HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 1 Feb. 28, 1996
MORTIMER FACES FACULTY TODAY AT 2:30President Mortimer will address the Manoa Faculty Congresstoday at 2:30 pm in Architecture 205. The Congress consistsof all faculty members. A Faculty Senate meeting follows. At that meeting, the Committee on Administration and Budgetwill present a proposal for a priority system to be used invertical cuts.NOVA AND FRONTLINE PRESENT DISTURBING TRENDSWatching KHET last night was as disturbing as listening to aMortimer speech or reading "Who Runs the University?" NOVApresented a program on UFO abductions, showing howtherapists lead their patients into inventing memories of themost bizarre stories and then become convinced they are real. John Mack of Harvard, who has managed to escape censure ofhis colleagues on the basis of "academic freedom," was shownat work. Fortunately, more psychologists are beginning torecognize "False Memory Syndrome" and are speaking outagainst those who misuse it.NOVA was followed by a FRONTLINE story on silicone breastimplants that was even more disturbing because, unlike FMS,science is not getting the last word. The strongestpossible evidence exists that silcone breast implants aresafe. This conclusion is supported by many studies at themost prestigious medical research laboratories and publishedin the most prestigious medical journals. Yet, juriescontinue to award huge sums to women who claim theirillnesses are silcone-induced. Like OJ's jurors, theysimply ignore the science.The women were shown being egged on my their unscrupulous,millionaire lawyers, who dismissed the science by implyingthat all these great institutions and journals were boughtout by Dow and other companies. The anti-scientificattitudes of the women support groups was disheartening. The result is that breast implants are essentially off themarket, and the companies are thinking twice about developing any new products and materials for devices suchas pacemakers that are implanted in human bodies.Are we witnessing the last days of science?


HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 2 Feb. 29, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at MORTIMER MEETS THE EYEPresident Mortimer's address yesterday to the Manoa FacultyCongress was notable more for what he didn't say than forwhat he said. He talked a lot about the tuition increaseand the time he has spent on it, implying that this has notleft him much time to work on other problems. He saidthings would be getting better soon, but did not say whatdecisions on vertical curts he has made, if any, to causethis to happen. He asked us to await the BOR meetings inMarch and April, when his plans will presumably be revealed.The president refused to discuss the particulars of contractnegotiations, saying that was for the bargaining table. Heagain asked us to wait, this time for the Fact Finder'sreport, which he has seen but is not yet public. Laterduring the questioning he was pressed hard to explain the"regressive" proposals that UHPA has accused him of making. He kept saying "I hear you," but would not discuss them,again referring to the Fact Finder's report. When someoneasked if the faculty could expect support from him hereplied with a smile, "Yes, they can expect support." Thiswas greeted with laughter.FACULTY SENATE PREFERS REACTION TO ACTIONIn the meeting that followed, the Manoa Senate showed littleenthusiasm for the proposal by its Committee onAdministration and Budget to set three broad prioritycategories that the administration would be asked to apply inmaking vertical cuts. Several senators objected to the firstpriority being core undergraduate education, arguing that theuniqueness of Manoa is its graduate programs, researchinstitutes and professional schools. Many seem to be unawarethat Manoa's international standing as a research institutionwas much higher 25 years ago, when practically all theresearch was in the core College of Arts and Sciences.In any case, the Senate seems undisposed toward participatingin the decision process, preferring to react toadministration decisions rather than actively proposingalternatives. I doubt that Newton's Third Law apples here,however, and fear that the reaction will be unequal to theaction. UHPA EMBRACES QUACKOPRACTICIn their recent bulletin on health care options, UHPA saysthat they are "pleased to announce" that chiropracticservices will be included in their new plan. What can weexpect next year? Therapeutic Touch, Acupuncture,Homeopathy, Past Life Therapy?


HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 3 Mar. 8, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo remove yourself from the distribution list, reply withthe message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to say PLEASE.FACT FINDERS FIND FEW FACTSThe report of the HLRB Fact Finding Board can be found athttp://www.hawaii.edu/admin/exec.staff.html. Generally thereport agrees with the State's position that the financialcrisis is so severe that faculty salaries should not beincreased--even of that means the loss of key faculty. Thepotential downgrading of the State's credit rating isregarded as far more serious than the potential downgradingof the University of Hawaii. I suppose the loss of Manoa'sstatus as a Class I Research University is not viewed asalarming, or not believed to be likely.UHPA suggested a six-year agreement with no increase for twoyears, provided adjustments for the last four years be basedon some financial index or a negotiated rate. The panelseemed to think this was a good idea.Generally the panel suggested that most other contentiousitems be postponed. They did agree that "Instructional andresearch faculty should be able to utilize their specialskills and receive limited fees" and that agreement besought on intellectual property rights that "balance theneeds of the employer with that of the faculty."The fact finders saw no reason for faculty to have different benefits, per diem rates, etc. from other Stateemployees. They recommended that benefits remain the samefor now.TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE DECLARES EARTH IS FLATWell, not quite. But they are working on a bill to make itillegal for a teacher to teach evolution as "fact" ratherthan simply a "theory." What next? Gravity? That's "justa theory" too.A couple of recent letters to Ka Leo O'Haunani also arguedthat evolution is "just a theory." Maybe we have to do abetter job explaining to our students that theory is notsynonymous with "speculation," and that scientific theoriesare based on facts.


HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 4 Mar. 13, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.FURLOUGH BEING FOUGHT, DEEMED UNLIKELYInquirer roving reporter John Radcliffe reports: Some have been asking if the union has a position on theadministration's idea to steal 12 days of pay from everypublic employee thus creating a 5% paycut for those whowork 12 months and an even bigger pay cut for those whowork 11, 10 or 9 months but who have their pay stretchedout over 12 months. "Haven't heard anything from on theunion on this, what's the deal?"The deal is that your lobbyist has testified against itevery time it has come up. Told the Guv to shove or shelvethis one, been quoted that way in the newspapers and on TVand on the radio too. Ka Leo never covered any of itthough, so its no wonder that some still don't know.This bill will not pass or if it does, it will do so overour bleeding, dead bodies and even then we'll challenge itin court.Its not likely to come to that though, because the Senateain't going for it. What may pass are a passel ofbills which guarantee and protect workers rights andbenefits in the event that the Gov tries to whack publicemployees unilaterally.CARL SAGAN GRAVELY ILLOne of the greatest voices for reason may soon be stilled. Carl Sagan is apparently dying from a brain tumor.Sagan wrote an eloquent essay about death in last Sunday'sParade Magazine. Unfortunately, our Gannettthought-controllers give us the putrid U. S. A. Todaymagazine in the place of Parade, which has the highestcirculation of any magazine in the world. So, we areforced to read about fire-walking, self-help guru AnthonyRobbins instead of Sagan.Here are some quotes from Sagan's latest book, _TheDemon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark_."Whose interest does ignorance serve? If we humans bear,say, hereditary propensities toward the hatred ofstrangers, isn't self-knowledge the only antidote? If welong to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that weare the reason there _is_ a Universe_, does science do us adisservice in deflating our conceits?""In _The Genealogy of Morals_, Friedrich Nietzsche, as somany before and after, decries the 'unbroken progress inthe self-belittling of man' brought about by the scientificrevolution. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universeas it really is than to persist in delusion, howeversatisfying and reassuring. Which attitude is better forour long-term survival? Which gives more leverage for thefuture? And if our naive self-confidence is a littleundermined by the process, is that altogether such aloss? Is there not cause to welcome it as a maturing andcharacter-building experience?"Let's hope he recovers. We need his voice.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 5 Mar. 21, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.MORTIMER BACKING DOWN?There are some signs that this may be the case. Atyesterday's Manoa Faculty Senate meeting, the presidentannounced several actions that suggest a softening of hisprevious positions. He is releasing $0.5M to the libraryand permitted recruiting to begin on 60 positions. Whilehe claims this resulted from now having a better handle ontuition income, he nevertheless seems to be reacting to thepressures from faculty and students.For example, Mortimer now claims that he never had anyintention of tampering with traditional intellectualproperty rights but is simply concerned about issues raisedby new technologies such as rights to software. If so, whydidn't he say that in the first place?The questions raised about the logic of developing WestOahu while Manoa sinks into oblivion seem to also have hadan effect. Now it turns out that construction at theCampbell site does not have to begin until 2011.UH DOWNSIZING TAKING SHAPEAnd the shape seems to make sense. No doubt UH will beleaner and meaner in the near future. Of the 1,000 systemfaculty and staff positions that have been lost during thecurrent freeze, perhaps 800 will be permanent.Based on Mortimer's remarks and the reports to the Senateby faculty members who are serving on various task forces,the following tentative picture is beginning to emerge:The tuition for the Law School will be raised considerablyso that it is 80 per cent self-supporting by 2000. Onequestion: will they then give almost everybody a tuitionwaiver?Other units such as The School of Public Health and theSchool of Library and Information Science, which werealways far too small and weak to be exalted as "schools,"will be downsized further and subsumed in existing units. The Social Science Research Institute has already been cutback 50 per cent with the elimination of most non-tenuredpositions.The panel for the College of Education has just startedwork and had nothing to report.The Dean of SOEST has announced that he has asked for theDepartment of Ocean engineering to be retrenched.Most interesting was the situation with the Medical School.When the School was first formed, six "basic science"departments, such as Genetics and Biochemistry, decidedthey wanted to be part of Medicine. This offered a greatdeal for their faculty, who could then have eleven monthappointments at high salaries, with light course loads andno pressure to do much research, since they did not have togo out and earn their summer salaries. These departmentshad graduate programs that were separate from the MDprogram.When the Med School went over to Problem BasedInstruction, the BS departments evolved to an even smallerrole in MD education.Now with the budget cutbacks, the Med School has proposedto downsize the basic science departments and combine theminto one single interdisciplinary department. This wouldwreak havoc with the graduate programs, and the servicesthat the departments provide to Natural Science programssuch as Microbiology. No one seems to have suggested whatis logical, to put the basic science departments were theyshould have remained all along, in Natural Sciences. Obviously, the Dean of Medicine will resist any transferfunds to Natural Sciences, although we can be sure he willbe happy to let it have the six departments if he can keepthe money.See what happens when you get greedy? There is a certainjustice to all of this. As long as they don't cut physics....THE LATEST LITERARY GENRE: QUANTUM FICTIONThose of you who are intrigued by notions such as DeepakChopra's "Quantum Healing," in which disease and aging areall reversible because the act of human consciousnesscauses all physical reality to come into being, will beinterested in this new book:FLIGHT: A Quantum Fiction Novel, Vanna Bonta$14.95 400p. ISBN 0-912339-17-9SUMMER 1996
The author defines the new genre for which she coined theterm "Quantum Fiction" as "the evolution of literaturewhich reflects today's age where science has caught up tofiction and meets spirit."As described on the internet, character Mendle Orionembodies another common human condition, biological impulsevs. intelligence. Mendle's inner conflicts about drives forsensation (sex and substance) and his search forunderstanding and true love are played out in a romanticadventure that runs the gamut of "the perfect body" toUFO's. A poetic, reflective beginning builds intoaction-packed, riveting mystery of true-identities wovenwith amazing coincidences, unfolding into discoveries ofincredible secrets about humanity which had been too closefor anyone to see, an ending that is astounding butsupported and made plausible by the latest quantum science.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 6 March 29, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.REGENT HOAG SAYS UNIVERSITY MORALS DEPRAVEDThe following letter from UH Regent John A. Hoag appearedin the March 22 issue of _The Chronicle of HigherEducation_:'To the Editor: If it weren't such a sad commentary on the depraved stateof university morals, I would find the juxtaposition ofthe articles "The Politics of Images of Gay Students" and"Devout Athletes" in the February 9 issue most amusing.The American Civil Liberties Union and its proponents whosupport the freedom of expression demonstrated by theBisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Association of Vassar Collegemust have real problems with hypocrisy when they denouncea silent, brief, prayerful expression by an athlete.I never cease to be puzzled by the purveyors of "academicfreedom" who are willing to give license to some of themost licentious material, yet recoil at any expression ofreligious faith. We live in a strange world these days!John A. HoagRegentUniversity of HawaiiHonolulu'Thank Ben that we have stalwart Regents to protect usagainst the purveyors of pornography, freedom ofexpression, and academic freedom.PENIS ELECTED U.S. PRESIDENTOr, as they say in Japan, erected. This is what headlinesin Iran will say next November if Bob Dole becomesPresident. Apparently "dole" in Farsi refers to the malemiddle member.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 7 April 1, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.REGENTS BACK UNIVERSITYUH Regents Chair Joseph F. Blanco announced today thatthe BOR backs the University one-hundred percent. "Thejob of the Regents is to act as a buffer between thepoliticians downtown and the University," Blanco said. "We will always look out for UH first no matter what thepolitical pressures might be."Regent John Hoag added that the faculty is what defines auniversity and he will do everything in his power to seethat they get what they deserve in the current contractnegotiations.LEGISLATIVE AUDITOR SAYS FACULTY ARE OVERWORKEDThe Legislative Auditor has been investigating facultyworkload and has determined that the current workloads aretoo heavy. She will be recommending that they be cut byfifty percent.CAMPUSES TO BE SHUT DOWNAccording to reliable sources, the West Oahu and WindwardCommunity College campuses will be eliminated in there-structuring of the University. The faculty at thesecampuses will be offered the opportunity to work ascustodians at the remaining campuses.GOVERNMENT CONCEALING EVIDENCE OF LIFE ON JUPITERFrom the Internet:Washington DC -- A government source claims that therecent Galileo mission to Jupiter detected evidence oflife in the planet's atmosphere. Data transmitted back toEarth 60 days ago has led scientists to conclude thatthere is significant organic activity in "warm pockets" ofthe lower atmosphere. Once this information was disclosedamong internal government agencies, the Galileo missionwas immediately "Classified" and all further release ofpublic information was halted.The source says they brought the story directly to AmericaOnline "because the government was likely to clamp downand prevent any major media from publishing the facts,"according to the source.Experts have long speculated that the government has beenwithholding evidence that extraterrestrial life exists. President Clinton promised during the 1992 presidentialcampaign to release any information concerning evidence ofextra terrestrials if elected. However, the issue hasbeen mysteriously absent from this administration's agenda.DANGEROUS IMPURITIES FOUND IN HOLY WATERAlso from the Net:British researchers, writing in the Journal of HospitalInfection and reported in the Medical Journal ofAustralia, have found that of nine samples of holy waterfrom Lourdes, two from the River Jordan and two fromWalsingham, 10 were heavily contaminated with infectiousorganisms, including E. coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, andcandida, which causes thrush. The investigation wassparked the detection of Acinetobacter baumanii bacterialinfection in a patient with burns through the fullthickness of the skin who had been sprinkled with holywater by relatives.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 8 Apr. 9, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.UHPA TALKING STRIKEAre the UH faculty ready to strike? UHPA is laying thefoundation, but a strike seems hardly likely. Needless tosay, a faculty strike would have little public support. Why has the union rejected most of the Fact Finder's report(see HRI March 8)? Perhaps we'll hear why at the AnnualMembership Meeting: Friday April 12, 3PM, UHM, CC 306-7-8.MORE QUACKOPRACTICSpeaking of UHPA, recall the earlier HRI item about theirhealth plan now including chiropractic. Apparently, one ofthe major reasons workman's compensation costs are so farout of line in Hawaii, a major cause of businessesleaving the islands, is the high costs of worthlesschiropractic care. A recent study showed that chiropractic is the most costlytreatment for most back problems, even more costly thanseeing a physician. The cheapest treatment is simple rest,and just as effective as the others!COLD FUSION DECLARED SCIENTIFIC FRAUDWell, nonsense and nonsensibility aren't winning all thebattles. Inquirer Geneva correspondent Doug Morrisonreports that the lawsuit brought by Stanley Pons and MartinFleischmann against the Italian newspaper La Republicca hasbeen decided in favor of the newspaper. La Republicca hadcalled cold fusion a "scientific fraud" and the court wasapparently satisfied that it is indeed.REVISED HISTORY TEACHING STANDARDS DISCOVER SCIENCE. From the American Physical Society's Robert Park: The only mention of "science" in the version issued 18months ago was in a list of professions from which womenwere systematically excluded. The Senate condemned thepolitically-correct document by a vote of 99-1,jeopardizing the whole concept of national teachingstandards. But a revision is vastly improved. In Standard8, "Major Discoveries in Science and Technology," studentsare expected to "understand how postwar science augmentedAmerica's economic strength, transformed daily life andinfluenced the world economy," and "explain the advances inmedical science and assess how they improved the standardof living." Name searches for famous American scientiststurned up only Benjamin Franklin, but even Ben was left outof the earlier version. The Wright brothers were the onlyinventors to make the cut.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 9 Apr. 15, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME STILL UNCERTAINAs the 1996
session wears down, its impact on theUniversity and faculty remains uncertain. The recision oflast year's Act 161 is still a possibility. This, yourecall, guaranteed a budget floor for UH of $352.8M so thatthe State could not decrease the allocation by the amountof any tuition increase. The UH Administration is takingrecision for granted, but UHPA is lobbying hard to hang onto the original. The bill to reduce the amount 85% failedon Friday, so keep up your hopes and contact thelegislature.Similarly, HB 3843, the State employee furlough bill couldstill pass. UHPA is not as sanguine about its likely defeatas it was a few weeks ago and is urging faculty to contactlegislators. While defeat is still likely, legislatorsneed to be reminded that State employees vote and that theywill be keeping a list of those who voted for the bill. Furlough of 12 days a year will amount to a 7% salary cutfor 9 month UH faculty.NEGOTIATIONS REMAIN STALLEDAt the UHPA Annual Meeting on Friday, J.N. Musto gave alengthy report on the negotiations impasse. UHPA hadproposed many contract changes that would clarify andenhance the current wording. However, the Administrationis opposed to virtually all of them, in the name of"administrative flexibility." Musto made a good case forthe changes, but one has to question whether this is theright year to attempt to push them through. Certainly thepublic perception of the current impasse is that thefaculty are asking for more money, not simply trying toclarify the contract. Furthermore, the faculty is notgoing to walk out because the Administration refuses toeliminate the "2 in 7" rule or extend vacation accrual toall 11-month faculty.Information on legislative and negotiations issues isconstantly updated on the UHPA web page,http://www.uhpa.org/uhpa/ENGLISH PROFESSORS DECONSTRUCT CLASSROOM DISRUPTIONIn a letter to Ka Leo printed April 10, UH EnglishDepartment Assistant Professors Cynthia Franklin and LauraLyons have found a new application for the Deconstructionmovement in modern literature. They argue that whatconstitutes classroom disruption depends on factors such assize, gender, age, and language. These newly-arrivedmainlanders seem to be saying that classroom instructorsshould be patient with the uncivilized natives. Ah, thewhite woman's burden. . .RANDI PRIZE TOPS $600,000Magician James ("The Amazing") Randi has offered a prize,now exceeding $600,000, for anyone who can demonstrate thereality of psychic phenomena, such as ESP, under controlledexperimental conditions. Many tried and failed hisprevious $20,000 challenge. A recent test was supposed tobe televised in Japan, but the psychic refused to allowRandi to set the experimental protocols. Even under herown conditions, the camera caught her cheating. Of course,the Tokyo Broadcasting Company did not show the clip,preferring not to disappoint its audience.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 10 Apr. 25, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.PAYROLL LAG APPROVEDThe Payroll Lag Bill has been approved by the House-SenateConference Committee. It amounts to a 4% paycut, but youget it back when you leave State employ. In other words,the sooner the better. FURLOUGH NEXTThe conferees also gave the governor the power to imposemonthly furlough that equates to another 5% pay cut, 7% for9-month faculty, if the "need" arises. Let's hope that thegovernor perceives the need for re-election to be greater.You can bet the State employee unions will be keeping tabson the legislators who supported these measures and willprovide a list we can take with us into the voting boothcome November.LETTING UHPA HANG OUTPerhaps UHPA leaders are not so paranoid after all when theycry that everybody's out to get them. From Honolulu Diaryin last week's Honolulu Weekly: "People are talking about . . . the apparent campaign of the UH administration and itslegislative bosses: attacking the power of the ProfessionalUnion, letting it hang out to shrink and dry in this era ofdownsizing."A CANDLE IN THE DARKWonderful letter to the Tuesday, April 11 Ka Leo by UHMstudent Melelani Tam. "Hawaiian is the the heart, not in the veins," she remarks sagely. On the Geography classdisruption controversy, Melelani says: "I personally have noknowledge of the situation or the people involved so Icannot say that either side was right or wrong." That's arational position all of us on this campus could usefullyadopt.THE DEODORANT-FREE CLASSROOMRussell Jacoby has an excellent article, "America'sProfessoriate: Politicized, Yet Apolitical," in the April 12Chronicle of Higher Education. The thrust is that politicsnow encompasses everything that is uttered or implied inuniversity halls and classrooms. The traditional arena ofpolitics, government and affairs of state, has grown toinclude all of life and culture. But when everything ispolitical, nothing is.Jacoby tells this story: "I met a latino student whotransferred out of the University of California at SantaCruz after a string of what he considered off-the-wall'political' stands by people there. The last straw was whenan instructor informed him that the class the student wasattending would be deodorant- and perfume-free, because thesubstances polluted the atmosphere and affected theinstructor's health. "Hey,' the student told me, 'I'm fromLos Angeles. I have more important things to worry aboutthan deodorant. These people are living in la-la land."JUNK FOOD IS GOOD FOR YOUAccording to researchers Lillian M. Ingster and Manning Feinleib of the National Center for Health Statistics, junkfood may be a major contributing factor to the 30-yeardecline in the percentage of deaths attributed to heartproblems. The reason, they say, is that many artificialflavors contain salicyates - chemicals related to aspirin -and aspirin is known to reduce heart attacks.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 1 No. 11 May 7, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.LEGISLATURE (HAPPILY) ACCOMPLISHES LITTLEThe public is bemoaning the little that was accomplishedby this year's Legislature. But sometimes, a little isbetter than a lot. They did not pass the furlough bill. That's better. They did not repeal last year's Act 161,which set a UH budget floor of $352.8M. That's better.They did, however, pass the payroll lag. That's worse,but the unions will fight it in the courts.RELIGIOUS REICH FINALLY MATERIALIZES IN HAWAIIFew have commented on what may in fact be the mostsignificant development in this year's session. Afterlying dormant in Hawaii for several years, the religiousright was incarnated this year and proved itself apowerful force. Led by UH Regent Jack Hoag, they wereable to deflect the attention of everyone away from theserious problem of the State Budget by makingsame-sex marriage the focus of the session.As with their counterparts on the mainland, HawaiiRepublicans showed no courage to resist the onslaught ofChristian activists determined to force their religiousbeliefs on the rest of us. It was disappointing tosee so many State Democrats cave in as well.STRIKE THIS SUMMER?That's how the papers mis-read the UHPA press release oflast week, which talked about preparing for a strike votethis summer. A strike in the summer, when most of thefaculty are off duty, would of course make no sense. Astrike this fall? Hardly more likely, unless theadministration does something really nasty like abolishtenure or cut salaries by ten percent.CENSURE MORTIMER?UHPA (that is, the Board of Directors acting on the adviceof the Faculty Representative Forum) have passed buttabled a resolution calling for the censuring of PresidentMortimer for his lack of leadership in the budget crisis. The resolution would be submitted to the faculty for avote. Apparently it was decided to hold off and see whathappens.LOCAL PSYCHIC PREDICTED UH VOLLEYBALL WINWell, too bad the psychic was wrong on this one. Actually, Nostradamus had predicted the correct outcome. A recent translation of his works included this prophecy:"Two volleyball teams shall play and one shall win."ENJOY YOUR SUMMERThis will be the last Inquirer for a month or two. Volume2 will start up sometime in July or August.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 1 July 1, 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send amessage to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourselffrom the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. Youdon't even have to say PLEASE.SKEPTICS MEET IN BUFFALO Your editor attended the _First World's Skeptics Congress_in Buffalo in June. The theme of the meeting was "Sciencein the Age of (Mis)Information." Speakers includedpaleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, Nobel laureate physicistLeon Lederman, magician James Randi, _Nature_ EditorEmeritus Sir John Maddox, and _X-Files_ creator ChrisCarter. Steve Allen (yes, he's still alive) entertained. Someone asked Allen about his long career as song-writer,jazz pianist, TV comedian, and author of 46 books. "Whatdoes it all mean?" Allen's answer: "Other than about 40million bucks, not much."X-FILES APOLOGETICS Carter defended the fact that _X-Files_ often seems topromote paranormal beliefs. He said the show started outwith equal doses of credulity and skepticism, but the moreskeptical programs got poor ratings. After all, that'sShow Biz. Carter still thinks the program fosters aninterest in science and argued that people need to believein something, even if it's nonsense. What ever happened tothe old adage, "The truth shall set you free"?HIGHER SUPERSTITION There was considerable discussion at the Congress on theanti-science that is being created, not only in the mediabut on university campuses as well. Your editorparticipated in a panel with philosopher Susan Haak and theinfamous team of Paul Gross and Norm Levitt, authors of_Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrelswith Science_. They told how academia is being split downthe middle as the post-modernists, deconstructionists, andrelativists in the humanities and social sciences rail awayat the natural sciences as nothing more than another socialactivity designed by European males to oppress the rest ofhumanity.DELICIOUS HOAXScientists may be finally waking up to the threat. Afterall, it could affect their funding! In what has to be themost delicious hoax in years, New York University physicistAlan Sokal wrote an article filled with meaningless post-modern gibberish and got it published in one of theirjournals, _Social Text_. He said it was easy, because hedidn't have to worry about being consistent.KICK 'EM IN THE BUTT, DR. JOHNSONStephen Gould did not think much of Sokal's hoax. He saidthe post-modernists are actually friends of science andonly trying to elucidate how it works. If that was all itwas to it, there would be no problem. Sure science is asocial endeavor. Developing a consensus is a socialprocess. However, many post-modernists assert that sciencehas nothing to say about objective reality. Some even saythat there is no such thing as objective reality.MILLENNIUM MADNESS With Evangelical Christians and pre-modernists pushing fromthe right, and New Agers and post-modernists pushing fromthe left, are you beginning to feel squeezed out? We havehad two First Ladies now who have dabbled in both camps. Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of a new ecumenicalmovement. We can look forward to psychic fairs in churchhalls with all kinds of new goodies for sale: crystalcrosses, books on Biblical Astrology, and tee shirts thatproclaim, "Jesus is My Mantra." Let's hope this is onlymillennium madness that will die off in another decade.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 2 Jul, 15 1996
