ABSTRACT
Scientists of great influence are proposing adoption of the lawyer’s adversary proceedings as a means of improving public decision making about science-related issues, while a lawyer, Leon Lipson, cautions against assuming that adversary proceedings are an effective way of finding truths. Descent from scientific ivory towers, if indeed they still exist, to wherever it is that lawyers relax and engage in nonadversary conversation is a practice scientists should pursue both in enlightened self-interest and as a matter of responsible citizenship. Words are groups of symbols which have no intrinsic meaning. Words mean whatever two or more people agree they should mean when used in any given context. The symbols may spell out “weather modification,” “law,” or “evidence” yet carry different intended meanings depending on the background of each individual in the communication coupling. The term “weather modification,” came into use initially as a euphemism intended to reduce the opprobrium associated with the term “rainmaking.”
