Re: Serge Lang's Political Activism Masterpiece "RATS IN A BOX" from Vietnam Era

From: Daniel Ryan (danielmryan_at_sprint.ca)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:40:44 -0400

> Isn't Serge Lang responsible for dissecting Samuel Huntington's misuse
> of mathematics?

Yeah, he was - his protests got Huntington's name removed from the NAS
nominees list.

But try not to be too hard on old Prof Lang. He's still smarting from some
ice put down his back by the own hand of the then Mr. John F. Nash, Jr.
[With great rapidity, if my memory of Sylvia Naser's description of the
event is accurate.]

> Speaking as a reactionary crackpot, I was annoyed that nobody at the
> time mentioned that Friedrich Hayek had made the same points years
> earlier.

A lot of Friedrich Hayek's points have been proven to be quite prescient.
Just drop his venerable phrase "spontaneous order" into a group of
complexity theorists and see what you get. And then drop 'em a brief summary
of the concept....

- Daniel M. Ryan
http://groups.msn.com/MathematicsforObjectivists