This and earlier isses are archived at http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourself from the list, reply withthe message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to say PLEASE.Correction: The previous issue distributed, Vol. 2 No. 1, was mis-dated. Itshould have been dated July 1, 1996
. This has been corrected on thearchived copy.IRRATIONALITY A GOLD MINE FOR PUBLISHERSIn the Books section of July's _The Atlantic Monthly_, Wendy Kaminer tellsof the gold mine publishers have found in a whole range of books on popularspirituality. _The Celestine Prophecy_ has passed its hundredth week on theNew York Times_ best-seller list; books on angels, near-death experiences,and UFO abductions have sold millions of copies. These join with theequally-successful genre of self-help books and pop psychology that evenbright people like the President and First Lady find alluring. As Kaminerexplains it: "The appeal of these books is clear. They promise us bliss--aworld of no evil (only spiritual retardation), fear, loneliness, pain, ordeath."She continues: "It's easy to sell good news like this, and the authorsconfidently rely on classical fallacious arguments. They argue bydeclaration, which is what makes the books so amusing. In matter-of- fact,authoritative tones, the authors tell us how plant and human beings exchangeenergy--or they describe what angels look like, whether or how they'resexed, how they communicate with human beings, and how they differ fromghosts. Readers might be expected to wonder, How do they know?"And, "What makes fantastic declarations believable is, in part, thevehemence with which they're proffered. Again, in the world of spiritualityas well as of pop psychology, intensity of personal belief is evidence oftruth. It is considered very bad form--even abuse--to challenge theveracity of any personal testimony that might be offered in a twelve-stepgroup or on a talk show, unless the testimony itself is equivocal."We seem to have reached a new definition of truth these days: Truth isanything you feel is true.SCIENCE AND CARPENTRYThe war between Science and Science Studies continues in full force. In aletter to the July _Physics Today_, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch discussthe views expressed in their book _The Golem: What Everyone Should Knowabout Science_ (Cambridge U. P., 1993): "In _The Golem_ we argue thatscience should be thought of like carpentry--as a body of expertise. We saythat if science is to maintain the enormous standing it has in publicestimation, it should stop promising to be more than a craft and a body ofcultural achievements." Collins and Pinch lambaste "scientificfundamentalists" who think of science as "the royal route to all knowledge.. . a complete world view or quasi religion."In a following letter, physicist N. David Mermin responds: "A table willwobble on a flat floor unless the end of each leg lies in the planedetermined by the ends of the other three. Told that this was a mostbeautiful proposition--a pinnacle of woodworking culture--a carpenter mightwell protest that it was also a fact. A sociological analysis of furnituremaking that ignored the factual character of this proposition would bedeficient. So why should fact be irrelevant to the sociological study ofthe practice of science? Scientists might get upset where carpenters wouldonly be amused because for many scientists, the facts are not just a meansto an end but the end itself. The construction of facts is a subtle mixtureof the social and the objective. Sociologists won't get it right byignoring the latter dimension, any more than scientists can understand thecharacter of their professional activities by ignoring the former."SOCIOLOGIST SUPPORTS SOKALIn a letter to the July 5 _Chronicle of High Education_, DartmouthSociologist Toby E. Huff writes the following on Alan Sokal's hoaxing of thecultural studies journal _Social Text_:"The amazing thing is that if you read Sokal's paper first (knowing thatit's a spoof) and then go back to the first article in the issue, you havethe overwhelming experience of entering into a totally bizarre world of'cultural studies-speak' that is hermetically sealed off from anythingapproaching serious scholarly inquiry. Professor Sokal has done us thegreat service of showing how misguided this whole line of 'discourse' is,and how scholars are taken in by their own publicity, above all, byfashioning a specialized in-group language filled with code words."

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 3 Jul, 19 1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii academiccommunity. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. To remove yourself from the list, reply withthe message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to say PLEASE.IRONIC SCIENCEIn an article in the July 16 _New York Times_, John Horgan expresses strongsupport for the postmodern view of science. Horgan is a senior writer for_Scientific American_ and author of _The End of Science: Facing the Limitsof Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age_. He argues that much ofmodern science has the "ironic" quality that characterizes postmodernthought.Horgan refers to the papers on superstring theory by Edward Witten ofPrinceton that have made him "far and away the most cited physicist in theworld." Alan Sokal used superstring theory in his hoax of _Social Text_,suggesting that it might liberate science from "dependence on the conceptof objective truth." Horgan says this was no hoax, that superstring theoryhas precisely this character since to probe its realm directly "wouldrequire a particle accelerator 1,000 light-years around." He calls thisironic because "we will never know if superstring theory is true."It's sad to see that the postmodern viewpoint has even invaded the hallowoffices of _Scientific American_. While no scientific question can ever beproven "true," neither Witten nor any other particle physicist believes thatsuperstring theory will survive indefinitely without some empirical testthat does not require an accelerator circling the galaxy. Indirect ways ofprobing high energy scales, though not yet as high as that of superstrings,have been used in the past. In fact, University of Hawaii physicistscontinue to be involved in such studies.NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING SCIENCE AND REASONRecent cover stories in _Time_ and Newsweek_ have told about the increasedirrational beliefs among Americans as we approach the millennium. (Goodgrief, we have to put up with this stuff for another four years!) A numberof national organizations are at work to combat this trend. They provideclearinghouses for information and often can supply help at the local levelwhenever some issue arises there. Generally a fee of about $25 per yearswill get you on the mailing list for the organization's newsletter or payfor a subscription to their main publication.Here's information on several of these groups:Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)Publishes _Skeptical Inquirer_ and newsletter.Box 703, Amherst, NY 14228-2743. Tel: (716)636-1425. FAX: (716)636-1733http://www.csicop.orgThe Skeptics SocietyPublishes _Skeptic_ magazine. Monthly meetings at Cal Tech.P.O. Box 338, Altadena, CA 91001. Tel: (818)794-3119. FAX: (818)794-1301http://www.skeptic.com/National Center for Science Education (NCSE)Fights attempts to prevent the teaching of Evolution in schools.Publishes journal _Creation/Evolution. Newsletter.P.O. Box 9477, Berkeley, CA 94709-0477. Tel: (510)526-1674. (800)290-6006http://NatCenSciEd.orgNational Council Against Health FraudCombats quackery. Newsletter, bulletin board, publications.P.O. Box 1276, Loma Linda CA 92354. Tel: (909)824-4690. FAX: (909)824-4838http://www.primenet/~ncahf/National Association of ScholarsFights campus PC. A bit on the political right, but usually close to themark. Publishes journal _Academic Questions_. Email newsletter.575 Ewing Street, Princeton, NJ 08540. Tel: (609)683-7878. FAX: (609)683-0316. http://www.nas.org/home.html

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 4 Jul. 29 1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii academiccommunity. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.PENTAGON FUNDS RESEARCH ON THERAPEUTIC TOUCHWhile research projects in conventional science are being canceled orseverely cut back, your government seems to have enough money forpseudoscience. The Pentagon has granted $317,725 to the University ofAlabama at Birmingham to conduct single-blind studies on the efficacy of Therapeutic Touch in relieving the pain of burn victims.TT is a form of laying-on-of-the-hands in which a nurse passes her handsover the body of a patient. (Actual touching of the skin is not done, whichthe burn victims undoubtedly appreciate.) As the investigator explains inher proposal: "The technique . . . is based on the assumption of a humanenergy field which extends beyond the skin." The environment is said to befilled with this "life energy." Furthermore, "Quantum theory states thatall of reality is made up of energy fields and that over 99% of the universeis simply space." As a measure of the success of the technique, patientswill be asked if they feel better. (See Skeptical Inquirer, July/August1996
, p. 15.)Perhaps this is the influence of Hillary's guru, although Republicans havedone their share in subverting the strict application of reason and science.Senator Orin Hatch has seen to it that dietary supplements are not subjectto FDA regulation and that alternative medical promoters need not be held tothe same accountability and provability standards as conventional medicine. (See NCAHF Newsletter, July/August 1996
). Scientists should not object to the study of alternative medicine. Butpurveyors of folk remedies and herbal cures should not expect scientists tolie quietly when those purveyors argue that their methods should not bejudged by scientific standards. Furthermore, the public should be madeaware that, without careful studies that prove safety and effectiveness,they may be ripped off at best while at worse may be ingesting dangeroussubstances or submitting their bodies to harmful manipulations.ASHEVILLE, NC VORTEX OF "NATURAL ENERGY"According to Associated Press, Asheville, North Carolina is overtakingSedona, Arizona as the major New Age center. The Blue Ridge Mountaincommunity now contains psychospiritual counselors, spiritualist mediums,massage therapists, aura readers, Indian medicine men, health/natural foodpromoters, dream readers, radical environmentalists, herbalists, homeopaths,hypnotherapists, crystal peddlers, kinesiologists, and designers of solarhomes, geodesic domes, yurts, and tepees. A Halloween gathering of 300 fromthe Church of Wicca was confronted by a group of local Baptists. (From NCAHFBulletin Board, July/August 1996
).CURSE OF THE SHROUDA team from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonioclaims that the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin, which placedit in the fourteenth century, was wrong because of bacterial and funguscontamination. By a simple calculation, which you would think the Texanscould have done, University of Southern Indiana physicist Thomas J. Picketthas shown that for contamination to cause 2,000 year old material appearonly 600 years old, two out of three carbon atoms in the shroud would haveto be from the contaminant. (See Skeptical Briefs, June 1996
, p. 3).However, as author Joe Nickell points out, the Shroud seems to have a curse. Thousands of people who have viewed it are now dead.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 5 Aug. 5 1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii academiccommunity. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.OAHU HIGHWAY CURSED DESPITE HEAVY BLESSINGSupernatural forces are being blamed for the recent collapse of a section ofthe H-3 freeway, now nearing completion on Oahu. The accident injured fourworkers. The H-3 passes through a claimed archaeologically-rich area in the Koolaumountains. In 1990, H-3 was paved around an ancient Hawaiian temple. Atthe time, University of Hawaii-Manoa Professor of Hawaiian Studies LillikalaKame'elihiwa chanted at the site and placed a curse on the workers. According to a report in Sunday's Honolulu Advertiser, when Kame'elihiwa wasasked about the latest incident she said: "I get so angry when I see thedesecration of our sacred grounds. "Every time I hear about someone dyingin connection with it, I am happy."Other "unexplained phenomena" have frightened workers at the site. The Rev.Abraham Akaka, pastor emeritus of Kawaiahao Church and brother of U. S.Senator Daniel Akaka was called in to re-bless the highway, waving his175-year-old calabash over the construction and performing his uniquecombined Christian and ancient Hawaiian religious ceremony. Theconstruction union has asked for monthly blessings. It will be interestingto see whose magic is stronger.BIOPHOTONS, BUTTERFLIES, AND HEALINGThe director of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine, Wayne Jones, iscoauthor of a new book called "Healing with Homeopathy." Most homeopathicremedies are so highly diluted that not a single molecule of the assumedactive ingredient remains. So something beyond normal physics and chemistrymust be invoked in order to explain homeopathic healing, assuming it isnot simply the placebo effect.Jones says that healing is mediated by an elusive "biophoton," the quantumof the "bioelectromagnetic field," that triggers the familiar "butterflyeffect" in chaos theory. "Quantum potentials" are "collapsed" by thethoughts of the healer, according to Jones, creating the healing biophotons.(From item in the Aug.2 "What's New," electronic newsletter of the AmericanPhysical Society.)THE SCIENCE WARS (CONTINUED)Some comments by Dorothy Nelkin, a professor at NYU who teaches in thedepartment of sociology and School of Law, from a fullpage opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 26 1996
:". . .I believe that the moral outrage of scientists stems from changesoccurring in the field of science itself and in its relationship tosources of financial support. Many scientists seem to believe thattheir status in society is at risk -- and they are looking for someoneto blame. . . .""Who, in fact, is to blame? Scientists want to make sure that it is not themselves. Hoping to shape public attitudes toward science, they attackthose who write about social and cultural influences on research. The ideathat social forces influence the questions that scientists pursue, theirinterpretations of data, and the technological applications of their workhardly seems revolutionary. But current theories about science do seem tocall into question the image of selfless scientific objectivity and toundermine scientific authority, at a time when scientists want to reclaimtheir lost innocence, to be perceived as pure, unsullied seekers aftertruth. That is what the science wars are about." (From the electronicnewsletter of National Association of Scholars, July 31, 1996
).

