12 ms·
There was like one story in a popular science magazine once that got a lot of play, and many people heard about it because it's a vivid story. That's about the
by kadoban 4y ago
There was like one story in a popular science magazine once that got a lot of play, and many people heard about it because it's a vivid story. That's about the extent of it.
Climate change deniers also keep it alive because enlarging it validates their distrust of scientists.
- bluGill 4y agoIt was more than one story. PBS programs and other sources ran with it. Notice that i'm careful to say it was the media, and not sound science.
- Scramblejams 4y agoNo, the stories also made it into Newsweek and Time, which were pretty much the dominant credible news weeklies at the time, circulated to many millions of households. It's easy to look back now and say that was just sloppy work with little impact which has since been overblown, but I remember some academic authority figures in my young life taking the idea seriously a decade later as a result. It was delivered with an imprimatur of authority from multiple sources and left an imprint for a long time.