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event to account for the demise of the dinosaurs."
3
Writing in 1982,
Archibald and Clemens used different words to make the same
point: "At present, the admittedly limited, but growing, store of data
indicates that the biotic changes that occurred before, at, and fol-
lowing the Cretaceous-Tertiary transition were cumulative and not
the result of a single catastrophic event."
4
A
CRIMONY
In October 1982, only two years after the original paper appeared in
Science
and before most paleontologists had even begun to take it
seriously, Luis Alvarez gave a long, detailed, and unusually personal
talk at the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious invi-
tational scientific society in the world, of which he was a member.-
When his remarks appeared in print, they offended paleontologists,
geologists, and others who preferred to see a certain level of polite
discourse maintained in science. He had begun his talk with a pre-
emptive declaration of victory: "That the asteroid hit, and that the
impact triggered the extinction of much of the life in the sea—are
no longer debatable points."
6
Writing about a field trip to Hell Creek, Montana, source of
Tyrannosaurus rex
and the bedrock of dinosaur studies, Alvarez
noted that "[The husband of one of his co-workers] tripped over a
previously undiscovered
Triceratops
skull on one occasion. So we
have not been a group of people each working in his own little com-
partment, but rather we have all thought deeply about all phases of
the subject."
7
To suspicious geologists, this casual statement implied
that he thought that their field was so easy that complete novices
could not only stumble across new discoveries, they could solve per-
sistent problems with thought that, however deep, could not, and
need not, have gone on for long.
"A physicist can react instantaneously when you give him some
evidence that destroys a theory that he had previously believed in.
But that is not true in all branches of science, as I am finding out,"
Luis claimed.
8
Not every physicist reacted as he described, however.
Less than a year later, astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a professor at
Dartmouth College, wrote: "So there we are. The asteroid theory
was very attractive because it explained so much in a simple way,
and many people will regret its passing. However, the evidence
against it is very strong."
9
Thus as early as 1983, two physicists, with
the utmost confidence, came to exactly the opposite conclusion
about a matter of geology.
