THERE MUST BE A REASON

What these hacks forget is that to ask for a reason is not just the duty of a scientist, but no less so of a journalist; indeed, it is the duty of anybody who claims lo have more brains than a phonograph record. Prof. Alvarez did not just dream up his theory the way the reporters of Slime and Newspeak do.

His theory is mainly (but not exclusively) based on the fact that the layers formed in the geologic period of the "Great Dying" con-tain an abnormally high fraction of iridium, an element much more abundant in meteors and other heavenly bodies than it is on earth. That is a reason that I, as a layman, find persuasive, and it has nothing to do with Alvarez' political opinions (which I re-gret), just as it has almost nothing to do with Nuclear Winter.

The "almost" is an interesting point: far from supporting that hoax, as the parrots seem to believe, the theory contradicts it: compared to the impact of a heavenly body at least 25 miles in diameter, 10,000 megatons of nuclear bombs is a gnat's belch. If most life on earth survived such a catastrophe, then this is evi-dence that refutes Sagan's science fiction.

However, I know Prof. Jastrow as a serious scientist who does not use ideology to form a scientific opinion, and who must have a serious objection to the iridium argument. I do not know what it is, but when I find out, I will not immediately buy it: I will ask the Alvarezites for their counterobjection, and I will shuttle be-tween the two camps until I reach the point where I have to make my own judgment. That is not how a scientist works, but how a journalist worth his salt gets his information.

Among the quasi-journalists who fail this test is David Selig-man of Fortune, a sincere supporter of free enterprise and an astute observer of the political scene, but one whose mind goes blank when it comes to iridium or asbestos [AtE Feb 86]. His en-grossing "Keeping Up" column shows him to be a gifted prattler; for the rest, I must repeat what I have often said about the re-porters on the Left: his sins against asbestos are not due to his lack of scientific training (which nobody expects), but to his shoddy journalism.