Vol ume 15 August 2001 Num ber 8 http://www.ntskeptics.org Ho lo caust Revisionism and De nial An drew Laska dem on strates how the de niers can be refuted By Dan iel R. Barnett For our monthly meet ing on Sat ur day, July 14, the North Texas Skep tics pre sented a lec ture by An drew Laska deal ing with the sen si tive subject of Ho lo caust re vi sion ism and de nial. Even to day, at the be gin ning of the 21 st cen - tury, there are in di vid u als among us who claim ei ther that the Nazi Ger man Ho lo caust never hap pened or that the body count has been greatly over-exaggerated. Laska s pre sen ta tion was aimed at pre sent ing such claims and then re fut ing them. Be fore Laska took the po dium, one Dr. Marvin Zirber of the Foun da tion for His tor i cal Re vi sion ism gave the au di ence a short speech. While Zirber dis agreed with be ing la beled a Ho lo caust de nier, he did state that the re al ity of the Ho lo - caust was un known to most peo ple. Among his claims were state ments that there was no mas ter plan to ex ter mi nate the Jews and that gas cham bers were not used to kill Jews im pris oned in con cen tra tion camps. Zirber, who was ac tu ally Laska dis guised with a hat and beard, used state - ments from well-known Jew ish or ga ni za tions to chal lenge the idea that a mas ter plan had been hatched by the Na zis to erad i cate Jews. Quotes from the Si mon Wiesenthal Cen ter and the Anti-Defamation League were cited, both stat ing that there was no sin gle doc u ment, let alone one with Hit ler s sig na ture, that called for the Fi nal So lu tion to the Jew ish Ques tion. Concerning the al leged gas cham bers, Zirber ques tioned whether any such cham bers were used for any pur pose other than de lous ing. The Red Cross men - tioned that they found no such chambers in their inspection of the camps. Zyklon-B, a com mer cial prep a ra tion of hy dro gen cy a nide, is cited as the agent used in gas cham bers which were used for ex ter mi nat ing Jews. How ever, in one ex am i na tion of gas cham ber walls for Zyklon-B res i due af ter World War II, large EVENTS CALENDAR August Pro gram Sat ur day, Au gust 11, 2001 at 2:00pm CDT Center for Com mu nity Co op er a tion 2900 Live Oak Street in Dal las Tom Siegfried The Bit and the Pen du lum Tom Siegfried, sci ence ed i tor of The Dal las Morn ing News, will dis cuss his new book, The Bit and the Pen du lum: From Quan tum Com puting to M The ory - The New Phys ics of In for ma tion. Siegfried will dis cuss the rad i cal no tion that all nat u ral phe nom ena in the uni verse, at its deep est lev els, is made up of in for ma tion pro cess ing, thus el e vat ing in for ma tion from an ab stract con cept to the very foun da tion of re al ity it self. If we re nice, he may even sign cop ies of the book for those who at tend the lec ture.
Page 2 The North Texas Skeptics August 2001 North Texas Skeptics Officers President Curtis Severns Vice President Danny Barnett Secretary John Blanton Treasurer Mark Meyer Staff Newsletter Editor Keith Blanton Webmaster Curtis Severns Meeting Coordinator Danny Barnett Board of Directors Greg Aicklen, Laura Ainsworth, Danny Barnett, Virginia Barnett, John Blanton, Steven Graf, Pat Reeder, Mike Selby and Curtis Severns Directors Emeritus Tony Dousette, Ron Hastings, Mark Meyer, John Thomas, Joe Voelkering, and Mel Zemek Scientific and Technical Advisors: Joe Barnhart, Professor of Philosophy David E. Dunn, Ph.D., Geologist Raymond A. Eve, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, UT Arlington Timothy N. Gorski, M.D., Physician Ronnie J. Hastings, Ph.D., Science Teacher Anthony P. Picchioni, Ph.D., Licensed Professional Counselor James Rusk, Director, Russell Planetarium Lakshman S. Tamil, Ph.D., Engineer John Thomas, Attorney The North Texas Skeptics is a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) scientific and educational organization. All members receive the NTS newsletter and may attend NTS functions at which admission is charged at no or reduced cost. In addition, members will receive mailings on topics of current interest or social events. Our newsletter, The North Texas Skeptic, is