A CBS News/New York Times
survey taken in mid-April,
before the release of the
long-form birth certificate, found
that one in four Americans -
including nearly half of
Republicans - wrongly believed
Mr. Obama was born outside
the United States.
May 5, 2011 6:03 PM
Poll finds
percentage of
"birthers" is down
Posted by Brian Montopoli
(Credit: CBS)
In the wake of President
Obama's release of his
long-form birth certificate, the
percentage of Americans who
doubt that President Obama
was born in the United States
has dropped dramatically,
according to a new Washington
Post poll.
The poll finds that 77 percent of
Americans say Mr. Obama was
born in the United States, up
from 68 percent one year ago.
Eighty-six percent say it is at
least their best guess he was
born in the United States.
The percentage of those who
say Mr. Obama was likely born
abroad has fallen from 20
percent in a Post-ABC poll one
year ago to 10 percent in the
new poll; only one percent of
respondents say they have
"solid evidence" to support that
belief. Even before the
long-form birth certificate was
released, there was
overwhelming evidence that Mr.
Obama was indeed born in the
United States.
A CBS News/New York Times
survey taken in mid-April,
before the release of the
long-form birth certificate, found
that one in four Americans -
including nearly half of
Republicans - wrongly believed
Mr. Obama was born outside
the United States.
The new poll was taken from
April 28 - May 1.
survey taken in mid-April,
before the release of the
long-form birth certificate, found
that one in four Americans -
including nearly half of
Republicans - wrongly believed
Mr. Obama was born outside
the United States.
May 5, 2011 6:03 PM
Poll finds
percentage of
"birthers" is down
Posted by Brian Montopoli
(Credit: CBS)
In the wake of President
Obama's release of his
long-form birth certificate, the
percentage of Americans who
doubt that President Obama
was born in the United States
has dropped dramatically,
according to a new Washington
Post poll.
The poll finds that 77 percent of
Americans say Mr. Obama was
born in the United States, up
from 68 percent one year ago.
Eighty-six percent say it is at
least their best guess he was
born in the United States.
The percentage of those who
say Mr. Obama was likely born
abroad has fallen from 20
percent in a Post-ABC poll one
year ago to 10 percent in the
new poll; only one percent of
respondents say they have
"solid evidence" to support that
belief. Even before the
long-form birth certificate was
released, there was
overwhelming evidence that Mr.
Obama was indeed born in the
United States.
A CBS News/New York Times
survey taken in mid-April,
before the release of the
long-form birth certificate, found
that one in four Americans -
including nearly half of
Republicans - wrongly believed
Mr. Obama was born outside
the United States.
The new poll was taken from
April 28 - May 1.
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Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
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CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
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Larkins OAH Hearing
Motivated reasoning
Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel
"I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I
was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were
wrong."
This story reminds me of high school girl culture. No, wait. This is simply typical of human
beings, right?
Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel
By ARON HELLER
Forbes.com
10.05.11
JERUSALEM -- When Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman claimed to have stumbled upon a
new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate the laws of nature, colleagues
mocked him, insulted him and exiled him from his research group.
After years in the scientific wilderness, though, he was proved right. And on Wednesday,
he received the ultimate vindication: the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The lesson?
"A good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent
in what he read in the textbooks," Shechtman said.
The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered
himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by
challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of
it.
In 1982, Shechtman discovered what are now called "quasicrystals" - atoms arranged in
patterns that seemed forbidden by nature.
"I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I
was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were
wrong."
The discovery "fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter," the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the $1.5 million prize.
Since his discovery, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories, and a Swedish
company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in
products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery, the
academy said. Quasicrystals are also being studied for use in new materials that convert
heat to electricity.
Shechtman is a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.
He is the 10th Israeli Nobel winner, a great source of pride in a nation of just 7.8 million
people. Shechtman fielded congratulatory calls from Israeli President Shimon Peres, who
shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Every citizen of Israel is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud," Netanyahu
said.
Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy, said Shechtman's
discovery was one of the few Nobel Prize-winning achievements that can be dated to a
single day.
On April 8, 1982, while on sabbatical at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington -
now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology - Shechtman first observed
crystals with a shape most scientists considered impossible.
The discovery had to do with the idea that a crystal shape can be rotated a certain
amount and still look the same. A square contains four-fold symmetry, for example: If you
turn it by 90 degrees, a quarter-turn, it still looks the same. For crystals, only certain
degrees of such symmetry were thought possible. Shechtman had found a crystal that
could be rotated one-fifth of a full turn and still look the same.
