WHAT WE CAN LEARN ABOUT NUCLEON SPIN STRUCTURE FROM RECENT DATA

We have used recent data from the CERN and SLAG to extract information about nucleon spin structure. We find that the SMC proton data on int egral(0)(1)g(1)(p)dx, the E142 neutron data on integral(0)(1)g(1)(n)dx , and the deuteron data from the SMC and E143 give different results f or fractions of the spin carried by each of the constituents. These ap pear to lead to two different and incompatible models for the polarize d strange sea. The polarized gluon distribution occurring in the gluon anomaly does not have to be large in order to be consistent with eith er set of experimental data. However, it appears that the discrepancie s in the implications of these data cannot be resolved with any simple theoretical arguments. We conclude that more experiments must be perf ormed in order to adequately determine the fraction of spin carried by each of the nucleon constituents.