published monthly by The North Texas Skeptics, P.O. Box 111794, Carrollton, Texas 75011-1794. Permission to reprint: Articles in The North Texas Skeptic may be reprinted without further permission, provided that The Skeptic is credited as the source, the mailing address above is listed, and a copy of the publication containing the reprint is sent to the Editor. Opinions expressed in The Skeptic are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The North Texas Skeptics. Contents and logo 2001 by North Texas Skeptics. quan ti ties of residue were found in cham - bers that were ex - pressly used for de lous ing, but only a tiny amount of res i - due was found in chambers sup pos - edly used for ex ter - minating Jews. In fact, no res i due at all was found in one of the cham bers. Also, since crematoriums were lo cated near the chambers, it would have been foolish to use Zyklon-B be - cause it is ex plo sive. Dr. Marvin Zirber, of the Foun da tion for His tor i cal Many Nazi doc u - Re vi sion ism ments from con cen - Photo by John Blanton tra tion camps sur vive, ordering that incoming Jews be subject to sonderbehandlung, which trans lates into Eng lish as spe cial treatment. It has long been main tained that sonderbehandlung was an in - ter nal code word for gas sing. Ac cord ing to Zirber, how ever, some Na zis who sur vived World War II said that the word was used to de scribe Ger - man ho tels pre pared for VIPs, special quarantine camps, and even the right to drink cham pagne and take French les sons. At this point, Zirber stepped down and Laska, mi nus the dis guise, took his place. He be gan by as sert ing that his tory de pends on mul ti ple pieces of ev i dence of dif fer ent kinds and the strengths and weak nesses of each must be con sid ered. This is crit i cal when ex am in ing the ev i dence for the Ho lo - caust and claims of Ho lo caust re vi sion ism or de nial. Laska then turned his at ten tion to the claims that Jews were not gassed in concentration camps. It was noted that, ac cord ing to the study men - tioned ear lier, lit tle or no Zyklon-B res i due was found in the al leged death cham bers, al though heavy res i due was found in de lous ing rooms. The tox - ic ity of Zyklon-B must be taken into ac count. Laska pointed out that an airborne concentration of 330 ppm of ten kills hu mans within min utes. Lice and other in sects, how ever, are more re sis tant to the gas, re quir ing a con cen tra tion of 16,000 ppm to kill them within hours or even days. At 48 times the con cen tra tion needed to kill hu mans, it is no won der that heavier res i due was found in de lous ing cham bers than in ex ter mi na tion cham bers. As for the one cham ber where no res i due was de tected, the orig i nal cham - ber had been de stroyed by Nazi troops when So viet forces be gan to move in, so the cham ber in ques tion had been re con structed. As for the claim that Zyklon-B is ex plo sive, it is, but only at ex tremely high con cen tra tions on the or der of 56,000 ppm 160 times the con cen tra - tion needed to kill hu mans. Using a con cen tra tion of only 330 ppm, gas
July 2001 The North Texas Skeptics Page 3 cham bers could be op er ated near cre ma to ri ums with out any dan - ger of ex plo sion. And then there s that pesky term: spe cial treat ment, ren dered as sonderbehandlung in Ger man. In re al ity, as Laska ex plained, there re ally was no con fu sion as to what sonderbehandlung re ally meant when it came to the Jews. He cited a 1981 in ter view with SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Hans Münch that was broad cast on Swed ish tele vi sion: Interviewer: I must ask some thing. Doubters claim that spe cial treat ment could mean any thing. It did - n t have to be ex ter mi na tion. Münch: Special treat ment in the terminology of the con cen tra tion camp means phys i cal ex ter mi na - tion. If it was a ques tion of more than a few peo ple, where noth ing else than gassing them was worthwhile, they were gassed. Interviewer: Spe cial treat ment was gas sing? Münch: Yes, ab so lutely. This dec la ra tion was actually corroborated by Adolf Eichmann, one of the prin ci pal ar