On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 16:29:21 Tim May wrote:
I can think of some scientists who had enormous influences on policy, men like Szilard, Von Neumann, Fermi, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, and a bunch of others
As an addendum I would add Claude Shannon. In fact I can't think of a single lawyer in the 20th century who had the long term influesnce on society that either Shannon or von Neumann did. The list of other influential non-lawyers might also be expanded to include Turing, Godel, von Braun, Crick and Watson. Washington's myopia in thinking olny lawyers are worth listening to is indicative of the type of government we have. Jim Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com
On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 06:39 PM, Jim Windle wrote:
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 16:29:21 Tim May wrote:
I can think of some scientists who had enormous influences on policy, men like Szilard, Von Neumann, Fermi, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Teller, and a bunch of others
As an addendum I would add Claude Shannon. In fact I can't think of a single lawyer in the 20th century who had the long term influesnce on society that either Shannon or von Neumann did. The list of other influential non-lawyers might also be expanded to include Turing, Godel, von Braun, Crick and Watson. Washington's myopia in thinking olny lawyers are worth listening to is indicative of the type of government we have.
Well, yes, there are many. I only even _tried_ to list a handful of the most important folks in just that one field: nuclear. Every field has its giants. And the ones I cited in just the nuclear field were not just scientists, they were policy advisors. Szilard's soliciting of Einstein to write the letter to Roosevelt, Einstein's letter, Fermi's policy work in the 1950s, Teller's lobbying for the H-bomb, Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project (and later antiwar lobbying), and Von Neumann's powerful arguments for building up the nuclear arsenal. (VN favored a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Russia with bombers.) The other examples (we could write all day listing such giants) were certainly scientists, but many had no interest whatsoever in policy. Kurt Godel, for example. Crick, as another. I don't recall Shannon having much interest in policy. Washington _does_ listen to other than lawyers. The examples I gave showed this to be true in the past, and almost certainly still true. (And the SDI arguments were in many cases made by scientists, e.g., Teller, Lowell Wood, etc.) --Tim May
On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 06:49:21PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
Washington _does_ listen to other than lawyers. The examples I gave showed this to be true in the past, and almost certainly still true. (And the SDI arguments were in many cases made by scientists, e.g., Teller, Lowell Wood, etc.)
Right, though I see that being the case less so nowadays. The reasons for this are many, and probably complicated, including the growth of the federal government, the subcommittee structure divvying up power in Congress, the rise of the permanent federal bureaucracy, and perhaps most important, the stunning growth in nonprofit/advocacy groups. Still, Congress and the agencies will invite stellar technologists and researchers and scientists to testify on occasion. A handful of congresscritters may even listen. But the rest will vote the way their parties/backers/constituents tell them to. I recall there's only one scientist out of 535 members of Congress, at least last I checked. -Declan
On 25 Aug 2001, at 21:39, Jim Windle wrote:
As an addendum I would add Claude Shannon. In fact I can't think of a single lawyer in the 20th century who had the long term influesnce on society that either Shannon or von Neumann did. The list of other influential non-lawyers might also be expanded to include Turing, Godel, von Braun, Crick and Watson. Washington's myopia in thinking olny lawyers are worth listening to is indicative of the type of government we have.
Jim
Don't forget Muhammed Ali and Andrew Dice Clay. I know you've only been listing scientists, but you said non-lawyers. Anyone who gets a lot of attention, for whatever reasom, is likely to be able to have a hell of a lot more influence on society than most lawyers or politicians. George
participants (4)
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Declan McCullagh -
georgemw＠speakeasy.net -
Jim Windle -
Tim May