Anthropologist Hugh Gusterson, who self-identifies as “the Margaret Mead of the weapons labs” has written a thorough debunking of the myth that the disk-misplacing “cowboys and buttheads” (i.e., scientists) at Los Alamos National Labs live in a rarified “culture of arrogance.” (Either that, or he’s their sock puppet, as some have suggested.) What’s interesting is that he mostly blames the ham-fisted interference of the Bush administration. If you remember the series of embarrassing security-breach headlines that started with Wen Ho Lee and ended with a takeover of the lab’s management by a for-profit consortium, Gusterson’s brief three-act revisionist history is totally worth reading. (A tip of the hat to Slashdot for blogging this story in the first place.)
Debunking The “Culture Of Arrogance” At Los Alamos National Labs
Or Apologizing For It? Read And Decide.
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