chi tects of the Ho lo caust, as this ex cerpt from his in ter ro ga tion by Is raeli of fi cials dem on strates: Q: What does spe cial treat ment mean, and who was subjected to it? Eichmann: Spe cial treat ment was kill ing. Who thought up the term I don t know. Must have been Himmler, who else could it have been but then, I have no proof, maybe Heydrich thought it up after Göring gave him his au tho ri za tion. But I re ally don t know. I m just try ing to puz zle it out. Q: But you knew spe cial treat ment meant kill ing? Eichmann: Everybody knew that, yes, Herr Hauptmann, ev ery body knew. When a ship ment was marked for special treat ment, they de cided at the point of ar rival who was fit for la bor and who was n t. What about the state ment by the Red Cross that no gas cham - bers were found in the camps? Ac cord ing to a Reuters ar ti cle dated Au gust 30, 1996, The In ter na tional Com mit tee of the Red Cross, which prides it self on be ing non po lit i cal, is ac cused in pre - vi ously se cret World War II doc u ments of be ing used and prob a - bly controlled at its high est lev els by German in tel li gence. Ar chive di rec tor George Willemin was cited in a 1997 As so ci ated Press article as re fer ring to the ICRC s ac tiv i ties re gard ing the Ho lo caust as a moral fail ure. What about a mas ter plan for the ex ter mi na tion of Eu ro pean Jews? For start ers, there s an en try dated March 27, 1942, which was found in the di ary of Jo seph Goeb bels, Hit ler s pro pa ganda An drew Laska Photo by John Blanton min is ter. In his di ary, Goeb bels de scribed the ex pul sion of Jews from the Gov ern ment-general, a Ger man-controlled area of Po - land that was seized in 1939: Beginning with Lublin the Jews are now being de - ported east ward from the Gov ern ment-general. The pro ce dure is pretty bar baric, and one that beg gars de - scription, and there s not much left of the Jews. Broadly speak ing one can prob a bly say that sixty per - cent of them will have to be liq ui dated, while only forty per cent can be put to work. In ad di tion, Hit ler him self gave a speech at the Reichstag on Jan u ary 30, 1939, in which he made his feel ings about Eu ro pean Jews quite clear: To day I want to be a prophet once more: if in ter na - tional fi nance Jewry in side and outside of Eu rope should suc ceed once more in plung ing na tions into an other world war, the con se quence will not be the Bolshevation of the earth and thereby the vic tory of Jewry, but the an ni hi la tion of the Jew ish race in Eu - rope.
Page 4 The North Texas Skeptics August 2001 In this way, Laska demonstrated that there was ample ev i - dence for the mass ex ter mi na tion of Jews at Nazi con cen tra tion camps, that there was no doubt as to the or ders on how to han dle in com ing Jews, and that there was an or ga nized, con certed ef fort to wipe out Jews in Eu rope. The rest, as they say, is his tory. After re but ting the claims of Ho lo caust de niers, Laska then noted that creationists ap pear to use some of the same tac tics used by Ho lo caust re vi sion ists to bol ster their cred i bil ity. One strat egy is to use the fal la cious ar gu ment that an in com plete tap es try of ev - i dence invalidates a the ory supported by the ev i dence. Creationists state that since sci en tists can not name all of the tran - si tions from or ganic mol e cules all the way up to hu mans, evo lu - tion is bo gus. Likewise, some Ho lo caust de niers claim that since there was no step-by-step plan to erad i cate Eu ro pean Jews, there was no in ten tion to do so. An other com mon tac tic is to quote the facts out of con text. An old standby for young-earth creationists goes like this: Many tests us ing Car bon-14 give dates that are ob vi ously wrong or con - flict with dates given by other ra dio iso tope tests. For in stance, a living mol lusk was once shown by Car bon-14 dat ing to be dead for 3,000 years. Com pare this to a state ment at trib uted by Ho lo - caust de niers to the Anti-Defamation League: There is no sin gle doc u ment that ex pressly enu mer ates a mas ter plan for the an ni - hi la tion of Eu ro pean Jewry. We