "There are a lot of scientists who consider religion as a childhood disease." Logician Morton White dismissed Bellah's work as "pedestrian and pretentious." Mathematician André Weil called him "not of the intellectual and academic quality of a professor at the institute." When Geertz challenged...
Later in December, an SRI physicist, Russell Targ, sent a letter to one of the foremost U.S. scientific journals proposing an article on the work of an SRI team engaged in psychic research. Targ said that the subjects with whom he had been working had effected physical changes in laboratory instruments without touching them. Presumably, Targ was referring to such changes as increases in magnetometer readings and the disturbance of electronic systems-all reported to TIME by a team member. The research subjects had also demonstrated remarkable perceptual skills, including telepathy. Working further with these men, Targ suggested, would enable...