Re: Are There Any Actual Physicists/Scientists Here?

Paul Stowe wrote: 
On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 09:54:26 -0400, Andy Resnick <andy.resnick@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
<snip>

I'm not sure what you mean here, and what is this "certain knowledge".


Oh, let's see if I can give a simple, extreme, PURELY HYPOTHETICAL example. If one discovered a means of tapping the ZPE and extracting
most of that energy (on a per cubic cc basis) in a simple manner,
should this information be widely distributed? The consequences should
be obvious.


I doubt you mean numerical methods of PDE solutions, renormalization/scaling,
viscoelasticity, image formation, or contact line motion. All of these are
active areas of research, and AFAIK, none of these (with the possible
scattered exception to the first) are presented in undergraduate courses. Even in graduate school, the student sometimes must take courses elsewhere:
the materials science department, EE or computer science department, etc etc. 


 I mean fundamentals that could quickly lead to, for example, extreme
 weapon technology (like nuclear) or if uncontrolled rapid dissemination
 could lead to tech that could destablized the existing economic
 infrastructure.

Ok, I'll take your bait. My position is that all knowledge should be freely available to all, period. No exceptions. I am concerned that knowledge is gained in an ethical manner (this is more applicable to biological research, expecially human research), but I have nothing to say on the ethics of *applications* of the research. Ethics evolves, what we consider ethical now is different an was what considerd ethical in the past, and is surely different from what will be considered ethical.


<snip>
I disagree with this- my feeling is that it's like Churchill's definition of democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except {for?} all the others that have been tried." Our chair just left to spearhead a renovation of the NIH peer review
system. I am curious as to what will result. He's definitely the
right person for the job. 


 The peer review process lacks independent overview.  This fosters as
 you say, dogma.

Ah yes... who watches the watchers? Not a new problem, nor unique to peer review.
--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
.