lew@ihuxr.UUCP (11/01/83)
>From "Scientific Creationism (Public School Edition)" Edited by Henry M. Morris, Ph. D.; Director, Institute for Creation Research: "It is known that there is essentially a constant rate of cosmic dust particles entering the earth's atmosphere from space and then gradually settling to the earth's surface. The best measurements of this influx have been made by Hans Pettersson, who obtained the figure of 14 million tons per year [1]. 1. Hans Pettersson, 'Cosmic Spherules and Meteoritic Dust', Scientific American, Vol. 202 (February 1960),p. 132 " --------------------------------------------- >From the cited reference: "In general the cosmic spherules from the ocean floor indicate a higher rate of meteor-fall in recent times." ...( and after describing his own 14 million ton result) "To be on the safe side, especially in view of the uncertainty as to how long it takes meteoritic dust to descend, I am inclined to find five million tons per year plausible." ------------------------------------------ My purpose here is to show the essential dishonesty of Morris's use of published literature. Morris also makes statements about the nickel content of ocean sediments which completely ignore Pettersson's detailed discussion of exactly that topic. Also note that "Scientific Creationism" had its first printing in 1974, so that in addition to ignoring Pettersson's own uncertainty, Morris is ignoring all the data of the intervening 14 years, including data from earth satellites, the Apollo program, and the Pioneer spacecraft, all of which superseded terrestrial measurements. In his talk, Dr. Brown belittled the significance of Pettersson's work, preferring to cite satellite data. I've been unable to find published references to either the earth satellite data that Dr. Brown mentioned or results of the Apollo 17 meteor counter, which he also mentioned. I have found results from Pioneer, which show a very low flux of micrometeroids. Anyway, none of this mitigates Morris's misrepresentation of Pettersson's article, which I find impossible to ascribe to error or sloppiness. In fact, the five million ton figure is in the title blurb, so that Morris must have dug the 14 million figure out of the text, where it appears just prior to the quote I gave above. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew