Letter to the Editor
Oops! Book Review Correction
Owen Gingerich, Ph.D.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
From: PSCF 41 (September 1989): 192
For a number of years, about two decades ago, I worked closely with Raymond Seeger in the American Association for the Advancement of Science Section L (Historv and Philosophy of Science) and also on the Sigma Xi national lecture series. Only since then did I discover that he is a regular contributor to the ASA Journal, and also that he is a brother of the folk singer Pete Seeger. It is a great joy to realize that he is still active in retirement, as witnessed both by his note on Francis Bacon in the June, 1989 issue and his review of my Scientific American Reader.
Nevertheless, I must protest a factual error in the review. Ray Seeger states that one would like to know if the photos, the synoptic sentences under each title, and the biographical paragraphs are due to me, but "unfortunately, no check can be made with the original articles because specific references are not given." Actually, the date and month of each article is printed directly under each author's name, so it is easy to check the issues of Scientific American and to discover that the photos and synoptic sentences are original whereas the authors' biographies were updated.