<HTML>Robert,
> Not quite. After the publication of Spence's original article
> in NATURE, I got the following message from Owen Gingerich on
> 31 December 2000:
>
> "There is a small error in Kate Spence's paper... which
> compresses the time scale on each side of the zero point by
> about 15%..."
>
> This 'small error', which was easily picked up by Rawlins and
> Pickering within hours of Spence's publication in NATURE, was
> completely missed by Gingerich, indicating that his 'review'
> of Spence's work was done in haste, to say the least. So much
> for peer review, eh?
I agree that the error should have been picked up prior to publication particularly on such a high profile publication and in such a high impact journal. These guys are only human however and mistakes do happen. Spence has admitted the error is there and corrected it in her most recent correspondance with Nature. You may be interested to know that Rawlins accepts the validity of Spence's method but only for the 3 pyramids at Giza. He has proposed an alternative method, again based on precessional drift, which I gather is to be published soon. I expect Avry will be looking to shoot that one down too. :-)
KRs,
Duncan</HTML>