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 6 Aug. 12,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and wideracademic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.LIFE ON MARS. GOOD SCIENCE OR BAD? The media went wild last week with the announcement that NASA-fundedscientists have found evidence for life on Mars. Of course this isstupendous, if true. A few spoil-sports muttered about "science by pressrelease," and made comparisons with the 1989 cold fusion fiasco. However,the press announcement in the Mars case was not made until the scientificpaper had passed peer-review and was about to be published in a scientificjournal. The result may still turn out to be wrong, but the NASA pressrelease was exemplary of how science should be reported. The followingexcerpt has generally been ignored in the media:"For two years, we have applied state-of-the-art technology to perform theseanalyses, and we believe we have found quite reasonable evidence of past lifeon Mars," Gibson added. "We don't claim that we have conclusively proven it.We are putting this evidence out to the scientific community for otherinvestigators to verify, enhance, attack -- disprove if they can -- as partof the scientific process. Then, within a year or two, we hope to resolve thequestion one way or the other.What we have found to be the most reasonable interpretation is of suchradical nature that it will only be accepted or rejected after other groupseither confirm our findings or overturn them, McKay added." -NASA Press ReleaseBob Park of the American Physical Society issued this caution aboutdashing off to Mars in his weekly electronic newsletter, _What's New_:"Dan Goldin's final words at the NASA news conference Wednesday were: 'Wewill do whatever we have to do [to validate the claim] but we will be drivensolely by scientific considerations.' Not everyone seemed to understand thefull significance of Goldin's statement. Taxpayers for Common Sense, forexample, warned the public to 'Calm down and watch your wallet.' In fact,the Mars priority has the potential to save the taxpayers billions. Theprimary scientific consideration is to avoid contaminating Mars with Earthorganisms. As one prominent biologist put it, 'NASA must either figure out away to autoclave astronauts, or explore Mars with robots.' Roboticexploration is at least ten times cheaper than doing it with people. Moreover, robotic exploration eliminates the rationale for building a $90Bspace station."SOME COMMENTS BY READERS ON ITEMS FROM LAST WEEKOn the claimed supernatural cause for the Oahu H-3 Freeway collapse, PhillipB. Olsen <TFEK17A@prodigy.com> writes:"The girders collapsed because a wooden bracing broke when a piece of heavyequipment accidentally dislodged it during an unsupervised weekend overtimejob. I doubt anyone will tell the media these facts. Ghosts make bettercopy, especially when a faculty curse accompanies the event."The faculty member in question has received no visible support, within orwithout the Hawaiian community, for her curses.On the quotation from Dorothy Nelkin's commentary on the "Science Wars" inthe July 26 _Chronicle of Higher Education_, Norman F. Stanley<nfs@midcoast.com> says: "Dorothy Nelkin's points are well taken. Scientists do not serve sciencewell by dismissing their critics impatiently as ignorant of what they arecriticizing. Admittedly the temptation to do so is great when the choice isbetween getting on with productive work vs. swatting gnats. Regrettably,much of the postmodern criticism of scientific methodology seems to be, toput it bluntly, shoddy scholarship. I think this needs to be dealt withpainstakingly and in detail. Perhaps more scientists should publish suchcritiques."NELKIN ON FRAUDMaybe Nelkin makes some good points. But in the same article she also says:"In a climate of intense competition for patents and research funds,incidents of fraud, falsification of scientific evidence, and misconduct haveproliferated." This is a good example of the "shoddy scholarship" to which Olsen refers. While there have been a few celebrated cases of charges of scientificmisconduct, notably the one involving Nobelist David Baltimore that wasrecently thrown out in court, proven examples are few and far between andhardly can be said to have "proliferated." Tens of thousands of papers are published every year with at most one or twobeing called back for being fraudulent. And, almost all of these are inmedical areas where publication standards are lower than in the basicsciences--for a good reason. Medical researchers feel intense pressure topublish uncertain results that may, if they are correct, save lives. For thebulk of science, however, nothing is gained and everything can be lost byfaking data. Since anything important is independently checked many timesover, you are bound to get caught if you cheat.As for Nelkin, how ironic that a science critic makes up data aboutscientists making up data. And how ironic that we are asked by socialcritics to take as absolute truth their theory that scientific truth isrelative, nothing more than the product of cultural prejudices. Maybe somecultural prejudices against science are also in operation.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 7 Aug. 23,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and widerinternational academic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.LATE BREAKING ITEM: LAMB WINS IN COURTA jury in Hawaii has just ruled completely in favor of Professor Ramdas Lambof the department of Religion, University of Hawaii at Manoa, in a lawsuitbrought against him by a female student who accused him of sexual harassmentand rape. They awarded him $130,000 and found her guilty of defamation ofcharacter in her charges. She can pay, since UHM had previously given her$150,000 to settle the suit she had brought against it. Lamb believes he wasthe victim of a vendetta by radical feminists who objected to his includinganti-feminist, as well as feminist, readings in a course on religion andsociety. He still has a suit against UHM pending.UH FACULTY STANDS ON PRINCIPLEThe faculty of the University of Hawaii was one of the first in the US tobe unionized. Its union, the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly hasone of the richest Political Action Committees in a corrupt one-party statethat is run by money and politics. No state university in the country isinterfered with more by local politicians, so a strong union with a rich PACis deemed essential for survival.UHPA's PAC makes regular endorsements in local elections. These are doneafter detailed interviews with the candidates. Those faculty members who"voluntarily" contribute to the PAC (an automatic payroll deduction is madeunless you take specific action to stop it) get to vote on the PACselections. Usually they go along, but this time they balked in the case ofone candidate: State Sen. Milton Holt, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanorcharge of spousal abuse in 1991. Holt is also an employee of the Bishop Estate, the richest landowner inHawaii, so this may also have had something to do with his unpopularity. Asupposedly non-profit trust for the Kamehameha schools, the Estate's mainfunction seems to be to make millions for its trustees, who include a formerState Supreme Court Chief Justice and Senate president. In fact, the HawaiiSupreme Court, in blatant disregard for the US Constitution, selects thetrustees, who are required to be Protestants. Having an on-paper endowment greater than Harvard, Kamehameha schools doeslittle to raise the educational and living standards of most Hawaiians. Needless to say, Holt watches out for the Estate's interests in the Senate,which many regard as a conflict of interest.The UHPA PAC endorsement was made because Holt consistently voted "for theuniversity and faculty" on bills involving their interests. This seems to bethe main PAC requirement, and with contract negotiations at impasse for overa year now, they apparently feel the faculty needs all the friends it canget. Probably, but sometimes standing up for principle gives you a warmerfeeling than the few extra bucks you carry in your wallet after a pay raise.CALTECH BEST BUYMoney Magazine reports that CalTech is the best overall value in US collegesand universities today. Although tuition and fees come to $18,000 a year,CalTech spends nine times the national average, or $46,613 per student. Thisis because of its $693M endowment (far less than Kamehameha Schools) and$150M per year in extramural research funds. The student-to-faculty ratio isthree-to-one. It all pays off. The average starting salary of a CalTechB.S. graduate is $38,000, with seven receiving over $48,000 this year.But before rushing in your kids' applications, start helping with that mathhomework. Thirty-nine percent of incoming CalTech freshman scored a perfect800 on the math SAT.MARS SKEPTIC CHASTISED BY MOTHER FOR HAVING CLOSED MINDOne of the experts asked by NASA to review the recent results on life on Marsis J. William Schopf of UCLA, the discoverer of the oldest evidence for lifeon Earth. He called the Mars evidence "interesting, exciting, butinconclusive." During a program break when he appeared on CNN, a woman in theaudience asked: "Why can't we be more positive about this new find? This isgood news, great news! Those skeptics ought to leave us alone." Later,Schopf's mother, after chastising him for not calling sooner, said: "There maywell be life on Mars. Son, keep an open mind."This reminds me of the plea in the Psychic Hot Line commercials: "All youneed is an open mind." That's so the callers have their brains fallout before dialing. Those who believe in any questionable claim without adequate evidence are theones with the closed minds. They seem unable to accept a mundaneexplanation, so deep is their need to believe that there is "something outthere."

