Guy Robinson
Philosopher of Science
25 August 2001
I would like
to add my protest at the treatment of Jeff Schmidt. Though I am not myself a physicist, rather a philosopher of
science, I can see that what he was doing has many resonances with the kind of
analysis that Thomas Kuhn was making about the scientific community and how it
imposes a kind of uniformity on apprentice scientists. Though the apprentices need to learn the
directing assumptions and standards, sometimes this induction process can be
oppressive. Firing Jeff Schmidt for
writing a book on this subject is an outrageous and unacceptable example of
this oppressive hierarchy.
Guy Robinson
-------------------------
Marc Brodsky
(via e-mail)
CEO and
Executive Director
American
Institute of Physics
One Physics
Ellipse
College
Park, Maryland 20740
Dear Dr. Brodsky
I don't
think that the National Labor Relations Board is the appropriate authority to
say what someone meant when he used the phrase "stolen time." One might also note that it is a more than
dubious interpretation when on their interpretation it would amount to a public
confession of malfeasance.
No one should be convinced by it.
Guy Robinson