Scientific American apologizes for Darwinist bias!

 
>An upcoming* Scientific America editorial:
>
>OK, 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 socalled 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. "
>
> Okay, We Give Up
>
> MATT COLLINS THE EDITORS editors@sciam.com COPYRIGHT 2005 SCIENTIFIC
>AMERICAN, INC."
>
>* The _April_ issue, to be specific

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Received on Fri Mar 25 11:01:33 2005