Okay, We Give Up: We Feel So Ashamed (Scientific American)

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Thu, 7 Apr 2005 08:59:24 -0700 (PDT)

 

 

Okay, We Give Up: We Feel So Ashamed (Scientific American)

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000E555C-4387-1237-81CB83414B7F\

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2005-04-01 - Okay, We Give Up: We Feel So Ashamed

 

 

 

 

April 01, 2005

 

Okay, We Give Up

 

We feel so ashamed

 

By The Editors

 

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 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.

 

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