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The House Unamerican Scientists Committee

There's no easy way to admit this......

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.....

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..... 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.... 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.

MATT COLLINS
THE EDITORS editors@sciam.com
COPYRIGHT 2005 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.


Once you've stopped laughing, go read it all, then take a deep breath and realize the guts this thing took.

Oh sure, it's cloaked in humor but what it really does is put truth up on the table with all the lies and the half truths for all to see (and smell).

And in these times this kind of effort is the only thing that can save us.

But it will only work if a significant proportion of mainstream media outlets get up the gumption to do the same - in all fields.

Why?

Because there is safety against the targetted smear in numbers.

And even more importantly, once a few get going others in the media that want to do the right thing (and their editors) will be emboldened to do so.

And if that happens the Obfuscators (love that word, sounds as sordid as what it actually describes) will be forced out into the open to defend their lies and half-truths day after day after day after day until they either give up the ghost or dry up and tumble down the idiot wind with last remaining shreds of yesterday's fish wrap.

So, how are we going to help make that happen?

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Huge Thanks: to Liz at Blondesense for posting the letter in its entirety, especially for those that can't get past the subscription wailing wall, and for helping us see obfuscation for what it really is.
DoubleSecretProbationUpdate: especially for our South of 49th Readers....if the hearings are held, who gets to reprise the role of Sen. McCarthy?

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