ll deal with that pesky mol lusk an other time, but the re al ity of that mas ter plan has been firmly demonstrated. Denigrating his tor i cal and sci en tific stud ies is an other tac tic shared by the two camps. Creationists: Since no one was around when life be gan on the earth, sci en tists can t say they can know what re ally hap pened, evo lu tion is just a guess. Ho lo caust de - niers: Since WWII hap pened 50+ years ago, we can t know what really hap pened or how many Jews were re ally killed; the Ho lo - caust is there fore just a guess. As always, claims that one s views are be ing sup pressed are some times used to gain sym pa thy. Creationists of ten state that humanist-controlled schools won t al low creationism to be taught in sci ence class; in the same vein, the Jew ish-controlled me dia will not al low the opin ions of Ho lo caust re vi sion ists to be heard. His tory is too im por tant to al low those with hid den agen das to tam per with it. The main prob lem is that re vi sion ists have found it all too easy to sway peo ple towards their cause us ing ar gu ments like the ones pre sented by Laska, aka Dr. Zirber. This lec ture was de signed to make peo ple think very care fully about the claims of Ho lo caust de niers and about how those claims can be re futed. Thanks for the pre sen ta tion, Andy! We hope to hear more from you soon. An drew Laska also wishes to thank Dr. Zsuszsanna Ozsvath of the Uni ver sity of Texas at Dal las and Dr. Tim o thy Gorski of the North Texas Church of Freethought for their as sis tance in this project. For Fur ther Read ing: Denying His tory: Who Says the Ho lo caust Never Hap pened and Why Do They Say It? by Mi chael Shermer, 2000, Univ of Cal i for nia Press. The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 by Lucy Dawidowicz, 1975, Ban tam. (Note: Laska rec om mends the 10th anniversary edi tion pub lished in 1986.) Nazi Mass Mur der: A Doc u men tary His tory of the Use of Poi son Gas by Eugen Kogon, et al. Eds. 1993, Yale University Press Anat omy of the Auschwitz Death Camp by Yirsael Gutman and Mi chael Berenbaum, Eds., 1994. In di ana University Press. Web news by John Blanton [The Web is one of the least re li able sources of in for ma tion, but it s free.] NAIG It stands for No An swers in Gen e sis. An swers in Genesis (AIG) is a grow ing anti-evolution or ga ni za tion. Young-Earth creationist (YEC) Ken Ham is the founder and Ex ec u tive Di rec - tor of AIG. From the AIG Web site: 1 Since com ing to Amer ica in 1987, Aus tra lian Ken Ham has al ready be come one of the most in-demand Chris tian con fer ence speak ers in the United States. Each year he gives doz ens of faith-building talks to tens of thou sands of chil dren and adults (he re ceives about 500 in vi ta tions to speak an nu ally) on such top ics as di no saurs, cre ation vs. evo lu tion, the re li - abil ity of the Bi ble, the or i gin of races, etc. Ken s em pha sis is on the rel e vance of the book of Gen e sis to the life of the av er age Chris tian. His Aus tra lian ac cent, keen sense of hu mor, cap ti vat ing sto ries, and beau ti fully il lus trated over head trans par - en cies make him one of Amer ica s most ef fec tive Chris tian com mu ni ca tors. Ken is also able to re flect on some of the hot but - ton top ics of our day (e.g., rac ism, the break down of the fam ily, abor tion, ho mo sex ual be hav ior, law - less ness, etc.) and re late them to the Book of Gen e -
August 2001 The North Texas Skeptics Page 5 sis. In ad di tion, he can pro vide Bib li cal and sci en tific an swers to some of the most dif fi cult ques tions peo ple ask about the Chris tian faith, in - cluding: Can we re ally trust the Bi ble from the very first verse? How can we build a Bib li cal world-view start ing with Gen e sis? How do we know there is a God? Are di no saurs men tioned in the Bi ble? How can we evan ge lize more ef fec tively? Who was Cain s wife? Why do we see death, suf fer ing, dis ease, etc., in this world? Ken is also co-director of AiG s sis ter group in Aus - tra lia, also called An swers in Gen e sis. From 1986 through 1993, Ken was on loan from the Aus tra - lian or ga ni za tion (then called the Cre ation Sci ence Foun da tion) to the In sti tute for Cre ation Re search (ICR) near San Diego, Cal i for nia. Ken s bach e lor s de gree in ap plied sci ence (with an em pha sis on en vi ron men tal bi ol ogy) was awarded by the Queensland In sti tute of Tech nol ogy. He also holds a Di ploma of Ed u ca tion (equiv a lent to a mas - ter s de gree in Amer ica) from the Uni ver sity of Queensland. If you guessed AIG is international you guessed right. Be - sides US and Aus tra lian or ga ni za tions, AIG has points of pres - ence in Can ada, Ja pan, New Zea land, and UK. The US ver sion boasts its own Cre ation Mu seum near Cincinnati (ac tu ally across the Ohio River in Pe ters burg, KY). For a few years past there has been a lively amount of ac tiv ity re lated to the ef forts of mu seum opponents and advocates. Op po nents sought to block mu seum con struc tion, os ten si bly on the ba sis of lo cal zon ing law, but I sus - pect fear of com mu nity em bar rass ment was re ally at the back of their minds. Dan Phelps, for merly of NTS, is now in Ken tucky, where he is mak ing life un pleas ant for the creationists there. A Web search turned up the fol low ing from Dan. 2 Re cently, a Mr. Ken Ham, for merly of the In sti tute for Cre ation Re search, moved to north ern Ken tucky. He is now ap pear ing in var i ous fun da men tal ist churches in the re gion pro mot ing creationism and spe cif i cally claim ing that di no saurs and hu mans lived to gether un til some time af ter Noah s Flood. His op er a tion here seems rather well-financed; and I fear we will even tu ally see his fol low ers try to in flu - ence lo cal school boards and state text books. Ear - lier this month, a group of fun da men tal ists dis trib uted 50,000 cop ies of a news pa per called Ken tucky Chris tian News to churches, gro cer ies, res tau rants, and other lo ca tions here in cen tral Ken - tucky. The Jan u ary is sue fea tures Ken Ham and his plans to build a large cre ation mu seum in north ern Ken tucky. He is ap par ently well along in fund ing; he claims that he al ready has 40 full-sized di no saurs for the mu seum. In a fea ture ar ti cle by Ham, he blames ev ery thing from abor tion to pedophilia on teach ing evo lu tion in the schools. His pro posed mu - seum is be ing billed as Ju ras sic Park s great est nightmare. In the end the creationists pre vailed, and we now find Ham ap - peal ing for funds, as re ported in the NTS Web edi tion of Skep ti cal News for 22 Febuary of this year. 3 Dear AiG friend, Would n t you just love to know that your tax money is go ing to be used to ag gres sively com bat the creationist move ment? On the eve of the March 17 ground break ing of our Cre ation Mu seum near Cincinnati, some very alarm - ing mat ters have sur faced in this na tion some us - ing your tax dol lars: The So ci ety for In te gra tive and Com par a tive Bi ol ogy has ap plied for a $500,000 grant (your tax money) from the gov ern ment (through the NSF) to pro mote evo lu tion teach ing in schools. A sec u lar hu man ist camp called Camp Quest has re ceived a grant from The In sti tute for Hu man ist Studies to ex pand its hu man ist youth camps across the USA! Dream Works will be re leas ing a new movie en ti tled Evo lu tion. And PBS tele vi sion-supported by gov ern ment fund ing has just aired a new evo lu tion se ries, Tri umph of Life. The Amer i can As so ci a tion for the Ad vance ment of Sci ence an or ga ni za tion partly funded by gov ern ment grants is part of a group that is un der tak ing a pro ject to sup port the teach ing of evo lu tion in the schools and com bat ef forts to teach creationism. And, of course, think also of tax-supported schools that teach evo lu tion as fact. We need God s peo ple to sup port the var i ous Bi - ble-upholding out reaches of AiG to en able us to coun ter such anti-biblical pro pa ganda. Thank you. Yours sin cerely in Christ, Ken Ham Ex ec u tive Di rec tor". The Cincinnati En quirer re ported 4 About $4 mil lion has been raised of the $14 mil lion needed to con struct the 95,000-square-foot mu seum and cen ter on 47 acres in ru ral west ern Boone County. It s the mes sage we re pro mot ing, said Ken Ham, ex ec u tive di rec tor of the group, as he stood out side a huge tent in the mid dle of the open field. We re confronting head-on the sec u lar hu man ists, we re confronting the evo lu tion ists. We re tell ing peo ple
