SCIENTIFIC AMERICA
April 2005
Okay, We Give Up
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
com–ment 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 either-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.
The Editors editors@sciam.com
No comments:
Post a Comment