<story><title>How Chris McCandless Died: An Update</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chris-mccandless-died-update</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>woodchuck64</author><text>What&amp;#x27;s fascinating is inferring the other motives and agendas swirling around the issue that are then cut through by hard science (in Krakauer&amp;#x27;s favor):&lt;p&gt;From &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.alaskacommons.com/2013/09/22/what-everyone-is-getting-wrong-about-chris-mccandless/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.alaskacommons.com&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;22&amp;#x2F;what-everyone-is-get...&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The forensic question “Were the seeds poisonous?” is of interest only because it sheds light on broader, more contentious question, expressed bluntly as “How stupid was Chris McCandless?” If, like Alaska Dispatch reporters Dermot Cole and Craig Medred (and again), you think McCandless was a clueless, crazy knucklehead, arrogant in his disdain for wild nature and its perils, then you want to think the seeds weren’t poisonous; the kid just died of starvation because he was too stupid&amp;#x2F;crazy&amp;#x2F;arrogant to make it to safety.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But if, like Jon Krakauer (and, in the interest of full disclosure, like me), you have some level of empathy with or sympathy for McCandless, you want to think the seeds were poisonous—he was doing his best to survive a difficult enterprise and was done in because he consumed something that was not known to be poisonous until two decades after his death.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Chris McCandless Died: An Update</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chris-mccandless-died-update</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>notacoward</author><text>This is pretty awesome.  Clausen seemed a bit snotty about the original theory not being in a peer-reviewed journal.  Now the followup is, and the underlying science also blows a hole in one of Clausen&amp;#x27;s own papers.  He messed with the wrong guy.  Citizen science FTW.</text></comment>