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 8 Aug. 26,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and widerinternational academic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.FACULTY REPS ASK FOR ACTIONThe UHPA Faculty Representative Forum met on Saturday and asked the Board ofDirectors to recommend action strategies in the current contractnegotiations impasse. A straw vote indicated that the representatives, atleast, were ready to consider a work stoppage--if it were to be coordinatedwith HSTA. While a UH strike would hardly be noticed, such would not bethe case if 300,000 kids are on the streets when the State Baby SittingAgency shuts down.REGENTS THE PROBLEM, ACCORDING TO HAYASAKAOutgoing UHPA president, Sinikka Hayasaka said that the Governor does notseem to think that UHPA's proposals, which do not include a pay raise fortwo years but which make substantial improvements in contract protections,are all that unreasonable. However, the Regents' and Governor'srepresentatives on the negotiating team can't seem to agree, and Cayetanohas so far been unwilling to do what his predecessors have always done inthis situation, namely say: "OK boys and girls, make an agreement." Cayetano apparently sees no reason to open himself up to criticism by theRegents for "interfering with the University." The Regent bargaining teamhas been changed, so hopefully we will see some movement.Sinikka referred to her negotiations with "Ben and Ken." She says theydon't talk to each other, so she carries messages back and forth in a kindof shuttle diplomacy. She calls the Governor "Ben," but always says"President Mortimer" when talking with the president. "Even Mrs. Mortimercalls him President Mortimer," Sinikka said.WHY THE FACULTY HAS NO PULLUHPA Associate Director John Radcliffe says that "the first thing apolitician thinks is: Can these people hurt me?" He gave the followingfigures to illustrate why politicians have good reason to feel that UHPAmembers can't hurt them:"98% of the HSTA membership is registered to vote. 95% tend to vote in everyelection and 85% will vote 'the union line.' Their budget was not cut.93% of the HGEA membership is registered, 80% vote in all or almost allelections and 70% vote 'the union line.' They were cut a little.58% of the UHPA membership is registered to vote. 65% of that number willvote in all or nearly all elections and the only ones who vote the unionline were going in that direction in spite of the union leadershiprecommendation. Their budget has been cut by approximately one third."MORE ON LAMB CASETalk about voting the "union line" doesn't win Radcliffe many friends on thefaculty, but Friday's victory in court in the Ramdas Lamb sexual harassmentcase should demonstrate to all of us why we need street fighters likeRadcliffe on our side. Lamb gave a brief speech at Saturday's Forum,thanking UHPA for its support. His words were greeted with only politeapplause. David Miller of Hilo pointed out that it could have been any oneof us up there, but apparently many faculty are still willing to buy theidea that "a women never lies on charges of rape" regardless of the evidence.UHPA's attorney, Tony Gill, who defended Lamb, remarked to me that you onlyhear that argument in the academy. The public has too much common sense tofall for such strange reasoning. As he told the Forum, eight jurorsrepresenting a cross section of the community, four men and four women,heard all the evidence for two weeks and had no trouble reaching theunanimous conclusion that Michelle Gretzinger had lied, defamed lamb, andabused the justice system.Lamb won $132,000. He still has a suit against the University and couldwind up with one or two million. Gretzinger claims that the $175,000previously given to her by UH (erroneously reported as $150,000 in the lastissue) is all gone in legal expenses. However, UHPA still expects to getits costs back. It recently received $300,000 from UH, by court order, tocover its expenses in the earlier Lamb arbitration procedure. When all issaid and done, Gretzinger and her supporters will have cost the taxpayers ofHawaii enough money to pay, according to Radcliffe's guess, $500 to eachfaculty member.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 9 Sep. 3,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and widerinternational academic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.NATURE CAN BE BAD FOR YOUEphedrine, a naturally occurring drug that Chinese practitioners have usedfor centuries to treat colds, has been blamed for causing illness in morethan 800 people. The FDA reports there have been at least 17 deathsresulting from the herbal concoctions sold in natural food outlets,convenience stores and exercise parlors as "health food" preparations thatsupposedly will reduce weight, build muscle and stamina, or, in a few cases,produce an "herbal high" that makers say will rival illegal drugs.Preparations loaded with ephedrine have been peddled as "dietarysupplements" that can be sold without the rigid control that the FDA hasover pharmaceuticals. "What we are concerned about is the safety of theseproducts," said FDA chief David Kessler. Right now, he said, people seelabels that claim products are "all natural" or "herbal" and believe theyare safe. That is a risky assumption, said Kessler.RUSSIA PLAGUED BY CHARLATANSA plague of astrologers, UFOlogists, soothsayers, parapsychologists, bogusdoctors and other charlatans is threatening Russia, according to an articlein the July/August _ Skeptical Inquirer_. Boris Shmakin, a science teacherat the Vinogradov Institute of Geochemistry in Irkutsk, reports that theRussian Parliament hired a "soothsayer" to tell them who in the Governmentis "constantly erring." One of the main tasks of a senior official in thePresidential Security Service is to study astrology and prepare horoscopesof the leaders of the country. Shmakin tells of regular TV programs inwhich"specialists" in astrology are respectfully interviewed whilelegitimate scientists are denigrated as "oppressors" and "fighters againstnew ideas."Oh, by the way. Hillary's guru, Jean Houston, was in Hawaii last week for aworkshop. Admission was only $125 a head (empty, of course).THE REMEDIAL SWAMPSome figures from an article by Brunno V. Manno, "The Swamp of CollegeRemedial Education," in the Summer 1996
issue of _Academic Questions_:75% of US colleges (91% of public, 58% of private) offer remedial courses inreading, writing, and mathematics. 30% of entering students (55% atminority colleges) enroll in at least one course. Does it work? Is it worth the huge expense? The evidence says not. Only10% of remedial minority students earn a two-year associate degree incommunity colleges, much less graduate from a four-year institution. College is simply too late to be learning reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.In most cases, remedial students are allowed into regular courses,contributing to the dumbing down that the whole college system hasexperienced over the last decade or two and the easing up of graduationrequirements. In 1992, 26% of bachelor degree recipients had not earned ahistory credit, 31% no math credit. A 1993 survey showed that 56% ofAmerican-born four-year college graduates cannot consistently perform simplequantitative tasks, such as calculating the change from $3.00 after spending60 cents on a bowl of soup and $1.95 for a sandwich.No wonder college graduates have trouble finding jobs. As happened with thehigh school diploma, employers now cannot rely on the bachelors degree tocertify that at applicant will be able to function on the job. High selfesteem is not sufficient.WHAT IS POSTMODERNISM?Some readers have asked what this deconstructionism, postmodernism,relativism, or poststructualism is all about. To get an idea, here's whatone of its inventors, Michel Foucault, says about the reality of the sun:"Each time that there is a metaphor, there is doubtless a sun somewhere; buteach time that there is a sun, metaphor has begun. If the sun ismetaphorical always, already, it is no longer completely natural. It isalways, already a luster, a chandelier, one might say an _artificial_construction, if one could still give credence to this signification whennature has disappeared. For if the sun is no longer completely natural,what in nature does remains natural?" (From "Nietzche, Freud, Marx") Does that help?

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 10 Sep.9,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and widerinternational academic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.HOW TO BE A PHYSICIAN OF THE SOUL (IN ONE EASY LESSON)As we have noted in previous issues, Congress and insurance companies arebeing increasingly receptive to demands for insurance coverage oftraditional and alternative medicine. Alternative providers are notrequired to produce scientific evidence for the safety and efficacy oftheir methods, arguing that such tests are simply part of the conspiracyof Western science to continue its oppressive dominance of society. As aresult, alternative medicine is largely uncontrolled.Still, practitioners need a professional degree to inspire their patients'confidence and fill in the space provided on the insurance form. As aresult, non-accredited diploma mills that provide an appropriate sheepskinto hang in the office are sprouting up in great numbers. Here are some ofthe bogus degrees now available: D. Hyp (hypnotism), Graph.D.(Graphoanalysis), H. M. D. (homeopathy), Ac. Phys., L.Ac., C. Ac., R.Ac.(acupuncture), D.O.M. (oriental medicine), N.M.D., N.D. (naturopathy),C.C.N., C.N., N.M.D. (nutrition), C.C.T., R.C.T. (colon therapy), C.M.T.(massage therapy), M.L.D. (manual lymph drainage), H.H.D., Hst.D. (holistichealth), D.N. (naturology, also nutripathy), M.H. (herbology), (M.T.P.(transpersonal psychology), Msc.D. (metaphysical science).Typical is a program at the National Academy of Wisdom in New York City. By viewing a video tape course and spending one day at an "intensiveretreat" learning about spiritual approaches to healing, you can earncertification as a "Physician of the Soul." Your certified expertise willinclude: creative visualization, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, Kabbalistichealing, quantum healing, rebirthing, reiki, shamanic healing, shiatsu, andtherapeutic touch.(From an article by Jack Rasso in the July/August 1996
_SkepticalInquirer_).NEW VOTERS SIGNED UPJohn Radcliffe of UHPA writes: "Your readers will be happy and proud toknow that after finding that only 58% of the faculty was registered tovote, UHPA did an all unit mailing to all 3168 members and 219 new votersbecame registered to participate in democracy. We are now at 63.5% oftotal capacity (which our large non-citizen component would keep us fromever realizing). Still, 219 new voters is 219 new voters."UH MOVES FROM BEEF TO PORKWhen John Burns was governor of Hawaii and Tom Hamilton was UH president,the university grew rapidly from a cow college to a major internationalresearch organization. As measured in terms of federal dollars forresearch, UH rose to the top 50 nationwide.When George Ariyoshi took over as governor and Fudge Matsuda becamepresident, the emphasis changed to providing access to higher educationthroughout the islands and the community colleges were built. Much of thisdevelopment occurred out of the hide of the Manoa College of Arts andSciences and research suffered. The result was a slippage for UHM inresearch standing to the vicinity of the top 75. President Simon calledfor a return to the top 50, but UHM stayed in place during his era.Now, with Governor Cayetano and President Mortimer slashing budgets andseverely damaging the fragile infrastructure on which UHM's researchposition was precariously balanced, cow college seems once again around thecorner. The latest figures from the National Science Foundation barelyplaces UHM in the top 100 (96th). Famous institutions that now get morefederal dollars for research than UHM include the University of Dayton,Utah State, and Thomas Jefferson University.Actually, "pork college" is more accurate designation for UHM. Hawaii isfifth in the nation in pork barrel research funds (so-called "earmarked"projects), thanks to our master Senator of Pork, Dan Inouye. Some morecynical faculty and union leaders will take this as the good news. Butperhaps the better news is the fact that even being fifth in pork isinsufficient to make a significant contribution to total research income.This implies that very little research funding in the US is obtained byslopping around at the trough. Merit may have something to do with it.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 11 Sep.19,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii and widerinternational academic communities. This and earlier isses are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.htmlTo add yourself to the distribution list, simply send a message tovjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu. Please give your name and location. To removeyourself from the list, reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don'teven have to say PLEASE.Please feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full, as long as it isnot being done for profit.Here are some items from the UHM Faculty Senate meeting of Sept. 18:MORTIMER PUNTS FOOTBALLThe cameras were set up to record what President Mortimer had to say aboutthe athletic program, so he covered this first. When he finished, they packed up and left. The media are uninterested in academic matters, ofcourse.Mortimer declared his intention to stick to the plan of gradually phasingout direct UH funding of the athletic program, which is scheduled to reachzero in 1998
. He said that the Governor was not interfering and if he canhelp in reducing the cost of renting the stadium or using his influence toarrange charter flights with Aloha or Hawaiian, then that's fine. ThePresident promised not to restore the athletic funds cut this year.HAAK POURS COOLING WATER ON LIBRARY FLAREUPManoa scientists were stunned a few days ago to discover that HamiltonLibrary would not be renewing some 44 of the most important journals on itsshelves. Library chief John Haak responded to a query by your editor fromthe floor that this was a temporary expedient resulting from a $200K budgetshortfall. The decision was made to delay re-ordering the most expensivejournals, with the expectation that they would be back-ordered when new fundsbecame available. This turned out to be science journals; 300 humanitiesjournals would have had to be delayed to achieve the same figure. Journalprices have increased an average of 18% this year.As Mortimer explained earlier, now that the UH gets tuition money, theadministration cannot complete the budget as early as it used to, but mustwait until it knows what the tuition income will be. As it has turned out,lower enrollments have resulted in $4M less than expected. Although anadditional income of $10M has been obtained from the increase, it remainsuncertain whether the library will get sufficient funds to re-order all thejournals. An inquirer reader who claims to have a "deep-throat" connectionreports that the intention is in fact to cancel these expensive journals.The governor has not yet called Haak into his office to see how he mighthelp with library problems.MEDICAL SCHOOL RE-ORGANIZATION PROCEEDING MALEVOLENTLYBudget cuts and other considerations have led to a process forreorganizing the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). The processis proceeding far from smoothly, with much bitter infighting, according toseveral medical school faculty.Some 30 faculty have opted to move from basic science to clinicaldepartments. One basic science department has stopped admitting students toits graduate program. JABSOM now has its own, active faculty senate and maynot appreciate interference from the UHM Senate. However, it seems an issueof interest to all Manoa faculty if instruction in the fundamentaldisciplines is to be sacrificed at the altar of professional training.COULD YOU SPEND ANOTHER $42 MILLION?Last issue we reported that, over the last twenty years or so, UHM hasslipped from 50th to 96th among universities receiving federal researchfunds. In 1994, the last year reported, Utah was in the 50th spot, with$81M awarded. UHM received $39M. Thus, if the State of Hawaii had made acontinued investment sufficient to maintain the original position, UHM wouldhave taken in $42M more. This would pay for a lot of journalsubscriptions. Seems like the academic equivalent of a 66-0 loss.IN OTHER NEWS . . . MINNESOTA REGENTS TO ABOLISH TENUREFrom an email message distributed by Elizabeth Belfiore of the University ofMinnesota <esb@maroon.tc.umn.edu>:On Sept. 5, the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota rejected acompromise proposed by the Faculty Senate on revisions of the tenure codeand unilaterally proposed a revision that would effectively eliminatetenure. They will vote on this proposal, which has been vigorously opposedby the faculty, on Oct. 10. Some key provisions of the Regents' proposalallow for:(1) Firing faculty in case of program change. (2) Reductions in base pay.(3) Rigorous post tenure reviews for all faculty. (4) Discipline, including dismissal, of faculty for such offenses asfailure to "maintain a proper attitude of industry and cooperation withothers." within and without the University community."(5) Elimination of current grievance rights.NEW ACADEMIC FIELD: "UNSCIENTIFIC† PSYCHOLOGY"Taner Edis, moderator of the Skeptic list, writes:"From the postmodern vantage point, the current crisis in psychology andthe related fields of psychotherapy and education is rooted in misguidedefforts to emulate the natural sciences: Human-social phenomena simplycannot be understood with the tools and conceptions that are used to studynature."He illustrates this with the following conference announcement:Unscientific Psychology: Conversations With Other Voices. A two dayconference on progress and possibilities in creating a cultural, relationaland performatory approach to understanding human life." June 14-15, 1997
,Edith Macy Conference Center Briarcliff Manor, New York.From the announcement:"Creating a new epistology -- an unscientific psychology -- is theactivity of making new meaning. It is an emergent conversationcreated by and out of diverse voices who speak more poetically,culturally and historically than analytically and taxonomically. Itis a conversation about persons (not minds), about relationships andrelationality (not environmental influences on self-containedindividuals), about human activity (not behavior), about narrativesand stories (not Truth), about creating new forms of life (notadapting to forms of alienation). What is emerging is an approach tounderstanding human life as emergent, activisitic, relational andperformatory."

