On Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:49:21 Tim May wrote:

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.

Yes, I recognise that you were naming only the giants in a particular, though higly importnat field, who also had interest in "policy". My point was simply that certain ideas are so pwerful that their authors have influence on events whether or not they seek it. And that Washington policy makers must come to terms with those idea, whether or not they like. Jim Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com