The Dewey McLean Thing

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Hello all,

	I've been reading with interest the McLean posts and a few
responses.  This has reinforced the value of a course I took when I was an
undergraduate at Waterloo (Ontario).
	The only two required courses in our fourth year were the honours
thesis, and something called "crustal geology".  The began in the early
1970's as a study focused on the then "new" ideas of plate tectonics, as
no other courses incorporated them.  Now that most now do, this course has
become something different entirely.
	The structure of the course is quite simple.  Weekly seminars were
conducted on divisive and controversial issues in geology, in the form of
debates.  Groups of two students were given an issue and a position (not
of their choosing) and were to defend it using all available evidence, and
were graded on how well they presented their arguments.  One of the
seminars was on McLean's Deccan traps vs. Alvarez' impact scenario for the
KT event.  Others included plate tectonics (Weneger) vs. not (Meyerhoff),
and one vs. two layered mantle convection models.  You get the idea.
	This course was an important part of my scientific education,
because it made the students aware that popular theories should always be
treated with healthy skepticism, and not just blindly accepted.  It seems
to me that whenever you have a group of homo sapiens together, you more
often than not, encounter silly politics.  It is one of the limitations of
the species.
	Hell, we still have evolution on our side!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
 Andrew Dalby
 Dept. of Earth Sciences
 Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre	Carleton University
 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada	       (613) 520-2600 X1851

		   adalby@ccs.carleton.ca
	  ---> http://www.carleton.ca/~adalby/ <---
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