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![[F]](../_images/site.gif) New York Times on the Web Forums  Science
Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give
us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics
has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system.
What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical
climate and in the new scientific era?
    (508 previous messages)rshowalter - 02:03pm Nov 19, 2000 EDT (#509 of 510) 
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu I do have an "ulterior motive." It doesn't conflict with anything I've said. For my adult lifetime, I've been involved in a piece of applied math research on which my personal credibility, and hence, in ordinary human terms, my life, depends. Some of the issues involved are set out in
"Paradigm Shift - whose getting there" http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7726f/0
on a Guardian TALK forum. I don't have to claim to be a perfect character, or to deny past mistakes. It remains true that I've been in the middle of a paradigm conflict that approaches the roughness of the Semmelweis case, and that may perhaps have comparable stakes. In the Semmelweis case, Semmelweis was driven to his death, his case was lost for almost another fifty years, and millions of people died unnnecessarily. Then, relatively slowly, a consensus emerged for the septic technique Semmelweis had taught. Had Semmelweis had some stature, independently of his paradigm conflict, he might perhaps have done better. A consensus supporting my position on my paradigm conflict seems to be slowly taking shape.
The New York Times has had some hand in getting things to the point where I may be able to get may central point checked.
Kalter , I think that you may know personally of some of the following circumstances. In addition to some extensive web postings on the math and related neural modeling, I had extensive and intense correspondence (many hundreds of pages) with a
NYT associated writer, mostly paced by him, not by me. There was a period of many months when a
NYT reporter asked me question after question, occupying essentially all my time, and much of his own. There was then a period where I was involved in dialog with
TIMES writers and editors. That dialog was rough, and seems to have culminated in some "checking" by people the Times knew, though that checking was never made available to me in a way I could use. However, the following text appeared in a Feb 27,2000
Week In Review piece
"Correspondence Uncovering Science; A Perpetual Student Charts a Course Through a Universe of Discoveries" by
Malcolm W. Browne ********* "Practice may not make perfect, but a science writer who stays in the game long enough is bound to get better. Unfortunately, it can happen that both the writer and reader may miss the significance of a scientific development; it is like being knocked down by a strong opponent. "Paul Gallico, a renowned sports writer in the 1930's, relished such encounters. Before writing about one of the boxing matches he covered, Mr. Gallico went into the ring with Jack Dempsey, who knocked him down. This, Mr. Gallico said, taught him all he needed to know about being hit, and that rich experience helped flavor his coverage. "Science writers and their readers sometimes get knocked down by hard ideas rather than by hard gloves. But the experience of grappling with such things as the fiendish mathematics of superstring theory or the complicated tactics of the AIDS virus is its own reward, even at the cost of some bumps." ********* I believe, and a careful reading of the record and supplementary correspondence with
Times people supports this, that I was being cast into the role of Dempsey in the text above.
Now, if I can get the Showalter-Kline math checked, past the current paradigm conflict state, and then published in due course, I have a chance for a professional life. If I cannot, I will have been, considering the situation in its entirety, nearly as roughly used as Semmelweis.
A 35 minute talk on S-K, that sets out the basic logic simply, uses this slide show http://www.wisc.edu/rshowalt/nterface .
If you or anyone at the
TIMES know of any professional mathematician or other person with the proper skills, who will give his or her name, and w
rshowalter - 02:05pm Nov 19, 2000 EDT (#510 of 510)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu and who can find a mistake in this work, I'd be grateful to be informed of the person and the objection.
The matter may be in the course of being resolved. The key issue, here, as in other cases of paradigm conflict, is in getting a key matter checked, so that the work can go through the conventional channels of peer review.
Having the chance to stand, and speak of matters I feel strongly about, seperate from my math and physiological work, has, I believe, been personally helpful. It has giving me at least some limited stature that did not depend on the math work. That has also been a partial motivation for my work in
Emotional Peace in the Middle East thread
http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee795fc/0
associated with the Guardian/Observer's special section on the Mideast conflict. These pieces of work, which tend to give me a place to stand as a human being, may help me get the Showalter-Kline math checked, something on which my personal professional survival depends.
That's and ulterior motive, and one that justifies a good deal of effort. It is not a motive that conflicts with anything I've written. I don't think it should detract from anything I've said about nuclear weapons here, or in related threads, done with much appreciated help on the guardian
Psychwarfare, Casablanca -- and terror http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/0
and
Mankind's Inhumanity to Man and Woman __ As natural as human goodness? http://talk.guardianunlimited.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/0
None of the work on any of these Guardian threads would have or could have been done without the distinguished thought, work, and grace of Dawn Riley, whose motives, I believe, are purer than my own. I am prepared to discuss, quantitatively and qualitatively, with officials or anyone else, anything I've posted on these threads.
I might have handled the matters on this thread differently if I'd understood an interpersonal relation better,and if I'd been more perceptive otherwise. But I stand by everything I've said, and feel jusitified having posted as I have.
I believe that it is enormously in the interest of the nation and the world to take down nuclear weapons.
  
  New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense
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