Annual Report 1999

Denis McWhan, Chairman

Introduction

The American Physical Society's Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) recommends to the Executive Board and Council actions that use physics to support the making of sound public policy and considers policy issues that might impact the physics community. POPA operates through a number of subcommittees that monitor policy issues. It recommends doing in depth studies and/or issuing APS statements on important issues. Statements of the APS either originate from POPA or are submitted to POPA by Divisions or Committees of the APS for approval before being passed on to the APS Executive Board and Council. POPA works closely with the Washington Office of the APS.

There have been a number of events during 1999 that have been of concern to the physics community such as the response to the security issues at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the position of the Kansas State Board of Education with regard to the teaching of evolution. POPA and the Washington Office are trying to provide input into the debate over ballistic missile defense and over climate change. POPA continues to work with other societies to try to succinctly define "What is Science" in order to set a framework against which to judge many of stories appearing in the news media. POPA has also contributed to issues of importance to physicists such as the Dual Careers Report, AIP - Member Society Statement on the Education of Future Teachers, Committee on Education Statement on research on physics education. OMB Circular A-110 proposes that federally funded research findings should be subject to FOIA requests. Discussions with POPA and with others led to a resolution of the APS Executive Board being sent with a covering letter from the APS President to the Director of OMB expressing the concerns of the APS.

Statements

1.) 99.1 AIP-MEMBER SOCIETY STATEMENT ON THE EDUCATION OF FUTURE TEACHERS
(Adopted by the Council May 1999)

The scientific societies listed below urge the physics community, specifically physical science and engineering departments and their faculty members, to take an active role in improving the pre-service training of K-12 physics/science teachers. Improving teacher training involves building cooperative working relationships between physicists in universities and colleges and the individuals and groups involved in teaching physics to K-12 students. Strengthening the science education of future teachers addresses the pressing national need for improving K-12 physics education and recognizes that these teachers play a critical education role as the first and often-times last physics teacher for most students. While this responsibility can be manifested in many ways, research indicates that effective pre-service teacher education involves hands-on, laboratory-based learning. Good science and mathematics education will help create a scientifically literate public, capable of making informed decisions on public policy involving scientific matters. A strong K- 12 physics education is also the first step in producing the next generation of researchers, innovators, and technical workers.

2.) 99.2 RESEARCH IN PHYSICS EDUCATION (Drafted by Committee on Education with comments from POPA. Adopted by the Council May 1999)

In recent years, physics education research has emerged as a topic of research within physics departments. This type of research is pursued in physics departments at several leading graduate and research institutions, it has attracted funding from major governmental agencies, it is both objective and experimental, it is developing and has developed publication and dissemination mechanisms, and Ph.D. students trained in the area are recruited to establish new programs. Physics education research can and should be subject to the same criteria for evaluation (papers published, grants, etc.) as research in other fields of physics. The outcome of this research will improve the methodology of teaching and teaching evaluation.

The APS applauds and supports the acceptance in physics departments of research in physics education. Much of the work done in this field is very specific to the teaching of physics and deals with the unique needs and demands of particular physics courses and the appropriate use of technology in those courses. The successful adaptation of physics education research to improve the state of teaching in any physics department requires close contact between the physics education researchers and the more traditional researchers who are also teachers. The APS recognizes that the success and usefulness of physics education research is greatly enhanced by its presence in the physics department.

3.) 99.3 STATEMENT ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE OPEN CONDUCT OF SCIENCE (Adopted by the Council, 21 May 1999)

The Council of the American Physical Society emphasizes the critical connection between U.S. national security and scientific research activities. Effective national security requires the highest standards of vigilance and circumspection, and the science on which it is based must meet the highest standard of excellence. However, national security will ultimately be damaged if the underlying science suffers as a result of government practices that indiscriminately discourage or limit the open exchange of ideas.

The Council of the American Physical Society recognizes the great importance of protecting classified information. We urge Congress and the Executive agencies, in carrying out this responsibility, to employ measures and practices that will maintain the strength and effectiveness of the scientific activities on which national defense relies.

Over the course of many years, immigrant scientists as well as foreign visitors and students have contributed enormously to the American scientific enterprise. They have enriched our knowledge and culture, promoted the growth of our economy, and improved the quality of our lives. Any negative characterization of scientists on the basis of ethnic or national origins is destructive to science and American values.

