Re: population growth & physics ed

[George Spagna <gspagna@rmc.edu>]

At 09:51 AM 7/18/96 -0700, Leigh Palmer wrote:
> The Nuclear Winter paper should not be labelled a "scam". That would
> imply the authors knew it was incorrect when they published it. It
> was merely very wrong. 

There are two real problems I see with the Sagan et. al. announcement of the
nuclear winter scenario.  The first is not egregious:  they over-generalized
a very simple model.  After all, we do this as a matter of course with
virtually every model.

The second is perhaps the reason the episode sticks in many folks craw:  if
I recall correctly, Carl Sagan first announced the results on television
(during a panel discussion following a dramatic production about WWIII)
without benefit of peer review, then "published" the result in Parade (for
which he is the contributing science editor).

That said, it is valuable to point out for our students to observe that the
process is self-correcting.  Peer review and subsequent work have done their
job, just as for "cold fusion" and crop circles!
George Spagna           **********************************************
Department of Physics   *                                            *
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