Page 6 The North Texas Skeptics August 2001 that bib li cal his tory is true. That s why I see it at - tract ing a lot of at ten tion world wide. There s noth - ing like this in the world. The Cincinnati Post also fol lowed the story: 5 Ham, 50, founded Cre ation Sci ence Min is tries, later re named An swers in Gen e sis, in Flor ence in 1993 af ter mov ing here from San Diego, Ca lif. The min is - try has grown, from $810,000 in to tal rev e nue in 1994, into a $5.5 mil lion op er a tion. Back to NAIG The NAIG Web site takes great plea sure in de bunk ing claims of AIG and other anti-evolutionists. Their What s New page is kept fairly up-to-date by John Stear and makes for some timely and in ter est ing read ing. A re cent item (27 July) con cerns the do - ings of the sup posed John Woodmorappe (not his real name). Creationists such as Woodmorappe have be come fa mous for quot ing only se lected parts of some le git i mate sci en tific re search in or der to make it ap pear sci en tists are de bunk ing evo lu tion. Au - thor Kevin R. Henke quotes an ex cerpt from a book by Woodmorappe quot ing Fred Pe ter son: 6 Ben ton ite beds are abun dant in the up per part of Brushy Ba sin Mem ber and have yielded 5 sin - gle-crystal 40Ar/39Ar dates... A sixth date... is al - most cer tainly in er ror for sev eral rea sons. The age con flicts with an other sin gle-crystal 40Ar/39Ar age... from the same unit..., it does not agree with the other 40Ar/39Ar dates from south east ern Utah, and the strati graphic re la tion ships do not sup port the idea that the up per part of the Brushy Ba sin mem ber is a diachronous unit that be comes mark edly older pro gress ing north ward toward Di no saur Na tional Mon u ment. Woodmorappe in his book has ac cused Pe ter son of try ing to ra tio nal ize away the sixth date. Pe ter son, it would seem, wants to dis card it. Se lec tive shop ping is a term used. Creationists tell us, and any one who will lis ten, that ra dio met ric dat ing is so un re - li able that sci en tists have to pick and choose only re sults that ar - gue for an old Earth. But note the fa mous el lip ses. We have seen creationists use of el lip ses be fore. In the April 1992 is sue of The Skeptic Jeff Umbarger and I noted the skill ful use of el lip ses to cover up ex ten sive ed it ing of an ar ti cle from Sci en tific Amer i can. 7 The com plete text from Pe ter son is not so kind to Woodmorappe s cause. Henke sup plies ad di tional text but still uses el lip ses and omits Pe ter son s ref er ences: Ben ton ite beds are abun dant in the up per part of Brushy Ba sin Mem ber and have yielded 5 sin - gle-crystal 40Ar/39Ar dates rang ing from 145.2 +/- 1.2 to 149.4 +/- 0.7 Ma from a mea sured sec tion near Mon te zuma Creek in south east ern Utah...[ref - er ence omit ted]. A sixth date in the same pub li ca - tion from Di no saur Na tional Mon u ment gave 152.9 +/- 1.2 Ma, which is al most cer tainly in er ror for sev eral rea sons. The age con flicts with an other sin - gle-crystal 40Ar/39Ar age of 148.3 +/- 0.3 Ma from the same unit at Di no saur Na tional Mon u ment... [ref er ence omit ted], it does not agree with the other 40Ar/39Ar dates from south east ern Utah, and the strati graphic re la tion ships do not sup port the idea that the up per part of the Brushy Ba sin mem ber is a diachronous unit that be comes mark edly older pro - gress ing north ward to ward Di no saur Na tional Mon - u ment Au thor Henke points out: The dis crep ant sixth date of 152.9 mil lion years is not wildly dif fer ent than the other five dates of 145-149 mil lions of years. As usual, Woodmorappe (1999, p. 74) is mak ing a moun tain out of a mole hill. For the com plete text you will have to go to the orig i nal Pe ter - son pa per. 8 A quick Web search turned up two ad di tional ref er - ences to it. 9 As for NAIG, we main tain a link