Scientific America Gives Up:
(Editorial from the latest edition of Scientific American)
There's no easy way to admit this. For years,
helpful letter writers told us to stick to
science. They pointed out that science and
politics don't mix. They said we should be more
balanced in our presentation of such issues as
creationism, missile defense and global warming.
We resisted their advice and pretended not to be
stung by the accusations that the magazine should
be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific
Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But
spring is in the air, and all of nature is
turning over a new leaf, so there's no better
time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of
so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided.
For decades, we published articles in every issue
that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his
cronies. True, the theory of common descent
through natural selection has been called the
unifying concept for all of biology and one of
the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but
that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.
Where were the answering articles presenting the
powerful case for scientific creationism? Why
were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs
lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood
carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists.
They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their
radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of
peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we
had no business being persuaded by mountains of
evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the
Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them
in with creationists. Creationists believe that
God designed all life, and that's a somewhat
religious idea. But ID theorists think that at
unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful
entity designed life, or maybe just some species,
or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's
what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it
doesn't get bogged down in details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We
owe it to our readers to present everybody's
ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit
theories simply because they lack scientifically
credible arguments or facts. Nor should we
succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that
scientists understand their fields better than,
say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do.
Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups
say things that seem untrue or misleading, our
duty as journalists is to quote them without
comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would
be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit,
we will end the practice of expressing our own
views in this space: an editorial page is no
place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more
discussions of how science should inform policy.
If the government commits blindly to building an
anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as
promised, that will waste tens of billions of
taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security,
you won't hear about it from us. If studies
suggest that the administration's antipollution
measures would actually increase the dangerous
particulates that people breathe during the next
two decades, that's not our concern. No more
discussions of how policies affect science
eitherā¤"so what if the budget for the National
Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will
be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced
science, and not just the science that scientists
say is science. And it will start on April Fools'
Day.
Okay, We Give Up
MATT COLLINS THE EDITORS
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