Comment Re:Scientists my foot (Score 3, Informative) 319
predominantly scientists who played prominent roles in the Manhattan Project during WW2.
WW2 ended in 1945 and everybody of prominence back then is long dead.
Not sure how that pertains to my answer to your question; but yes, the Manhattan Project (or its precursor) scientists involved in the creation of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists -- Rabinowitch, Szilard, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Urey, etc. -- are gone now, although a few survived until relatively recently (Hans Bethe, for instance, did not pass until 2005).
But even if they were alive, try explaining, why their role in the development of the weapon makes them better experts on matters of foreign policy, military, and psychology, than that of any engineer or a dentist?
Why, in other words, should we value their opinion on how imminent the use of their weapon is over that of an engineer or a dentist?
Do you think, bladesmiths could better predict the imminence of duels, than other contemporaries?
I don't know why you're asking me these questions, since I merely answered the one you posed (about what the basis for the name was), and made no assertions of the sort that your questions seem to imply or defenses of anything the Bulletin has ever published.
The so-called "Doomsday Clock" is undoubtedly the most notorious thing about the Bulletin; but it's a tiny fraction of what they publish and what they argue. In general, and from my experience, the papers/articles published therein which argue for any particular viewpoint on an issue tend to be supported with attempts at logical reasoning built upon a set of claimed evidence. That absolutely does not make any of them right, any more than the many papers that fill scientific journals every week are all correct; and it's completely reasonable to argue that one sees flaws in their reasoning or in the set of facts/axioms/whatever on which their reasoning is based; and I'd be very surprised if any of the principals involved in the publication now, or those who write for it, would argue to the contrary.