At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, neverspecifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:

Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe… etc

(The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads xwarhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burnduration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity xParticle endurance…and so on.)

The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drakeequation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. TheTTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out differentwartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, buteven so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobodyknows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creatingparticles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect oflocal weather conditions on the amount of particles that will beinjected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles willremain in the troposphere. And so on.

And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concludedthat the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that noestimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study notonly made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic.

According to Sagan and his co-workers, even a limited 5,000 megatonnuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. Thegreatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperaturessomewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed globaltemperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change threetimes greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subjectof some dispute.

But Sagan and his co-workers were prepared, for nuclear winter wasfrom the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. Thefirst announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan inthe Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized,high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear warwas held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, themost famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Saganappeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times.Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings withcongressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.

This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold.

The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists' renderings of the effect of nuclear winter.

I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is atranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam,two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters inthe foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches fora tasty fish." Hard science if ever there was.

At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlichwas reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quotedas saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melonswere growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were thesefindings now?

Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust.Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannotimagine what their basis would have been, even with the state ofscience at that time, but scientists are always making absurdstatements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here,however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group ofscientists…"

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, andthe rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensusscience as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stoppedcold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been thefirst refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claimingthat the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus ofscientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, becauseyou're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do withconsensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on thecontrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, whichmeans that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference tothe real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant isreproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are greatprecisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.

In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever followingchildbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, AlexanderGordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes,and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, OliverWendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presentedcompelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweissdemonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperalfever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was aJew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact noagreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century.Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive atthe right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics"around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despitethe constant ongoing deaths of women.

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America,tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a diseasecalled pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious,and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The USgovernment asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger,to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucialfactor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldbergerdemonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. Hedemonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the bloodof a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and othervolunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, andswallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what werecalled "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. Theconsensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, asocial factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as thecause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continuedto deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth centuryepidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africaseem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensussneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was mostvigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when itbegan to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it tookthe consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jennerand smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressedmemory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy…the list ofconsensus errors goes on and on.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensusis invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the scienceis not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agreesthat E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 millionmiles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.