"I told everyone who was ready to listen that I had material with pentagonal symmetry.
People just laughed at me," he said in an account released by his university.
He was asked to leave his research group, and moved to another one within the National
Bureau of Standards, Shechtman said. He eventually returned to Israel, where he found
one colleague prepared to work with him on an article describing the phenomenon. The
article was at first rejected but was finally published in November 1984 to an uproar in the
scientific world.
In 1987, friends in France and Japan succeeded in growing crystals large enough for
X-rays to verify what he had discovered with the electron microscope.
"The moment I presented that, the community said, `OK, Danny, now you are talking. Now
we understand you. Now we accept what you have found,'" Shechtman told reporters.
Shechtman, who also teaches at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, said he never
wavered even in the face of stiff criticism from double Nobel winner Linus Pauling, who
never accepted Shechtman's findings.
"He would stand on those platforms and declare, 'Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense.
There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.'" Shechtman said. "He really
was a great scientist, but he was wrong. It's not the first time he was wrong."
Shechtman's battle "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very
nature of matter," the academy said.
Nancy B. Jackson, president of the American Chemical Society, called Shechtman's
breakthrough "one of these great scientific discoveries that go against the rules." Only
later did some scientists go back to some of their own inexplicable findings and realize
they had seen quasicrystals without understanding what were looking at, Jackson said...
"I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I
was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were
wrong."
This story reminds me of high school girl culture. No, wait. This is simply typical of human
beings, right?
Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel
By ARON HELLER
Forbes.com
10.05.11
JERUSALEM -- When Israeli scientist Dan Shechtman claimed to have stumbled upon a
new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate the laws of nature, colleagues
mocked him, insulted him and exiled him from his research group.
After years in the scientific wilderness, though, he was proved right. And on Wednesday,
he received the ultimate vindication: the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The lesson?
"A good scientist is a humble and listening scientist and not one that is sure 100 percent
in what he read in the textbooks," Shechtman said.
The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered
himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by
challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of
it.
In 1982, Shechtman discovered what are now called "quasicrystals" - atoms arranged in
patterns that seemed forbidden by nature.
"I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I
was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were
wrong."
The discovery "fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter," the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the $1.5 million prize.
Since his discovery, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories, and a Swedish
company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in
products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery, the
academy said. Quasicrystals are also being studied for use in new materials that convert
heat to electricity.
Shechtman is a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.
He is the 10th Israeli Nobel winner, a great source of pride in a nation of just 7.8 million
people. Shechtman fielded congratulatory calls from Israeli President Shimon Peres, who
shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Every citizen of Israel is happy today and every Jew in the world is proud," Netanyahu
said.
Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy, said Shechtman's
discovery was one of the few Nobel Prize-winning achievements that can be dated to a
single day.
On April 8, 1982, while on sabbatical at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington -
now called the National Institute of Standards and Technology - Shechtman first observed
crystals with a shape most scientists considered impossible.
The discovery had to do with the idea that a crystal shape can be rotated a certain
amount and still look the same. A square contains four-fold symmetry, for example: If you
turn it by 90 degrees, a quarter-turn, it still looks the same. For crystals, only certain
degrees of such symmetry were thought possible. Shechtman had found a crystal that
could be rotated one-fifth of a full turn and still look the same.
"I told everyone who was ready to listen that I had material with pentagonal symmetry.
People just laughed at me," he said in an account released by his university.
He was asked to leave his research group, and moved to another one within the National
Bureau of Standards, Shechtman said. He eventually returned to Israel, where he found
one colleague prepared to work with him on an article describing the phenomenon. The
article was at first rejected but was finally published in November 1984 to an uproar in the
scientific world.
In 1987, friends in France and Japan succeeded in growing crystals large enough for
X-rays to verify what he had discovered with the electron microscope.
"The moment I presented that, the community said, `OK, Danny, now you are talking. Now
we understand you. Now we accept what you have found,'" Shechtman told reporters.
Shechtman, who also teaches at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, said he never
wavered even in the face of stiff criticism from double Nobel winner Linus Pauling, who
never accepted Shechtman's findings.
"He would stand on those platforms and declare, 'Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense.
There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.'" Shechtman said. "He really
was a great scientist, but he was wrong. It's not the first time he was wrong."
Shechtman's battle "eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very
nature of matter," the academy said.
Nancy B. Jackson, president of the American Chemical Society, called Shechtman's
breakthrough "one of these great scientific discoveries that go against the rules." Only
later did some scientists go back to some of their own inexplicable findings and realize
they had seen quasicrystals without understanding what were looking at, Jackson said...
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