The K-T Letters/Blocking of Publications

From

Date

Dear PaleoNet Colleagues:

The K-T asteroid versus volcano scientific debate is a classic example of science gone pathogenic, and a wonderful study for philosophers, sociologists, and historians of science who might be interested in the inner workings of science--and how scientific theories can be blown into "truth" via control of the press.

One of the terrible problems of the K-T debate has been attempts by some members of the impact community to block publications of their opponents.

Few people know what has actually gone on politically inside the K-T debate. I would hope that my "K-T Letters" might serve as a window into the deeper layers of K-T science that the public, the news media, and most scientists and philosophers never see. The letter I post today represents my experience in trying to get published my paper which I believe undermines the K-T "impact winter" (global blackout and cold) scenario.

When the Alvarez asteroid theory was published in 1980, I had already published my K-T greenhouse theory (Science, 1978). Their killing mechanism was blackout and cold. In 1980, I began a search for definitive evidences of any K-T impact winter. Ten years of searching produced no definitive evidences.

Ed Anders, a chemist at Chicago, author of the K-T wildfires theory, and I were invited to participate together in a 1990 Chapman Conference titled "Global Biomass Burning: Atmospheric, Climatic, and Biospheric Implications." We both wrote papers for the proceedings volume. Anders did everything he could to block publication of my paper, even getting a preprint of my paper and sending it to others impactors requesting that they write the editor to block publication of my paper.

Fortunately, some impactors are both excellent and fair scientists. One, whose data I used to undermine the impact winter scenario, suggested that my paper be published. By the efforts of that good person, and a perceptive editor, it was.

Other scientists have had similar experiences. I know some members of PaleoNet, who have data contrary to K-T impact, who have had their papers blocked. This has gone on for years.

As a result, the public, the news media, and philosophers, sociologists, and historians of science have a biased data base from which to do their own evaluations of K-T science, and scientists.

I believe this sordid practice that has sullied our science of paleontology should be ended. Exposure can help. I would hope that others who have had similar experiences might speak out publicly on the subject.

Cordially,
Dewey McLean

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March 8, 1991

Dr. Edward Anders
Enrico Fermi Institute & Department of Chemistry
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60637-1433

Dear Dr. Anders:

I have received, and read, your manuscript titled Giant impact at K/T boundary: beyond dispute that you wrote in response to my manuscript Impact winter in the global K-T extinctions: no definitive evidences. Your manuscript, that dismisses the work of others (McLean, Hansen, Graup, and Crockett) as based on "bad sites," "bad samples," "bad data," "misinterpretations," etc., is the most blatantly ad hominem scientific manuscript I have yet seen. For my manuscript, which you state is "based on misinterpretations, bad data, and other less-than-compelling evidence," I cited the data and interpretations of literally dozens of respected scientists that include: Ahrens, Izett, Courtillot, Sweet, Keller, Bohor, Margolis, Lerbekmo, Morgan, Sloan, Russell, Hsu, Thierstein, Schmitz, Zoller, Toutain, Smit, and Sutter, to name a few.

I hope that my distress does not offend you. However, a decade of having some individuals, who have had little experience with the details required to intelligently address the K-T extinctions: the vast and complex Cretaceous and Tertiary fossil records (animal and plant, marine and terrestrial), biostratigraphy, physical stratigraphy, plate tectonics, mantle processes, paleoecology, climatology, oceanography, and biochemistry, etc., arrogantly attacking those of us who have spent much of our careers integrating such data is enough! Your arrogance fits well with that of some Alvarez asteroid team members, and supporters, who have attempted to shut down the K-T extinction debate prematurely, attempted to bully opponents into silence, threatened careers of opponents, seemingly set up conferences to favor the impact theory, and promoted the Alvarez asteroid in influential scientific magazines.

It is tragic that the K-T extinction debate became so characterized by bitter and public personal attacks by some scientists upon the credibility of others. What should have been a wonderful adventure in which scientists from many fields could share their expertise to solve a great mystery--cause of the K-T extinctions--became, instead, a case of pathogenic American Lysenkoism in which a scientist could either support the Alvarez asteroid theory, disappear from the debate, or have his credibility and career attacked. Please see my letters to Luis Alvarez (enclosed).

For your testimonial on Richard Kerr, staff writer for Science magazine, I have told Kerr that I believe that he has wrongly biased public and scientific perception of the K-T debate more than any other journalist. Please see my letters to Science editor, Koshland (enclosed).

A famous scientist once noted that science is self correcting. However, the K-T debate has been so politicized, and its public status so influenced by some powerful members of the National Academy of Sciences and their supporters, who seem determined to force the outcome of scientific inquiry toward their own ends, that it will likely take a congressional inquiry to clarify its actual status. The American public that pays for our science deserves it. Please see an excerpt of my letter to Congressman John Dingell (enclosed).

Sincerely yours,

Dewey M. McLean
Professor, and Director of Earth Systems
and Biosphere Evolution Studies
© 1996 Dewey M. McLean

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Dewey M. McLean Telephone: 540-552-8559
Department of Geological Sciences E-mail address: dmclean@vt.edu
Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Blacksburg, VA 24061

Home Page: http://www.vt.edu:10021/artsci/geology/mclean/
Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/index.html

Home Page: http://www.vt.edu:10021/artsci/geology/mclean/
Creationism_vs_Evolution/index.html
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