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 12 Oct. 10,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.NEEDED: OCTOBER HOLIDAYIt's nice that we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, but we really needa holiday in October. This long stretch from Labor Day to Election Dayis excruciating. How about affirming Church-State separation, droppingGood Friday and restoring Discovers' Day? PORK IN THE NEW BUDGETBob Park of the American Physical Society reports in his weeklynewsletter What's New that tons of pork were slipped into the 3000-pagefederal budget bill signed recently by President Clinton. Included wasanother $15M for an Alaska supercomputer "used to extract money fromthe aurora borealis." By Park's count, Senator Stevens (R-AK)hasearmarked over $115M for the University of Alaska since 1990(WN 29 Jul94). Senator Harkin (D-IA), whose legislation created the NIH Officeof Alternative Medicine, earmarked $1M for chiropractic schools. Nomention was made of Hawaii's share this year. Falling down on the job,Senator Dan? UH SCIENTISTS SKEPTICAL OF MARS LIFEA colloquium on Martians was held at the University of Hawaii on Sept.26. A panel of experts from planetary geosciences, astronomy,microbiology, and marine biology were mostly pretty skeptical. Thedata appear very flimsy, with ordinary explanations easily found toreplace the extraordinary one of life on Mars.Except for one possibility: that biological molecules exist widelythroughout the universe. The Mars meteorite was unexceptional amongmeteorites. Many teem with organic molecules. An astronomerremarked that the reason we think carbon is so special is that theinner solar system is a region that is abnormally depleted in carbon.Now organic molecules are not necessarily biological. How can we tellthe difference? One possible smoking gun test might be found in thehandedness that characterizes biological matter. Atomic processesprobably cannot explain the excess of left-handedness over right inbiological molecules. This handedness probably resulted by a flip of acoin when life first formed, and then became frozen in. So, if theorganic molecules in the Martian or any other meteorites show an excesshandedness, it seems that this is a sure sign of earth-like life frombeyond earth.HMO'S OFFERING ALTERNATIVE OPTIONSWe have previously reported how alternative medicine is taking a strongfoothold in the US. Now HMO's are beginning to provide these options,usually for an added fee. They claim that they are reacting to theircustomers' wishes, but they are making money too. In an Associated Press item, William Jarvis, president of the NationalCouncil Against Health Fraud is quoted as saying that one HMO franklyadmitted they were referring AIDS patients to a quack clinic where theywere giving them dietary supplements. He added: "They said it'scheaper than AZT and the patient won't be around as long to collect." THIS YEAR'S IG NOBEL PRIZESFrom the October Mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR",http://www.improb.com/):The 1996
Ig Nobel Prizes were presented in the sixth annual ceremony atHarvard University on Thursday evening, October 3, 1996
. The Prizeshonor people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."This year's ceremony was embroiled in controversy -- Sir Robert May,the science advisor to the British government, had asked the organizers to stop giving Ig Nobel Prizes to scientists, even when thescientists want to receive them. Nevertheless, this year's Ig Nobelroster included yet another prizewinner from England.Here are the 1996
Ig Nobel Prize winners:BIOLOGY Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway, for their tasty and tasteful report, "Effect of Ale,Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches." [The report waspublished in "British Medical Journal," vol. 309, Dec 24-31, 1994, p.1689.] Drs. Baerheim and Sandvik sent a videotaped acceptance speech,and watched the ceremony live on the Internet.MEDICINE James Johnston of R.J. Reynolds, Joseph Taddeo of U.S. Tobacco, Andrew Tisch of Lorillard, William Campbell of Philip Morris, and the late Thomas E. Sandefur, Jr., chairman of Brown andWilliamson Tobacco Co. for their unshakable discovery, as testifiedbefore the US Congress, that nicotine is not addictive.PHYSICS Robert Matthews of Aston University, England, for his studiesof Murphy's Law, and especially for demonstrating that toast alwaysfalls on the buttered side. [The report, "Tumbling toast, Murphy's Lawand the fundamental constants" was published in "European Journal ofPhysics," vol.16, no.4, July 18, 1995, p. 172-6.] Professor Matthewssent an audiotaped acceptance speech.PEACE Jacques Chirac, President of France, for commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima with atomic bomb tests in the Pacific.PUBLIC HEALTH Ellen Kleist of Nuuk, Greenland and Harald Moi of Oslo,Norway, for their cautionary medical report "Transmission of GonorrheaThrough an Inflatable Doll." [The report was published in"Genitourinary Medicine," vol. 69, no. 4, Aug. 1993, p. 322.] Dr. Moitraveled from Oslo to Cambridge -- at his own expense -- to accept thePrize. During the trip, Dr. Moi also delivered a lecture at HarvardMedical School about his achievement.CHEMISTRY George Goble of Purdue University, for his blistering, world record time for igniting a barbeque grill -- three seconds, using charcoal and liquid oxygen. Professor Goble's colleague Joe Cychosz traveled to Cambridge to accept the Prize.BIODIVERSITY Chonosuke Okamura of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory inNagoya, Japan, for discovering the fossils of dinosaurs, horses,dragons, princesses, and more than 1000 other extinct "mini-species,"each of which is less than 1/100 of an inch in length. [For detailssee the series "Reports of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory," publishedby the Okamura Fossil Laboratory in Nagoya, Japan during the 1970s and1980s.]LITERATURE The editors of the journal "Social Text," for eagerly publishing research that they could not understand, that the authorsaid was meaningless, and which claimed that reality does not exist.[The paper was "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," Alan Sokal, "Social Text," Spring/Summer 1996
, pp. 217-252.]ECONOMICS Dr. Robert J. Genco of the University of Buffalo for hisdiscovery that "financial strain is a risk indicator for destructiveperiodontal disease."ART Don Featherstone of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, for his ornamentally evolutionary invention, the plastic pink flamingo. Mr.Featherstone traveled to Cambridge to accept the Prize.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 13 Oct. 23,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNIVERSEIt was on October 23, 4004 BC that the universe was created, accordingto seventeenth century bishop James Ussher. Ussher's estimate wasbased on detailed study of the Old Testament, adding up the life spansof the Patriarchs and the ages at which they "begat" their successors.So today is being celebrated as the 6000th birthday of the universe.Actually, since there was no year zero, it is only the 5999th birthday.BIG BANG GLUED BACK TOGETHERA public school superintendent in rural Kentucky was shocked in seeingthe Big Bang theory discussed in his schools' textbooks. So he tookscience into his own hands and ordered the offending pages gluedtogether.According to polls, 20% of Americans believe the earth is less than10,000 years old. A recent study by the People for the American Wayshowed that Republicans in a quarter of the 22 states they examined hadcreationist planks in their state platforms.A SPLINTERED VISIONThe results of the Third International Math and Science Study werereleased last week. The study found US standards unfocused and aimedat the lowest common denominator. "A Splintered Vision: AnInvestigation of U.S. Science and Math Education" concludes that thepoor performance of American students is to be expected, in light ofour fragmented curriculum. Moreover, U.S. textbooks, which cover farmore topics than is typical in other countries, emphasize the lessdemanding. They are, according to the report, "a mile wide and an inchdeep." (From "What's New" of the American Physical Society).CLINTON LOOKING INTO RELIGIOUS OPPRESSIONThe Clinton administration is forming a 20-member advisory committee ofprominent religious leaders and scholars to advise on problems ofreligious oppression and intolerance. No non-believers are included. UHPA ON THE MOVEUHPA leaders are taking a series of action to raise public awareness onthe condition of the University of Hawaii and the stalled facultycontract negotiations. Media advertising and a series of teach-ins anddemonstrations are planned starting next week.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 14 Oct. 30,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.WHITHER THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII?UHPA is organizing a demonstration tomorrow (Halloween) at noon on theBachman lawn. This should not conflict with an important colloquium on"The Unconscious Quantum: Mysticism in Modern Physics" at 3:30 in WAT112. The purpose of the demonstration and teach-ins that are currently inprogress is to stir up the troops to fight off further assaults on theUniversity. If these assaults continue, much of what has beenpainfully constructed over the last forty years and longer will bedestroyed.No doubt the future of UH is in question. The drastic budget cutsof the last few years have not nearly been balanced by extraincome from tuition increases and some welcome, but insufficient,increases in private funding. Decreased enrollment is being blamed onthe tuition hikes, but one wonders how much of the decline can beattributed to students opting elsewhere. Certainly the bad publicity,especially with regard to the library, is bound to scare people away.Even before the recent troubles, UH Manoa was slipping dramatically asa research institution. Once in the top fifty nationally in terms offederal funding, Manoa barely made the first hundred in 1994 and is nowprobably out of that select sample. The community has to ask itselfwhether it wants a major university in Hawaii, or simply a place tokeep young people occupied.The decline of UH is not unique. Many campuses across the nation havesimilar problems, although the top universities probably have theresources to survive. As the elite universities garner even more ofthe available resources, we can expect to see a sharper divisionbetween them and the rest. UH seems headed into the second group, andwe wonder if this is what the politicians have in mind.We can use America's public high schools as an example from which toattempt a prediction of the future of public universities. Withminimal skills, most public high school graduates have few jobopportunities. So they go to college to get the needed skills. However, as the colleges decline in standards, and the vast assemblageof unprepared students avoid the tough academic disciplines thatprovide the skills needed in our high-tech society, college degreeswill become as useless as high school diplomas. The taxpayers willcontinue to support these public institutions, however, because they keepthe kids off the streets. Colleges are still cheaper than prisons.HOW ABOUT POLYNESIAN DISCOVERERS' DAY?We have suggested that the State do away with the clearly sectarianGood Friday holiday and restore a much needed October day off. Onepossibility that comes to mind is to celebrate "Polynesian Discovers'Day." This would recognize what must be greatest achievement ofPolynesian society.POPE SAYS EVOLUTION OKIt took the Catholic Church 400 years to rehabilitate Galileo, but onlya little over a century to do the same for Darwin. Pope John Paul IIrecently told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that "fresh knowledgeleads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just ahypothesis." Il Giornale greeted the announcement with the headline"The Pope Says We May Descend From Monkeys." Actually, evolution hasbeen taught in Catholic schools and colleges for many years. The newpapal pronouncement seems designed to counter the common fundamentalistargument that "evolution is just a theory." It also underscores theCatholic position that the Church, not the Bible, is the finalauthority.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 15 Nov. 19,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.HAWAII PHYSICS 24TH IN CITATIONSAccording to a study by Tulane physicists J. P. Perdew and F. J.Tipler, University of Hawaii physicists are 24th in the nation interms of citations per paper. Perdew and Tipler were attempting toshow that a recent National Research Council ranking by reputationstrongly favored large departments. Tulane, with 12 faculty memberswas ranked 115.5 by the NRC but was third in citations per paper, justbehind Princeton and Harvard. Hawaii, with 19 faculty members, was ranked 82 by reputation but ahead of such stellar institutions such asTexas (Austin), UC San Diego, Rochester, Columbia, Brown, Maryland,UCLA, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan, ad Johns Hopkins, among others,in citations per paper. These figures are from an extended version ofthe table presented on _Physics Today_, October, 1996
.BUT WE STILL DON'T HAVE A CONTRACTThe UHPA Board of Directors continues to agonize over when, and if, togo to the faculty for a strike authorization vote. The faculty isclearly divided on the issue. But it seems highly unlikely that amajority will walk for a 4% pay raise. The non-cost items, especiallyintellectual property rights, are probably more important to mostfaculty, but the Administration has not yet acted to take away theserights--simply refused to bargain them with UHPA. Let them take awayintellectual property rights, or some others such as tenure, and thenthis faculty might get stirred up.UHPA has little it can do to get the State back to the bargainingtable other than threaten a strike. But it's not likely that theGovernor and his cohorts will lose any sleep over the prospect.Did you notice that in this morning's Advertiser Cayetano is reportedas saying that LOWER education remains his first priority?GOT CANCER? STAY AWAY FROM LOURDES"The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, isestimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in ahundred thousand. If no more than 5 percent of those who come toLourdes were there to treat their cancers, there should have beensomething between 50 and 500 'miraculous' cures of cancer alone. Since only three of the attested 65 cures [accepted by the R C Churchas miraculous cures] are of cancer, the rate of spontaneous remissiona Lourdes seems to be lower than if the victims had just stayed athome." From Carl Sagan, _The Demon-Haunted World_ p. 232.STUDENTS STUDYING LESS, SAYS STUDYHenry H. Bauer, Professor of Chemistry & Science Studies at theVirginia Polytechnic Institute & State University <hhbauer@vt.edu>, hasdata that indicates a dramatic shift in the way students study. Thetable below shows the test scores of his freshman chemistry classesat Virginia Tech from 1986 to 1993.
