The Hard Sciences Are Politically Correct Too!

Beware optimisim about any corner of higher education. Professor Frank Tipler, a mathematical physicist at Tulane University, just sent me the following e-mail about political correctness in physics. Many of us in the social sciences think of the hard sciences as the last bastion of academic standards, but sadly this appears to be over-optimism. The text of Professor Tipler's e-mail follows.

Dear Mitchell,

Why do you except the hard sciences from your critique? During the
thirty years I've been a professor of Mathematical Physics, the
physics departments at the "leading" American universities have
become hostile to the fundamental laws of physics, specifically
quantum mechanics, relativity, and the second law of thermodynamics.

It is my impression that most technological advance during the past
two decades has come, not from university science and engineering
departments, but from private individuals, and researchers at
industrial labs. For example, the revolutionary idea of the quantum
computer was first advanced by David Deutsch, who, although he has
the title of Professor of Physics at Oxford University, actually
receives no salary from the university. He earns his living by free
lance writing, and the occasional prize for his work (like last
year's $100,000 Edge Foundation Prize). Deutsch, a supporter of the

Conservative Party, is too unorthodox to hold a regular university
position. Michael Shor, who invented the Shor Algorithm that,
running on a quantum computer, could break any of the Internet
Security codes, was and is employed by what in my childhood was
called Bell Labs.

A few years ago, Science magazine ran an article showing that most
science articles paid for by NSF were never even cited by anyone
except the author. Completely worthless work, in other words.

Most university mathematics departments teach a theory of probability
and statistics that was created in the early 20th century by
psychologists and sociologists instead of a more sophisticated theory
created around 1800 by the great physicists Simon de Laplace and Karl
F. Gauss. Using the physicists' probability theory, it is possible
to show that the social scientists' probability theory is designed to
tend to confirm whatever the experimenter wishes to be true. To the
best of my knowledge, the physicists' theory of probability is taught
only at four universities: Cambridge, Stanford, Washington St. Louis,
and North Carolina State University. See Edward Jaynes' Probability
Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2002) for a history of this
nonsense, together with a description of the correct theory of
probability.

Unfortunately, the incorrect theory of probability is required by the
FDA in tests of drugs. Fortunately, DNA typing uses the correct
theory of probability.

Best,

Frank J. Tipler
Professor of Mathematical Phyiscs