Peter wrote: >I'm personally grateful that Derek Hutchinson never mentioned a prismatic coefficient or Froude. I agree. Had Derek mentioned them he would have probably screwed it up and made his chapters on boat design even more ludicrous. Many writers about canoes and kayaks exhibit a callous disregard for research and prefer their opinions over reality. One writer (very popular) sent me a chapter from a book on solo canoeing and asked me to edit its content for accuracy. I did so and he wrote back how much he appreciated the help. He sent me an autographed copy that I read and promptly took down to the used book store where I traded it for another work of fiction but by a better writer. He did not correct any of even the most egregious errors. Later I asked him why and he told me - brace yourself for this - people would not understand or believe the truth so it is better to tell them what they want to hear or already believe. As Doug Gavin, a line supervisor at Morgan Yacht Corporation used to say, "Ignorance and superstition will always triumph over the scientific method." Doug was wise beyond his years. Cheers, John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Oct 12 2000 - 05:43:51 PDT
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