_____________________________________________________________________
Fall Term 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993_____________________________________________________________________
Higher Scoreon Final 75% 60% 65% 60% 45% 30% 35% 30%_____________________________________________________________________
Average Grade 2.3 2.3 1.6 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.6 1.4_____________________________________________________________________
At Least C 80% 80% 50% 50% 50% 40% 45% 40%_____________________________________________________________________

Bauer concludes that students are becoming less and less willing, orable, to learn from their mistakes during the semester. Most studentsnow perform worse on the final than in earlier quizzes on the samematerial. From "The New Generations: Students Who Don't Study."AUSTRALIA URGED TO REGULATE CHINESE MEDICINEAn investigation into Chinese herbal medicine in Australia reports evidence of eight deaths in three states linked with abuse of Chinesemedical treatments in the past eight years. The authors estimatedthere was one patient injury per 230 consultations of traditionalChinese medicine, which includes acupuncture and herbal prescriptions.The report recommends that statutory occupation regulations beintroduced that restrict the titles of acupuncturist and Chinesemedical practitioner to those who are registered and have betweenthree to five years' training. It also recommends improved labelingof medicines and tighter controls of imports. Herbal medicines canoccasionally lead to liver toxicity and skin reactions, whileacupuncture can sometimes cause trauma and infections. But Chinesemedicine's popularity is increasing. This year it is estimated therewill be 2.8 million consultations nationally, amounting to an $84million turnover. The amount of Chinese medicines imported hasincreased four fold since 1992. From an article by Steve Dow in_Melbourne Age, Nov. 19, 1996
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HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 16 Dec. 5,1996
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.NEGOTIATIONS RESUMEContract negotiations between UHPA and the State resumed last night,and will continue on Friday night. No progress has yet been reportedand UHPA is straw-polling the faculty prior to a BOD meeting onSaturday that may decide on date for a strike authorization vote. Watch http://www.uhpa.org/ for the latest news.At the Manoa Senate meeting yesterday, J. N. Musto clarified UHPA'ssalary proposal. The union has offered to settle immediately for aretroactive salary increase for '95-96 that is the average of theyet-to-be-determined awards for those bargaining units that havebinding arbitration. If the State wishes a 4-year contract, UHPA willagree at 4% per year, or one salary step, for '97 and '98.Musto also had some interesting things to say about the Hawaii economy.Our main "industries" are, in order: tourism, government, military,agriculture, and university research. The last two are very close, andwith more effort research could easily exceed agriculture in economicimportance. As reported previously in this newsletter, federal researchmoney would now be $50 million per year greater if Manoa had maintainedthe relative position it once had as a research institution.Also, the State of Hawaii is not the bloated bureaucracy it is oftenportrayed, with per capita State employees about at the nationalaverage. UH LIBRARY DECLINE DOCUMENTEDFrom the "Library Fact Sheet" compiled with the knowledge of theLibrary Senate Executive Board:In 1994/95 the library purchased over 36,000 books; in 1995/96 only11,000 books were purchased. Effective January 1996
, 1,100 journalsubscriptions were canceled. Effective January 1997
, a further 200+journal subscriptions must be canceled.MATHEMATICS GOING RELATIVEThe following is from a recent editorial in PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICSEDUCATION NEWSLETTER 9, "Teaching and the nature of mathematics" byDennis Almeida and Paul Ernest of the University of Exeter, UK. Thefull text can be found at http://www.ex.ac.uk/~pernest/.". . . [There is] a new wave of 'fallibilist' philosophies ofmathematics . . . gaining ground [that] propose a conception ofmathematics as human, corrigible, historical, value-laden and changing.The suggestion that mathematics itself is not neutral but laden withthe values of the people and culture in which it was created is notonly controversial, but of far-reaching and fundamental significancefor the teaching of mathematics. In the area of gender and mathematics,for example, it is regarded as possibly the key issue (Walkerdine,1988). The adoption of a value free, neutral, absolutist stance towardsmathematics is to embrace the "separated" values associated withstereotypical masculinity, whereas accepting a fallibilist view is morecongenial with a gender- and culture-fair approach to mathematicsteaching.A cultural view of mathematics suggests opening up the classroom to theoutside world. The consequent multicultural approach incorporatesmathematics from European and non-European sources such as fingercounting techniques in Roman times, an investigation of number wordsused by Lincolnshire shepherds, board games from Ghana and Nigeria,probability activities from Brazil, Rangoli patterns, mathematics fromthe ancient Indian Vedas, geometry in Islamic art."

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 17 Jan. 2,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.UH FACULTY POISED TO STRIKEThe UH faculty has given its union authorization to call a strike. WhileUHPA claims money is not the issue, that is clearly the way it isperceived in the community . UHPA has asked for 4% per year, retroactiveto the point 18 months ago that a new contract would have gone intoeffect. Some are suggesting that the union offer to forego thatretroactive increase to demonstrate to the public that the faculty iswilling to make sacrifices. If that offer is not accepted and a strikehappens, then at least the faculty will have seized the high ground andpeople will have little sympathy for the State’s position.From today’s UHPA Web Page: “While no new talks have been scheduled, wehave received correspondence from the Governor's Chief Negotiatorindicating some signs of progress. Meanwhile, for those who have beencalling with questions regarding ERS, the Health Fund and so on, please beassured that we have carefully researched our legal and practicalsituation and have those issues in hand.” COURT RECOGNIZES JUNK SCIENCE WHEN IT SEES ITA federal judge in Oregon ruled last month that lawyers can't presentevidence that silicone breast implants cause disease because theirevidence is "junk science." Judge Robert E. Jones said "The Supreme Courtcharged district courts with the duty to act as `gatekeepers' to ensurethat any and all scientific testimony or evidence admitted is not onlyrelevant but reliable." Among the junk scientists singled out by thejudge was Eric Gershwin of UC Davis. Last year, Gershwin was awarded a$1M grant by the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine.HOMEOPATHETIC PATENTIn other alternative medicine news, Biomed Comm Inc., Seattle has becomethe first company to patent homeopathic growth factors for use againstAIDS. While the Patent Office still disallows perpetual motion machines,it does not seem to place the atomic theory of matter on the same footingas the second law of thermodynamics. Homeopathic nostrums are so dilutedthat they cannot have a single atom of the original ingredient that issupposed to provide the benefit. NOT-SO-INTELLIGENT DESIGNHaving little success insinuating their particular belief system intopublic school curricula by the back door of Creation “Science,”fundamentalists have hit upon a new euphemism “intelligent design.”Authors such as Michael Behe in "Darwin's Black Box: The BiochemicalChallenge to Evolution" claim that nature has an "irreducible complexity"that can only have come from an"intelligent designer." Interviewed forthe Chronicle of Higher Education, Richard Dawkins dismissed intelligentdesign as "a pathetic cop-out" and Behe as simply too lazy to figure outhow things work. Bob Park comments that “any intelligent designer whowould wrap the prostate gland around the ureter must have a wicked senseof humor.” Another Internet wag adds that no competent engineer woulddesign a waste disposal system like that of the human body, with itsoutlet in a recreation area.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 27 April 29,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.PROSTITUTES POINT THE WAY This morning's _Honolulu Advertiser estimates that 120 prostitutes walkthe streets of Waikiki, each capable of taking in $1,000 per night. Alittle calculation shows that this amounts to a $40 million a yearbusiness. The same front page reported that the State of Hawaii hasthe lowest rate of income growth in the nation. Perhaps a littlelegalized sin is all Hawaii needs to break out of its economic doldrums.U. S. HOUSE ENDORSES TEN COMMANDMENTSNo legalized sin for Congress. Only the illegal variety. By a vote of295- 125, the U.S. House of Representatives on March 5 adopted anon-binding resolution endorsing the display of the Ten Commandments incourtrooms and other public buildings. Hawaii's two representativesvoted nay. Supporter John Hostettler (R-Ind.) said that "thehistorical fact of the matter is that the absolutes upon which most ofthe law of this country is derived . . . are rooted in the Bible." Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation ofChurch and State called it "the worst politicization of religion I haveseen in Congress in the 25 years I have worked in Washington."GENESIS PARK DEFEATEDA request for a zoning variance to build a "creation science" museum inFlorence, Kentucky four miles from a famous paleontological site in BigBone Lick State Park has been denied by Boone county authorities. Themuseum, which was to be called "Genesis Park," was opposed by membersof the local religious community and University of Kentuckyanthropologists.UK FORTUNE TELLERS DISAGREE ON ELECTIONAccording to Reuters, astrologers in Britain agree with the polls inpredicting a Labor victory in Thursday's general election. Tarot cardreaders, I-Ching oracles, psychics other clairvoyants disagree. CraigHamilton-Parker, resident psychic on a British breakfast televisionprogram, says Prime Minister John Major will snatch a surprisevictory. "Myself and many other psychics who I meet -- because I meeta lot -- are all saying the Conservatives are going to win," he said."If we're wrong I'll eat my hat. In fact, I'll eat my crystal ball."NEW PRAYER LIST CLAIMS QUANTUM PROOFA new Internet discussion group has been formed to help answer theprayers of its members. From the announcement: "The PRAYER list is aforum for anyone who understands the power of prayer and wishes touse this power for themselves and others. Whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, etc. or agnostic does notmatter...as long as you understand that 'prayer' or positive thoughtenergy produces results--this has been documented at the quantumlevel in physics."PENROSE ON A ROLLRoger Penrose is a famous Oxford mathematician, physicist, andcosmologist and author of the best-selling _The Emperor's New Mind_. His claim that human consciousness implies new physics, perhapsquantum gravity, has been severely criticized by experts but hasgone down well with the public. He is back in the news. TheAmerican Physical Society's newsletter _What's New_ mailing of April25 reports: "In 1974, physicist Roger Penrose invented his arrowedrhombic tiles that fill up space aperiodically. Now, according to_The Economist_, Sir Roger is suing Kimberly Clark, maker of Kleenextoilet paper, for embossing its rolls with Penrose tiles."