4.) (statement forwarded to Executive Board/Council for November 1999 meeting. Statement modified from draft presented to Exec. Board earlier after receiving comments from other societies and from members after publication in APS News)

The American Physical Society Endorses the Following Statement:

What is Science

Science extends and enriches our lives, expands our imagination and liberates us from the bonds of ignorance and superstition. The endorsing societies wish to affirm the precepts of modern science that are responsible for its success.

Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the universe and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.

The success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to:

1. Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists. This requires the complete and open exchange of data, procedures and materials,
   And
   
   
2. Abandon or modify previously accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental or observational evidence.

Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is the foundation of the credibility of science.

5.) (Statement forwarded to Exec. Board/Council for November 1999 meeting)
PROPOSED STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY ON THE KANSAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION DECISION

The American Physical Society views with grave concern the recent Kansas State Board of Education decision to remove references to evolution and the Big Bang from its State Education Standard and Assessments. The decision to modify its previous excellent draft of these standards is a giant step backward and should sound an alarm for every parent, teacher and student in the United States. On the eve of the new millennium, at a time when our nation's welfare increasingly depends on science and technology, it has never been more important for all Americans to understand the basic ideas of modern science.

Biological and physical evolution are central to the modern scientific conception of the Universe. There is overwhelming geological and physical evidence that the Earth and Universe are billions of years old and have developed substantially since their origins. Evolution is also a foundation upon which virtually all modern biology rests. Since physics, chemistry, geology and biology form a single coherent body of natural science, a restraint on teaching in one discipline affects the other three as well.

This unfortunate decision will not only deprive Kansas students of knowledge of some of the central ideas of modern science, but it will also put them at a competitive disadvantage in pursuing higher education and future employment.

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE:

POPA continues to monitor this issue. An earlier draft statement was not adopted. There is concern that a system not be deployed until it was resistant to simple countermeasures and that a reasonable series of successful tests were achieved. Working with the Washington Office it was decided to try to respond to the language of pending legislation which said that a missile defense should be deployed "as soon as is technically possible." A short discussion defining "technically possible" was written by Richard Garwin and Jeremiah Sullivan entitled "National Missile Defense: Testing and Technical Effectiveness." The Washington Office (Lubell) prepared a cover page, and the package was approved by POPA and subsequently by the Executive Board. The package was then distributed to appropriate congressional staff to help them in drafting legislation. The actual testing plans are classified so it is difficult to judge if basic countermeasures were effectively defeated. In any event the APS has tried to advance the technical discussion. The cover page is given below:

National Missile Defense: Testing and Technical Effectiveness

Summary

National Missile Defense (NMD) cannot prove itself as a defensive system under the current testing schedule.

There are so few planned tests, that one more test failure may lead to the premature conclusion that NMD is technologically impossible. On the other hand, the tests are so limited that a test success may lead to the premature conclusion that NMD meets the technological threshold required for deployment in S. 257. Consequently, no sound conclusion can be drawn about the effectiveness of the system under the current testing schedule.

We urge Congress to implement a more robust testing schedule for the NMD program. In particular, we recommend that Congress insist that NMD be tested against dummy targets employing basic countermeasures. Recognizing that NMD will be judged inevitably on a small number of tests, we believe that this is the only way to determine whether an NMD is ready for deployment.

CLIMATE CHANGE

POPA and the Washington Office (Slakey) have been working with counterparts in other societies on this issue. Last year the APS Council authorized POPA to seek funding with other societies to conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews to gauge the perceptions of defined Congressional audiences on the role of science and the role of scientific bodies in the debate on climate change. The desired outcomes are:

• insure that in any public policy deliberations on climate change, the contributions to be made by the independent scientific community are given appropriate weight
• determine the best methods for maximizing the societies effectiveness in communicating solid scientific information to key congressional decision makers
• protect the Societies reputations from being damaged by their participation in a very volatile political issue

The AAAS, ACS, American Geological Institute, AGU, American Meteorological Institute, and the APS contributed to the effort and the firm of Fleishman Hillard International Communications has been hired to conduct the focus sessions.

DUAL CAREERS

Laurie McNeil (1997 Chair, APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics) and Marc Sher (POPA) sent out an e-mail survey designed to elicit information about the employment difficulties being experienced by the many scientists married to other scientists and were quite surprised to receive over 600 responses from both husbands and wives. They wrote an article which appeared in APS NEWS (Feb. 1999) and posted the survey results on the web. (http://www.physics.wm.edu/~sher/survey.cfm). An executive summary was drafted and it was sent out under a covering letter from the President of the APS to all physics department chairs.