INEXORABLY, natural selection is weeding out weaker candidates for the
Republican and Democratic nominations for president, while the remaining
candidates look for juicy issues the way species compete for ecological niches.
Politicians don鈥檛 call them niches, of course鈥斺�漢igh ground鈥� or
鈥渋nitiative鈥� are the preferred terms.
Polls show that education is uppermost in voters鈥� minds right now. So the
leading candidates are speechifying furiously on what鈥檚 wrong with American
schools. Curiously absent from most of their speeches so far is reference to the
decision in August by the Kansas State Board of Education to strip the teaching
of evolution from the compulsory curriculum for its school students. Evolution
is 鈥渏ust a theory鈥�, they say鈥斺�漷hey鈥� being the religious conservatives who
have tried and failed to get the Biblical version of creation into science
curricula for decades.
The candidates鈥� silence on this leap backwards is particularly deafening
because so many of them have hung their pleas for more education dollars on the
warning that the US won鈥檛 be able to compete in a science-driven, 21st century
world economy. Then again, perhaps we鈥檒l advance so much in the next decade we
won鈥檛 need to know where we actually came from.
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It鈥檚 been kind of hard for nuclear bomb builders to get work the past few
years. So what to do with all those highly paid experts at the US Department of
Energy鈥檚 laboratories?
Several years ago the government came up with a swell plan. Build the biggest
laser on the planet to recreate some of the conditions in a nuclear explosion.
Vital parts of stockpiled weapons could be tested for reliability without
violating any treaties, and some useful physics might even come out of it. And
the $1.2 billion spent to build it would keep those valuable bomb experts
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California from drifting off into
other work.
Several physicists quietly doubted whether the laser project, called the
National Ignition Facility, was necessary to verify that stockpiled bombs still
worked. Physicists were also sceptical about its value for basic research. The
public never heard much about it. Now they are, however. The Department of
Energy has acknowledged that the project is behind schedule and may cost an
extra $350 million. The project director resigned in August. The
department announced that it will now have private industry鈥攏ot Livermore
staff鈥攁ssemble and integrate the facility, possibly on a much smaller
scale. That will take six years.
The latest word from the White House鈥檚 Y2K 鈥渃onversion鈥� team is that local
governments鈥攖hose who run our fire and police services and sewage and
water works鈥攁re 鈥�90 per cent ready鈥�. That鈥檚 good news, the White House
says, although it wasn鈥檛 made clear whether the remaining 10 per cent are those
of minimal importance (timers on office toaster-ovens) or of a rather higher
order, such as those in nuclear power plants. The technocrats鈥� calm demeanour
suggests the former. They say their main problem now is to dispel silly rumours.
After this reassuring announcement at a Washington press conference, among the
first questions to follow was: 鈥淚s it true that extension ladders on fire trucks
won鈥檛 work?鈥� Obviously there鈥檚 still some dispelling to do.
