STARK RAVING MAD

The article "Rotting trees provide perfect wildlife habitat'' in the Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Oregon, September 24, 1995, p B12, reports that forest "scientists'' are now experimentally injecting fungus into healthy 50-75 year old trees to make them rot. This, it is claimed, will provide nesting places for birds and animals including the omnipresent spotted owl.

Currently, they are drilling holes for the fungus, but are soon to begin work on another technique - blasting the fungus into trees with shotguns. It seems that these people have decided that American forests are too healthy for their inhabitants. The described "experiments" are another sterling example of our tax dollars at work.

The same page has a large section devoted to "Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet'' complete with global warming alerts. The probability function for nuttiness increases sharply as one nears a college campus.
We predicted it, but still could not quite believe it. In The Wall Street Journal for September 13, 1995, p A14, "The Real Score on the SAT'' by B. V. Manno quotes College Board President Donald Ste-wart as saying, "This is the best-prepared [college] freshman class in recent memory, certainly in the last 10 years.'' USA Today, August 24, 1995, p 6D, trumpeted this wonderful news with barely a rhetorical wave at the truth. It turns out that 1995 SAT scores increased 6 to 8 points for the top 10% of students, 4 to 5 points for the next 10%, and decreased a little for the bottom 50%. Students taking the other major student evaluation test in 1995, the American College Test (ACT) showed no rise in scores at all. The real reason for the increase in scores is that, in 1995, the SAT was significantly dumbed down (see Access to Energy 21-7) with more time per math problem, hand calculators permitted, and the toughest section of the verbal exam eliminated. Word meanings are tested in context now, so students do not need to have as much independent vocabulary knowledge.

This hype precedes the other SAT change that has now also taken place - "recentered scores.'' Recentering just adds about 100 points to everyone's score and also makes possible a perfect score of 1600 with four wrong answers. Previously, zero wrong answers were required.

If the educrats perform as usual, we can expect to see further bragging about the higher scores in 1996 and debate in the fine print about the possibility that this might be partially the result of "recentering.''

The tax-financed Central Utah Project will deliver water to the agricultural regions in southern Utah. The actual cost of the water will be $350 per acre-foot. This water will generate about $30 per acre-foot of additional farm value. Southern Utah farmers will pay about $3 per acre-foot for the water.

This and the general world-wide tendency for cost-ineffective government water projects is discussed in "Water Options for the Blue Planet'' by Terry L. Anderson, Chapter 8 of The True State of the Planet, R. Bailey, editor, a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Buy this book! - from The Free Press, Simon and Schuster Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

•	Morality in Medical Science
•	MAGNETIC DEMONS
•	GRANTS PASS CONFERENCE
•	*STARK RAVING MAD*
•	GOOD READING

Vol. 23, No. 2

Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
Volume: Issues
Issue/No.: Vol. 23, No. 2

Date: October 01, 1995 01:06 PM
Title: Morality in Medical Science