Oh oh. A plutonium powered satellite hit the atmosphere and the SNAP device vaporized.

[Igel]

8. Right.

Life stopped existing on Earth in 1964. It's bad when you make a pre-falsified prediction and stand by it.

At the same time, I'd point out that Jared Diamond had a strict position he defended. The Greenland Norse, even when he wrote, were suspected of "dying out" for a different reason. (The Inuit, of course, hadn't gotten that far south yet.) He also apparently screwed up Easter Island. And in a number of other cases he mentioned (same in Guns, Germs, etc.) I sat there thinking, "But he rather neatly ignores all this information that simply fails to confirm his hypothesis."

It's a serious drawback: You only see what says you're right. That gets you firmly and resolutely to the tut (because the 'r' and the 'h' didn't support the One True Way, they were simply ignored).