This McLean Stuff

From
Date
Tom raises an interesting point that I've been pondering myself. Early on I
decided to try to avoid participating in any discussions that Dewey's
material raised because 1.) I was busy with other things (e.g., dealing
with subscriber problems arising from PaleoNet's recent technical problems,
trying to get some research finished), and 2.) I wanted to see if Dewey's
material would  elicit any discussion on its own. Although I'm still tied
up with category one, I think my category 2 question has been answered.
This poses the obvious further question "Why not?"

In terms of accuracy, Dewey's factual statements are correct insofar as I
am aware. I was at Snowbird II and Snowbird III and have been party to
several K-T controversies. He's telling the truth. As for the K-TEC and
Snowbird I material, his comments are consistent with an independent
recounting of events by Malcolm Browne, a staff science writer for the New
York Times, who's article "Dinosaur experts resist meteor extinction idea:
paleontologists say dissenters risk harm to their careers" appeared on 29
October 1985. The New York Times has some experience in being sued for
printing falsehoods and employs fact checkers to avoid problems of this
sort. Therefore, I think this consistency between Dewey's and Browne's
reports of events speaks for itself. Other independent perspectives on some
of the issues Dewey raises can be found in the following:

Clemens, E. S., 1986. Of asteroids and dinosaurs: The role of the press in
the shaping of scientific debate. Social Studies of Science, 16, 421-456.

Clemens, E. S., 1994. The impact hypothesis and popular science: Conditions
and consequences of interdisciplinary debate. In: Glen, W. (ed), The Mass
Extinction Debates: How Science Works in a Crisis. Stanford University
Press, Stanford, 92-120.

Dewey's facts are correct and you can't be accused of either slander or
libel (the verb form of both is speaking evil for the purpose of injuring
and without regard for the truth) for telling the truth. As for Dewey's
opinions with regard to the motivations behind the actions of individuals,
these are his. I, or anyone else might agree or disagree with Dewey's
opinions in particular instances, but people have a right to hold and
express their opinions.

Outside of this, I think the silence on PaleoNet concerning Dewey's reports
and comments reflects the fact that most of this is old news to
participants in the K-T debates and many within the professional paleo.
community. [Note: That doesn't mean it shouldn't have been posted. Indeed I
think the postings have served a purpose in illuminating (or reminding us
of) how "science" is really done on a day-to-day level - and always has
been.] Even more importantly, there's nothing that can be done. You can't
change history or human nature. I don't share Dewey's optimism about
externally-imposed codes of ethics. IMHO they're not worth the paper
they're written on.

Whenever I think about the personal side of the K-T boundary debates I'm
always brought back to Henry Kissinger's response when someone asked him
why academic controversies got so personal so quickly? As Kissinger (being
no stranger to such controversies himself) correctly pointed out "It's
because the stakes are so low." The tragedy of Dewey's story is that his
career was more-or-less derailed over an issue that, in many senses, really
doesn't amount to very much.

Following on from Tom's PS I think listservers (e.g., PaleoNet) are
appropriate means to pursue discussions and make announcements. Dewey has
told me that he has been contacted offline by many people who saw his
postings to PaleoNet. That's fine, but I think Dewey's points have been
made. Unless anyone has something new to add or discuss regarding the
subject of Dewey's postings in front of the entire PaleoNet subscribership,
I suggest we move on to other topics.

Dewey does run a WWW site on the K-T controversy at:

http://www.vt.edu:10021/artsci/geology/mclean/Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/in
dex.html

There's a link to this site from the PaleoNet Pages (Places To Go: Misc.
Electronic Paleo. Communications). Perhaps this is the place where people
who want to keep up with Dewey's activities on this issue should go.


Norm MacLeod




>Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 16:12:03 -0700 (PDT)
>Reply-To: TomDeVrie@aol.com
>Originator: paleonet@ucmp1.berkeley.edu
>Sender: paleonet@ucmp1.berkeley.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>From: TomDeVrie@aol.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list <paleonet@ucmp1.berkeley.edu>
>Subject: This McLean Stuff
>X-Comment: PaleoNet Mailing List
>
>The claims of Dewey McLean are extraordinary.  What is even more
>extraordinary, however, is the deafening silence that this onslaught of K-T
>accusation has wrought in the most populous and professional of electronic
>paleontology forums.
>
>Since I have nothing professionally to lose from commenting on this matter, I
>offer my my multiple working hypotheses for the whole affair to date.
>
>1.  McLean is making libelous (or slanderous, I don't remember the
>difference) charges and ought to be sued by Alvarez et al.
>
>2.  McLean accurately portrays the politics of the K-T controversy, which if
>true, appears to be a scandal, and requires someone to take Alvarez et al. to
>task.
>
>3.  Something is missing in this story, but:
>
>a. no one cares enough to comment,
>b. everyone is scared to comment,
>c. everyone hopes the issue will disappear before some enterprising science
>journalist decides to cut his/her teeth on a topic that involves dinosaurs,
>meteorites, ruined careers, entrenched science, and power.
>
>I invite Paleonet people to respond **on-line."
>
>Tom DeVries
>
>PS:  There are great many topics for discussion tangential to this particular
>controversy, among them the proper use of list-servs and mass electronic
>communication to achieve redress, the use of the same medium to spread
>innuendo and misinformation, and the role of electronic media to carry on
>civilized discourse about scientific disagreements.
>



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Norman MacLeod
Micropalaeontological Research
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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