Word: foolproofing
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...pioneer of biofeedback training, thought "people will soon control phobias and anxieties." Psychopharmacologist Barbara Brown (New Mind, New Body) predicted a drastic drop in the use of medication and the number of hospitals within a decade. Among other heady predictions: biofeedback would eliminate the need for psychotherapy, provide a foolproof birth control method (by teaching males to lower their scrotal temperatures), produce superathletes, prove the reality of ESP and enable mankind to solve problems during sleep by "programming dreams...
...false sense of confidence may be fatal, warns Doty: "We now have a period of relative public confidence that nuclear war is not imminent. We are apt to lose the vision of how absolutely catastrophic nuclear war is." While there is no foolproof solution, the authors variously argue that the U.S. should greatly intensify its disarmament efforts, restrict its sales of nuclear reactors to unstable countries, and do its best to lift up poor societies...
Most of the current testing of new compounds is done by manufacturers. If their record is spotty, it is at least partially due to the difficulty of setting up foolproof test procedures. The tests depend largely on interpreting how results in laboratory animals will apply to man, and they usually fail to take into account synergistic effects (a seemingly benign substance, combined with other compounds in the environment, sometimes becomes hazardous). The chemical industry is moving to correct the situation. Eleven of the biggest companies have pledged $12 million to start a Chemical Institute of Toxicology to work out better...
...Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, were "distressed" at the new disclosures. But Simons hedged on Proxmire's recommendation that the ELGB announce its intention to stop the loan if bribes continued. He insisted instead that "we'll stop the bribery," although he couldn't suggest a foolproof monitoring system. Just that morning, the ELGB had approved a rollover, or extension, of a matured $30 million Lockheed loan which forms part of the government's guarantee package. Lockheed didn't even get a slap on th wrist, despite the evidence that government-approved loans may have been used...
...classic Peanuts, Lucy tells Linus about Rosebud as he starts to watch Citizen Kane. Any true whodunit can be ruined that way--it's a foolproof test. The most facile of the genre proceed according to a formula, and if you're good enough--as my mother is with Perry Massons--you can guess the victim, and then, the murderer, nine times...