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 19 Jan. 23,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.92% VOTE FOR CONTRACTThe votes to ratify the UH Faculty contract are in. Of 1617 votesreturned, 1474 or 92% voted yes. There were only 131 "no" votes, and12 "unidentified."Efforts are already underway now to reform UHPA and make it more"democratic." That're college professors for you. They have somethingthat works, so they have to fix it. The Manoa Faculty Senate willserve as the model.FINNISH STUDY FINDS NO LINK BETWEEN MAGNETIC FIELDS AND CANCERBob Park of the American Physical Society reports that a Finnish studyhas not confirmed previous claims of a connection between 50 Hzresidential magnetic fields and cancer. A total of 383,700 householdsformed part of the study. The energy carried by a 50 Hz photon is0.00000000000008 of that of a photon from the sun.UCSF TO CASH IN ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINEThe December 12 San Francisco Chronicle reported that the University ofCalifornia at San Francisco is starting a new "Program in IntegrativeMedicine" that will teach medical students a combination of Eastern andWestern medicine. For example, the "integrated approach" to breastcancer treatment will mix conventional treatments such as surgery,chemotherapy and radiation with meditation, yoga, dance and arttherapies.William Jarvis, Director of the National Council Against Health Fraudat the Loma Linda University School of Public Health, commented: "Science is open-minded, and always willing to look at new ideas, butit is not empty-minded." (Ed: Besides, these are not new ideas). Jarvissaid he would be concerned if UCSF is placing its imprimatur onalternative medical techniques purely for marketing advantage. "I havea little bit of suspicion they are getting on the bandwagon," he said. "It may be as much public relations and marketing as it is scientificcuriousity."Cardiovascular diet guru Dr. Dean Ornish, who is plotting the UCSFprogram, gave credibility to this concern, remarking that thatinsurance companies have become increasingly interested in alternativemedicine and that the shift toward managed care has created incentivesfor health plan and medical clinics to keep their patients healthy. (Ed: Or at least, to die quicker).SCIENTOLOGISTS CLAIM RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN GERMANYThe US State Department, and more important, an array of Hollywoodstars, has protested plans by the German government to crack down onthe Church of Scientology. A resolution passed at a convention of theruling Christian Democratic party said that Scientology "places massivepsychic, economic and legal pressures" on people wishing to join.Scientology is a religion founded 41 years ago by science-fictionwriter L. Ron Hubbard. The rumor is that he had boasted how easy itwould be for him to start a new religion; he was dared to do it, so hedid. The Church requires initiates to undergo counseling that can costthousands of dollars. This has helped it accumulate enormous wealth,which it does not hesitate to use to combat criticism with SLAPPs(Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).For example, Scientology filed 45 lawsuits against the twenty-year oldCult Awareness Network, finally forcing it out of business. Furthermore, it has reportedly bought CAN's assets at auction and hasits eyes on 600 feet of files that it could use to identify enemies andgather dirt on rival cults.See http://www.primenet.com/~lippard/skeptical.html for a hugesection on Scientology, including links to their secret doctrines,FBI-seized documents, several critical books on the web, currentlawsuits and much more.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 20 Feb. 11,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.CRITICAL THINKING AT THE COREThe University of Hawaii, Manoa is in the process of revamping its corerequirements. Included in the skills that likely will be required forgraduation is critical thinking. One proposal for implementing this isto reduce the number of required courses in arts, humanities, andsciences an add more courses in cultural studies.One question that has not yet been tackled is where to find instructorsin cultural studies to teach critical thinking. Most arepostmodernists who do not regard critical thinking as a "legitimatemeta-narrative," to use their own jargon. PHYSICISTS' ELVIS SIGHTING DEBUNKEDWell, they did not actually claim to see Elvis but something moreexotic--the extraction of antimatter from the vacuum. An article byGary Taubes in the January 10 issue of _Science_ tells how competentscientists, especially in this day of fast computers, can unconsciouslymake even the most careful measurements look the way the scientistswant them to look.In the 1980s, two separate experiments at the same lab in Germanyreported seeing peaks in the energy spectra produced in heavy ioncollisions. The gigantic electric field that was momentarily producedduring the collision was thought to be pulling positrons(anti-electrons) out of the vacuum, which according to quantummechanics is not really empty. The discovery, if confirmed, was ofNobel quality. Many of the peaks seemed to be statisticallysignificant, several as high as six standard deviations. Theprobability of just one such observation being a statistical fluke istwo parts in ten million. The problem was that the peaks came and wentat different places and were very difficult to reproduce.Now after a decade of fruitless effort to confirm the results inimproved experiments, the conclusion has been drawn that the originalpeaks were artifacts inadvertently introduced by the physiciststhemselves. This apparently occurred during data analysis, as theexperimenters massaged the data over and over again on fast computersin an attempt to make the elusive"signal" stand out better againstbackground noise. The recent experiments, with better statistics,show no evidence for the peaks. Furthermore, physicist Rudi Ganz, nowat the University of Illinois, has demonstrated how the artifactsprobably were produced.Ganz divided a large data sample from one of the later experiments intotwo randomly-distributed halves. He massaged the data from one set,using a similar procedure to that used in the earlier experiments, andgenerated an enormous peak. He then applied the identical sequence ofmanipulations to the other set and no peak was seen.Jack Greenberg, the Yale physicist who had pushed hardest to explorethe alleged phenomenon over the years, refuses to concede. He hasreceived support from several of his Yale colleagues, including aformer President's Science Advisor now president-elect of the AmericanPhysical Society, a former head of the High Energy Physics Advisorypanel, and the current chair of the APS Division of Particles andFields. But their pleas are falling on deaf ears as the experimentsare being shut down.Taubes, who wrote _Bad Science_, a book about the cold fusion fiascodoes not draw the obvious parallel. Also suggested is another parallelwith the 150 years of attempts to confirm psychic phenomena. Today westill hear of "statistically significant" effects purportedlydemonstrating paranormal powers of the mind to violate the laws ofphysics. A look at the procedures in all these cases reveals that theyexhibit the symptoms that Nobel laureate chemist Irving Langmuir listedin the 1950s as characteristic of what he termed "pathologicalscience." There is great danger in wanting to believe too badly. Scientists are just as capable of self delusion as other human beings.

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 21 Feb. 21,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.POSTMODERNISM HITS INDIAIn the U.S. we generally find postmodernism among what is called "TheAcademic Left," ageing ex-hippies from the Viet Nam protest era whomiss the power they once had in society and would like to get it back. Postmodernists can be found in other countries too, but an interestingtwist in India is their support for religious fundamentalism.In an article entitled "Science Wars in India" in the Winter 1997
issueof _Dissent_, Meera Nanda provides two examples of the "Hinduization"of science and politics in India---Vedic mathematics and "Vastushastra" (ancient Indian material science). These have been promotedby the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), sort of a Hindu "Moral Majority."The BJP has acquired enough political power to to push so-calledtraditional Hindu knowledge into the public school curriculum. Itshould be noted that much of this "traditional" knowledge has beendebunked by Hindu scholars. The academics who promote these changes,like many of the their counterparts in the U.S., send their own kids toprivate schools where they get a more conventional education. (Thanksto Michael Sofka, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for thisinformation).MACHINE SHOWS MATHEMATICAL CREATIVITYOne of the arguments made by opponents of the idea that machines willsomeday be able to "think" is the creative ability of mathematicians todiscover mathematical truths non-algorithmically. This is the mainmessage of cosmologist Roger Penrose's two best-selling books _TheEmperor's New Mind_ and _Shadows of the Mind_. Penrose admits he is aPlatonist and believes the human mind can access eternal truths thatlie beyond experience. Philosophers have been arguing about this for2500 years.Now, as John Casti reports in the January 30 _Nature_, a strong blowhas been struck for what is called the "strong AI hypothesis." WilliamMcCune of Argonne National Lab has written a general proposelogic-prover program that has found several proofs of a 60 year-oldconjecture in Boolean algebra. The program differs from previouslogic-provers, such as the one that proved the "four-color" conjecture,in that no tentative proofs were outlined. It was not even assumedthat a proof was possible. The results have been checked both by handand independent programs.QUOTE OF THE DAY"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a milliontypewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Robert Wilensky

HAWAII RATIONAL INQUIRER Vol. 2 No. 22 March 6,1997
A newsletter on issues of interest to the University of Hawaii andinternational academic communities.This and earlier issues are archived at: http://www.phys.hawaii.edu/vjs/www/rati.html. To add yourself to thedistribution list, simply send a message to vjs@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu.Please give your name and location. To remove yourself from the list,reply with the message PLEASE REMOVE. You don't even have to sayPLEASE.Feel free to re-distribute this newsletter in full or in part, as longas it is not being done for profit and due credit is given.UH RESEARCHERS TO ORGANIZE Prompted by a recent directive, now postponed, to require all UHtravelers to get quotations from two selected travel firms and acceptthe lowest bid, and other rules which they feel are simply designed tomake less work for the bureaucrats or more for them, researchers at UHManoa are forming a University of Hawaii Association of ResearchInvestigators. They hope this will provide them with strong, unifiedvoice so that their interests, not always coinciding with those of theadministration and other faculty, will be acknowledged. The smallgroup spearheading the move alone brings in $50M per year in extramuralfunds.WISCONSIN COURT LIMITS USE OF STUDENT FEESLike most universities, UH collects student fees and hands them back tothe student governing body to dole out for student activities as theypretty much see fit. Now a Wisconsin judge has ruled that UW Madisonstudents cannot be required to financially support groups with whoseideology they disagree. A suit was brought by conservative studentswho objected to support for UW Greens, the Lesbian, Gay and BisexualCampus Center, and the AIDs Support Network. They did not object toChristian groups receiving support. (From February _Church & State_).TEMPEST IN A TEST TUBEThe uproar over the cloning of a sheep in Scotland is a tempest in atest tube. Every ethicist and theologian has felt the need tocomment. President Clinton, in the knee-jerk decision-making processthat seems to be characterizing his second term, has banned federallyfunded research on human cloning. We already have cloned humans. Wecall them twins. Genetic twins raised in the same womb are verydifferent. They even have different fingerprints. We can expect widedifferences between twins raised in different wombs and differentgenerations. Still it's fun to think about. Would Hitler's cloneraised in a jewish woman's womb be a jew? He might even become primeminister of Israel someday!PREDICTION STUDY YIELDS PREDICTABLE RESULTSEinstein said that prediction is very difficult, especially about thefuture. In an article in the March/April issue of _SkepticalInquirer_, Alan M. Tuerkheimer and Stuart A. Vyse take a look at the1981 _Book of Predictions_ by best-selling novelist Irving Wallace andhis children, David Walechinsky and Amy Wallace. Tuerkheimer and Vysecompare the predictions printed in the book from seven psychics andseven "experts." The experts included hors Isaac Asimov and AndrewGreeley, and Nobel chemist Willard Libby. While the nature ofpredictions of the two groups was different, neither performed verywell. The psychics were correct 6% of time, with 13% "partial" hits. The experts were marginally better, with 16% correct and 18% partialhits.CHIROQUACTIC FAILS CLINICAL TRIALS The January/February newsletter of the National Council Against HealthFraud reports that randomized clinical trials of chiropractictreatments show "no convincing evidence of the effectiveness ofchiropractic for acute or chronic low back pain." (Assendelft et al.,_J. Manip. & Physiolog. Therapeut_, 1996
;19:499-507).NEVADA PROMOTES "EXTRATERRESTRIAL HIGHWAY"The state of Nevada has renamed Highway 375, about 100 miles north ofLas Vegas, _Extraterrestrial Highway_. The highway is near Area 51,featured in the film _Independence Day_, where the U. S. Government hassu