Members in the Media

"The accusations in the document are inaccurate, and certainly do not justify the sweeping conclusions of either the document or the accompanying statement."
—John Marburger, Presidential Science Advisor, on a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists on alleged scientific bias in the Bush Administration, NY Times, April 3, 2004.

"It's possible there are things we got wrong, We're not infallible, like the Vatican or the White House. But I don't think there's any reason to think we got the big picture wrong. In fact, our case is stronger now than when we produced that report."
—Kurt Gottfried, Cornell University and Union of Concerned Scientists, replying to comments by John Marburger on the UCS report, NY Times, April 3, 2004.

"I think this is as bad as it's ever been. This is an extremely serious issue. I believe it is true that there is such a thing as objective scientific reality, and if you ignore that or try to misrepresent it in formulating policy, you do so at peril to the country."
—Wolfgang Panofsky, Stanford University, on the Bush administration's science policy, NY Times, March 30, 2004.

"We even have trouble understanding what's alive and what's dead. People still wonder what a virus is."
—Richard Zare, Stanford University, commenting on how the search for life outside of earth is complicated by the fact that scientists aren't even sure what life is exactly, Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2004.

"I was talking about life not long ago with a policeman from Chico, and when I told him what I was doing and why, he quickly got totally fascinated. So we shouldn't assume that people don't have genuine curiosity about the universe we all live in."
—Francis Everitt, Stanford, on whether the public would care about validating general relativity, The San Francisco Chronicle, April 5, 2004.

"The country needs a lot of bright young people to enter these areas. If we are not reaching women, we are cutting off 50 percent of our potential resources."
—Judy Franz, APS, on the shortage of women in physics and engineering, The Ledger (Lakeland, FL) March 6, 2004.

"Fusion has not been proven to be safe, and it is too costly."
—Masatoshi Koshiba, University of Tokyo, calling on the Japanese government to drop its plans for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), NY Times, March 9, 2004.

''Physicists relish the weirdness, but now we're starting to ask if we can put the weirdness to work,''
—John Preskill, Caltech, on applications of quantum mechanics, Business Week, March 15, 2004