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To: Right Wing Professor
"A crank from Canada in the 1980s had a whole series of abstracts at American Physical Society meetings on his numerological proof that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ."

Really? Does the American Physical Society have the abstract posted on their website?

I don't have the review requirements for the AGU meeting that these were presented at, but the ones that I can find say "Abstracts must focus on scientific results or their application. The Program Committee may decline to consider abstracts with other focus." I don't think that they would allow abstracts for a numerological proof of Jesus Christ's second coming.

162 posted on 03/06/2006 8:29:49 AM PST by johnnyb_61820
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To: johnnyb_61820
Really? Does the American Physical Society have the abstract posted on their website?

I have no idea. My wife is a member, and I used to leaf through the abstract book. Their policy was not to reject abstracts unless they were libelous. They simply put all of the crank stuff into a session called 'General Physics'.

I don't have the review requirements for the AGU meeting that these were presented at, but the ones that I can find say "Abstracts must focus on scientific results or their application. The Program Committee may decline to consider abstracts with other focus." I don't think that they would allow abstracts for a numerological proof of Jesus Christ's second coming.

Possibly not, but that doesn't mean they don't have a great deal of latitude in accepting abstracts. Many societies, if space/time are not limiting, will tend to err on the side of accepting pretty much anything, letting the members of the society figure out for themselves what the trash is.

167 posted on 03/06/2006 9:44:29 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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