Re: [Phys-l] Precession

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jack Uretsky" <jlu@hep.anl.gov>


> Jim, if you have a competitive model, the burden is on you (on a list for
> science teachers) to present the data that support the model - preferably
> in a peer-reviewed journal.

I disagree.  As science teachers we should be aware of, and have some of the 
same questions that our students will bring with them to classes.  We should 
feel free to express those here in hopes that others will have definitive 
answers (or counters) to those ideas which are freely being expressed just 
outside the mainstream press.  We are not atmospheric researchers (and I 
doubt Jack is either) so few if any of us have the level of expertise to 
definitively confirm or deny current theory, but we can ask the appropriate 
questions.  If the human-induced global warming crowd constantly attacks 
critics on the basis of their motivations, why can't the opposite be done? 
Is it not reasonable to expect models that purport to tell the future to be 
able to explain the past?  We need to ask the question that Jim has, yet few 
of us have the time or to do an extensive search of the literature for 
answers (many of us are actually carrying full (over) loads of teaching and 
institutional duties).  Rather we bring up arguments or ask questions here 
in hopes that someone has more expertise or knows of that one definitive 
review article that will answer our questions or refute the counter 
arguments that we have heard.  It is, IMO, being extremely officious to 
demand that we answer our own questions at a peer-reviewed level.

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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