to it on the NTS Web site. 10 Check it fre quently to keep up with what s go ing on with the creationists and es pe cially with AIG. References 1 http://www.answersingenesis.org/home.asp 2 http://www.cmnh.org/fun/di no - saur-archive/1996jan/0380.html 3 http://www.ntskeptics.org/news/news2001-03-08.htm 4 http://en quirer.com/edi tions/2001/03/18/loc_cre ation_mu - seum_gets.html 5 http://www.cincypost.com/2001/mar/16/aig031601.html 6 http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/hid ing_the_num - bers_woody_henke.htm 7 http://www.ntskeptics.org/1992/1992april/april1992.htm 8 Pe ter son, F. 1994. Sand dunes, sabkhas, streams, and shal low seas: Ju ras sic paleogeography in the south ern part of the West ern In te rior Ba sin. Pp. 233-265 in M. V. Caputo, J. A. Pe ter son, and K. J. Franczyk, eds. Me so zoic Sys tems of the Rocky Moun tain Re gion, USA. Den ver, Rocky Moun tain Sec tion SEPM. 9 http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/ge ol - ogy/paleo/pub/grd3_3/pisp1.htm and http://www.dinodata.net/refs/p/peterson.htm 10 http://www.ntskeptics.org
August 2001 The North Texas Skeptics Page 7 Skep tic Ink by Prasad Golla and John Blanton. 2001. Free, non-commercial re use per mit ted What s new From Rob ert Park s What s New at http://www.aps.org. Poly graph: Sen a tors doubt the myth of the lie de tec tor. A bill in tro duced in the Sen ate this week by Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Pete Domenici (R-NM), would sharply re duce the num ber of DOE em ploy ees forced to un dergo poly - graph tests, re vers ing last year s ac tion. Ac cord ing to the two sen - ators, poly graph tests are not viewed as cred i ble by DOE sci en tists. Mean while, the new di rec tor of the FBI was prom is ing to beef up poly graph test ing of FBI per son nel to re spond to the Rob ert Hansen spy case (WN 30 Mar 01); that was also the re - sponse of the CIA to the Aldrich Ames spy case (WN 7 Nov 97), and it was the DOE re sponse to the Wen Ho Lee de ba cle. So far, not one spy has ever been ex posed by a poly graph test. Power lines: dead horse rises again in Cal i - fornia. A re port re leased this month by Cal i for nia s De part - ment of Health Ser vices threat ens to dredge up hys te ria over the safety of power line EMF. When the Na tional Acad emy and a mas sive Na tional Can cer In sti tute study found no link be tween power lines and cancer (WN 4 Jul 97), there was hope that the para noia would die. Alas, the fear mon gers never rest. Based on old and dis cred ited stud ies, the Cal i for nia re port says EMF could be linked to an in creased risk of mis car riage, child hood leu ke mia, can cer and even sui cide. The re port adds that there is a chance that EMFs have no ef fect at all. Be ing pru dent seems to mean never chang ing your mind. Power-line haz ard: Italian scientists tell it like it is. In It aly, fear mon gers got the pub lic worked up about the sup posed can cer threat from 50-Hz mag netic fields. A pro - posed law calling for lim it ing mag netic fields to 0.5 microtesla, was stopped only af ter 200 dis tin guished sci en tists sent a let ter to Italian pres i dent Ciampi. It quoted the APS state ment, Power Line Fields and Pub lic Health, http://www.aps.org/state - ments/95.2.html. The In ter na tional Agency for Re search on Can - cer, mean while, ranked EMF as a cat e gory 3 threat. That s the same as or di nary tea, and even lower than cof fee, which is 2B or pos si bly car ci no genic. Radar hazard: has Paul Brodeur switched to writing fiction? You re mem ber Brodeur. He s the guy who got the pub lic all worked up over power lines and can cer with a se ries of scare sto ries in The New Yorker (WN 25 Aug 89). Last week, in a letter to the Boston Globe, Brodeur warned that early-warning ra dar on Cape Cod is a se ri ous can cer threat. Fired by The New Yorker in 1992, Brodeur told Forbes mag a zine just last year that he s turned to writing fic tion. Non sense! He s al - ways writ ten fic tion. (Steph a nie Young con trib uted to this week s What s New.) Bob Park can be reached via email at opa@aps.org
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