I agree with Rick's comment below, this is not a peer reviewed journal.
I think of Phys-L as the virtual bar for us. A place where we can say
things and ask questions at all sorts of various levels. Sometimes in
ways that I wouldn't do in a submitted article to a peer reviewed
journal.
Having said that, I wish Jim hadn't been so coy as to only talk of
precession, but had simply said historical evidence of climate change
pre-dating human industrial activity; and then commented on similarities
and/or differences with the current situation.
________________________
Joel Rauber
Department of Physics - SDSU
Joel.Rauber@sdstate.edu
605-688-4293
| -----Original Message-----
| From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
| [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf
| Of Rick Tarara
| Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 6:22 AM
| To: Forum for Physics Educators
| Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Precession
|
|
| ----- 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
|
| ***************************
| Richard W. Tarara
| Professor of Physics
| Saint Mary's College
| Notre Dame, IN
| rtarara@saintmarys.edu
| ******************************
| Free Physics Software
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| www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
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|
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