[svlug] Innovation

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Karen Shaeffer (shaeffer at neuralscape.com):

> Thanks for the clarification Rick. Interesting. I didn't know there
> was a messy lawsuit. Do you know what the legal conflict was about?
 
I have something between a dim recollection and a hunch, which is not
quite enough to support making claims of fact in public that some
interested party might take exception to.  ;->

I can tell you this much:  Along with the very large amount of valuable
research work SRI had ongoing right at the beginning of SRI's separation
from Stanford U., resident scientists Russell Targ and Harold E. Puthoff
conducted experimental research into "remote viewing" claims involving
reputed psychics Ingo Swann, Harold Sherman, Joe McMoneagle, and others,
under CIA/DIA funding/sponsorship (from 1972 to 1986).  That research
raised a large amount of controversy as to the adequacy of Targ and
Puthoff's techniques (e.g., cueing of judges, vague and erroneous
experimental data, proposterous experimental assertions by the test
subjects that the critics claim were selectively excluded from
write-ups), and inability of other researchers to independently
replicate their results.

Somewhat amusingly in retrospect, one of the names the Feds used for the
program was Project Stargate.  (Paging General O'Neill.)

SRI's renaming occurred at the time of the controversy over those
experiments.