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Dear PaleoNet Colleagues: Many people who contact me on the K-T express surprise to have learned that my Deccan Traps-greenhouse K-T extinction theory was being developed at the same time as the Alvarez asteroid theory. This shows how powerful cliques, who control the news media, and who go after their opponents to wreck their credibility and careers, can promote their theory to the status of "truth," while demoting their opponent's to near oblivion. I'm not the only one who was attacked by impactors. After the impactors nearly wrecked my career in the mid 1980s, Chuck Officer tried to take over leadership of the volcano side of the K-T debate. The impactors also hit him with politics. Today, it's Gerta Keller. At the 1994 Snowbird III conference Gerta--who had to leave the meeting early because of a severe ice storm in the eastern U.S.--became the focus of a small band of vocal impactors: "We can throw out Keller's entire K-T data base," "Keller is a coward who got out of Dodge," etc. For an example of how Luis Alvarez operated to politically damage his opponents, I share the following. In March 1984, David Raup and Luis Alvarez cohosted a workshop on mass extinctions, etc., at Berkeley. It consisted of 30 invited participants. Of course, I was not invited. After my two-day 1981 K-TEC II debate with the Alvarez team where I argued that the K-T iridium--the sole "evidence" of the asteroid theory--was likely released by the Deccan Traps volcanism, Alvarez wanted nothing more to do with me. But that did not mean that Alvarez was through trying to damage my credibility, or to isolate me out of the mainstream of K-T science. My non-invitation to the Berkeley workshop gave Alvarez yet another means by which to attack me. It was to the effect that "Nobody invites Dewey McLean to conferences anymore." I have in my possession Luis Alvarez's 4 January 1984 letter to a prominent physicist who had published an article in a popular science magazine critical of the Alvarez asteroid. Alvarez wrote the physicist a letter attempting to intimidate him by using me as an example of what can happen to his opponents. Following are quotes from the Alvarez letter which is on Lawrence Berkeley letterhead, and signed by Luis Alvarez: "As a horrible example of what can happen to a scientist when he clearly--in sight of all his peers--ignores important evidence, I'll remind you of Dewey McLean, a paleontologist from V.P.I. Dewey used to be invited to all the conferences and debates about the K-T extinction. But he no longer is, because he refuses to face up to the fact that the Ir enhancement is of great importance in understanding what happened 65 million years ago... So Dewey is now a forgotten person in the field, or when he is remembered, it is only for a few good laughs, at the cocktail party at the end of the Deweyless meeting." "****, I'm sorry to say that I see you going down the Dewey McLean lane." "So, ****, please stop grasping at such tenuous straws--unless you really _want_ to emulate Dewey." Alvarez repeated this criticism in a 19 January 1988 _New York Times_ article. His statement: "If the president of the college had asked me what I thought about Dewey McLean, I'd say he's a weak sister. I thought he'd been knocked out of the ball game and had just disappeared, because nobody invites him to conferences anymore." This sort of attack upon me by Alvarez and his paleobiologist cohorts was hand carried into our V.P.I. geology department. In January 1982, one of my V.P.I. colleagues attended a meeting on the Stanford campus together with Luis Alvarez. My colleague's 4 December 1988 letter to me--written after some bitter confrontations--states, "...based on my own conversation with Luis Alvarez in January, 1982, was that he was not 'fighting fair'...." And "...the unfair criticisms of your work by the 'Alvarez camp'...." And "...their unfairness was widely known...." Cordially, Dewey McLean *********************************************************************** 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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