Response to Tom DeVries

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Dear PaleoNet Colleagues:

Response to Tom DeVries, Norman MacLeod, and Paul Willis.

In posting my "K-T Letters," I had several objectives. One was to flesh out the BBC radio show with details that outsiders to the K-T debate would not know about. When the BBC personnel contacted me they told me that in England nearly everyone believes in the Alvarez asteroid. I think this is also true in the United States. I hoped that my actions might serve to demonstrate that the K-T debate is still an open one, and that the impactors have NOT "won" the debate.

I do know something about the inner workings of the K-T debate. Since the early 1980s, I have examined with great intensity how politics overwhelmed the science of the K-T. But, it is one thing to know something, and quite another to speak out about it. I chose to do the latter.

DeVries raises the possibility that I am making libelous or slanderous charges, and that Alvarez et al., ought to sue me. The thought that some powerful individual might bring lawsuit against me for telling the truth is ever on my mind. But, the battles of life are not won by cowards. When a journalist at the _Chronicle of Higher Education_ blew the whistle on K-T politics in the _Chronicle_ a few years ago, a prominent living University of California impactor threatened him that he might get sued. The journalist published his article in spite of threat.

In fact, I had not thought of it before, but a great public trial--something like the Scopes Monkey Trial--might be a good thing to bring attention to the K-T. It would give the impactors who promoted the asteroid to the status of "truth" an opportunity to tell the world just how they did it--via intimidation to silence opponents, and reaching into their departments to hurt their careers, and consistently ignoring data that do not support impact, and controlling what the public gets to read on the K-T, etc. And how a prominent UC impactor raised the threat of lawsuit to shut up journalistic inquiry into the political workings of the K-T. And how some editors and journalists and others helped in puffing up the Alvarez asteroid to the status of "truth."

DeVries also remarked on 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."

I am not seeking redress. I seek only to show how politics have influenced K-T science. People living in a free society have a right to know if what they see on television, and read in popular science magazines and in the writings of popularizers of science, accurately portray the science to them. After all, it is the people who pay the bill for the science. Science has a terrible responsibility to the people who support it to do right by them. As Al Higgins of the Scifraud listserv told me: to know about wrong, and to not speak out about it, is to contribute to it.

And now, I do not want to mischaracterize DeVries, but if he believes that I have engaged in spreading "innuendo and misinformation," I challenge him to prove it--in public. I hereby extend to DeVries an offer to join me in a public debate on the politics of the K-T. I have already been on the stage with just about everyone who counts in the science of the K-T. I shall eagerly await public announcement of his invitation to debate me, stating time and place.

There is one condition under which I would refuse DeVries debate. I don't recall having ever heard of him before. If he lacks sufficient credentials, then I must be a gentleman, and "carry on civilized discourse about scientific disagreements" with those who might make more interesting game.

I thank Norman MacLeod for his comments. I try to be as scrupulously accurate with details as I can be. Also, it is true that K-T insiders know what has gone on. But, K-T outsiders do not. I have been speaking largely to those many people who have been conditioned "to believe" in the asteroid. Perhaps Norman is correct that a Code of Ethics would not work. However, it might work better than what we have now. What I have in mind is also an Appellate authority that one can appeal to, when needed.

For Paul Willis's posting, the "Scandal" side of the K-T has, in many cases, buried the science of the K-T. Paul expresses "fear that this could blow out to 'Watergate,' which is the last thing we need." After a decade and a half of watching politics dominate K-T science, I fear that nothing short of a "Watergate" can bring the science back to its rightful position. It's a damn shame that apathy--and silence--by so many who knew what was going on allowed the K-T to become corrupted to the point that it did. It didn't have to be this way.

"When truth is buried underground it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it" (Emile Zola, 1898).

And now, as Norman suggests, it is time to move on to other things. In fact, I told Norman via my 10 October 1996 e-mail message to him that:

>My "K-T Letters" postings were meant to expand on the BBC radio broadcast a bit. >I have only one more posting. I'll post it tomorrow, or over the week end. And >that's it.

However, after receiving responses from some people, I chose to post a couple more.

I subscribed to PaleoNet only after some friends told me that I had been mentioned on it in reference to a BBC radio show. I felt that it might be useful to expand upon some details to show those who had already accepted the asteroid as "truth" that the K-T goes deeper than they might realize. I have accomplished my objectives on PaleoNet, and will unsubscribe. I have other pressing projects that I must attend to.

In closing, I thank the many people who contacted me by e-mail, letters, and telephone calls. Some asked permission to repost my postings on other internet listservs. Some told me that they will use them in courses on how science is done.

Many students have also contacted me on the K-T. To all, my counsel is to seek your knowledge in the scientific journals. Read all the papers on both the asteroid and volcano sides of the debate. Think about the data, and interpretations, and then--after several years of hard work--you might have enough information to form some legitimate impressions on the cause of the K-T extinctions. For whether you come to believe in the asteroid, or the volcano, allow your decision be based upon your critical examination of data. And let it be your decision.

For your own good, ask your teachers to develop courses on scientific politics, and fraud and misconduct, to teach you how science REALLY works. If your teachers educate you properly on politics, you will be better prepared for a career in science.

In the meantime, please do not allow articles and reports in _Science_, and essays in _Discover_, etc., to do your thinking for you.

Cordially,
Dewey 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/
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Home Page: http://www.vt.edu:10021/artsci/geology/mclean/
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