Robert L. DuPont, former president of the Phobia Institute, studied similar rhetoric many years ago and called it clinically phobic -- not a rational fear of a present danger, but an hysterical reaction to an hypothesized possibility. DuPont was referring to the response of the media and much of the public to nuclear power. He took no position as to the desirability of nuclear power; he just said that the response was phobic, not rational.
Scientists can discuss some outrageous ideas, such as intergalactic strings and electrons running backward in time, and these discussions remain rational. But it's easy to see when buttons have been pushed and rationality has been shoved aside. This is such a case.
Paul Kurtz refers in the article to the fact that a trivial fraction of the National Institutes of Health budget is being devoted, for the first time, to studying some medical approaches long ...
