Category: science journalism

More wokeness from the journal Nature, and a response from a reader

March 31, 2026 • 11:00 am

It’s hopeless: Nature, like nearly all prominent science journals, has been colonized by woke craziness.  Perhaps the word “craziness” for the present topic is a bit too strong, but the headline below suggests a degree of unhinged-ness that often comes with virtue-flaunting. And of course this isn’t the first such article in Nature.

Click the screenshot to below read the article, part of a series billed as “profiles [of] scientists with unusual career histories or outside interests”. This scientist, Dr. Anne Poelina, has the unusual habit of naming a river as the first author of her science papers:

An excerpt;

Conservationist Anne Poelina has a deep connection to the fresh water that runs through the dry red-rock landscape of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Poelina identifies as a Nyikina Warrwa woman, and her people are the Traditional Custodians of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River. The river meanders through the region’s arid land, cutting a path of about 735 kilometres long through steep gorges, savannahs and flood plains before terminating at King Sound, a delta fringed by tidal mangroves by the Indian Ocean.

The Martuwarra Fitzroy River is one of Australia’s last-remaining relatively intact, undammed tropical river systems. For now.

The river faces many threats, for instance, from water use in agricultural irrigation. It’s also at risk from proposed plans to extract natural gas through fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, and to look for rare-earth elements and metals such as vanadium and titanium. Moreover, climate change is predicted to cause extreme floods and droughts.

. . .Poelina is connected to the river through her matrilineal heritage — her mother’s people are the Nyikina First Nation. The Nyikina’s traditional territory, or Country, lies in the river’s watershed, as do those of nine other Indigenous communities. (Country is the term that Aboriginal Australian people use to refer to their ancestral lands, its meaning is similar to the Western concept of nature.)

Poelina explains that “in terms of property rights, the river owns me. So, I have a duty of care and the fiduciary duty to protect this river’s right to life.” Because Poelina works with the river to produce fresh knowledge and assimilate ancient wisdom, she decided to recognize its contributions formally. In 2020, she started including the Martuwarra River of Life as the first author on her publications.

Poelina says, “Country is a first author for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory of Australia. So, I just did it.” Whether the journal to which she submitted her first paper assumed “that the name was human or not, I don’t know”, she adds.

Here’s a list of her papers on Google Scholar, and, sure enough, a few of them—but far from all—have “MRiverofLife” as first author, with “M” standing for “Martuwarra”. Here’s one (click to go to site):

Here’s a description of the river in northwest Australia (it’s called either “Martuwarra” or “Fitzroy”), and here’s a description of its place in local culture, where the river is called a “living ancestral being.”  It’s neither living nor an ancestral being: that is just lore. Still, the indigenous council of “river keepers” consults with the Australian government to keep the river in good shape, and that’s an admirable thing, But making a river a coauthor? Perhaps I should have made my Drosophila flies the first author of my papers, maybe disguised as “Dr. O. Sophila.”

At any rate, reader and professor Jente Ottenburghs (an evolutionary biologist who works on birds) couldn’t take it the Nature paper, and wrote me this: “This seems to be another case where a high-profile journal romanticizes indigenous knowledge (similar to the situations in New Zealand and Canada that you covered recently). I also decided to write a blog post about it, partly inspired by the book The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch which I am currently reading.”

Sure enough, his blog post is below, and you can access it for free by clicking the screenshot:

Two excerpts. First, on the ubiquity and sacralization of the “two-eyed seeing” trope and the sacralization of the oppressed (i.e., indigenous people). Note that yes, Australian indigenous people were badly treated by European colonists, but that is not what’s under consideration here.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in incorporating indigenous knowledge into scientific research. There are indeed nice examples where such knowledge has proven valuable. For instance, a recent study in Oryx combined ethnospecies lists from local communities with scientific datasets to reveal a consistent decline in bird body mass across three continents. Approaches like this study demonstrate that local knowledge can complement scientific inquiry, particularly in data collection and long-term ecological observation.

However, indigenous knowledge is often romanticized, sometimes being portrayed as inherently superior to scientific knowledge. This tendency is partly driven by a legitimate desire to correct historical injustices (such as colonialism and the marginalization of local communities) and to show greater respect for indigenous perspectives. While this shift is clearly necessary and overdue, it should not come at the expense of critical evaluation of indigenous knowledge.

Many elements of indigenous knowledge consist of local myths or context-bound explanations. As such, they are often parochial rather than universal, and therefore do not qualify as good scientific explanations. This does not diminish their cultural, historical, or philosophical value, but it does mean they should not automatically be treated as reliable sources of scientific insight.

Of authorship and the river:

There appears to be growing pressure within academia to signal the recognition of indigenous knowledge, sometimes in ways that blur the distinction between cultural respect and scientific rigor. A striking example appeared in Nature, where conservationist Anne Poelina listed the Martuwarra River of Life as a co-author on her publications.

Poelina explains that “in terms of property rights, the river owns me. So, I have a duty of care and the fiduciary duty to protect this river’s right to life.” Because Poelina works with the river to produce fresh knowledge and assimilate ancient wisdom, she decided to recognize its contributions formally. In 2020, she started including the Martuwarra River of Life as the first author on her publications.

When asked why the river should be listed as first author, she responded: “Because it’s the authority. It’s where I get my authority.” This reasoning stands in direct contrast with the scientific method, which explicitly rejects appeals to authority as a basis for truth. Science operates as a culture of criticism, where ideas must withstand scrutiny regardless of their source. As physicist Richard Feynman famously put it: “If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”

Hence, attributing authorship to a river on the grounds of authority is not just unconventional; it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how knowledge is evaluated in science.

. . .A similar issue arises in arguments that emphasize the age of indigenous knowledge (or any other knowledge system). Poelina suggests that “if we have the oldest systems of thinking around science and law, shouldn’t the world be listening to what our people have to say?”. But age is not a marker of reliability. As discussed earlier, Greek myths are thousands of years old, but they obviously fail as scientific explanations because they are easily varied and lack universality.

The same principle applies more broadly: all knowledge claims (whether scientific or indigenous) must be evaluated using the same standards. Some elements of indigenous knowledge may indeed prove robust and valuable under scrutiny, while other elements may not. We still need to separate the trustworthy wheat from the superstitious chaff. And the scientific method is the best approach to do just that.

There’s a preliminary section of Ottenburghs’ paper, inspired by his reading of Deutsch, about how science works and how scientific explanations are evaluated, which fed into the post (or riposte) above.  This whole thing may seem trivial, but if we don’t keep calling out the creeping sacralization of indigenous knowledge, and the intrusion into science of myth, storytelling, and superstition, it will become stuck in science like a tick on your leg, with the potential to cause the scientific equivalent of Lyme disease.

Nature screws up again: touts need for severe revision of evolutionary theory while harboring a conflict of interest

November 9, 2025 • 10:00 am

Nature has shown some bad behaviors lately, and now you can add onto them two more: an ignorance of evolutionary biology and a lack of fact-checking. Both of these are instantiated in a recent book review, which, as we see so often, describes modern evolutionary biology as woefully incomplete.  The review, moreover, fails to mention all the critics of this “need for speed.” Finally, the review (of a book touting the deficiency of evolutionary theory), was written by a collaborator of several authors of the book, showing a severe conflict of interest. It’s no surprise that the authors’ colleague gave their book a glowing review.

A letter written by some well known evolutionary biologists pointing out these two deficiencies was promptly rejected by Nature.

I’ll give a critique of the book review first, and then show the letter sent to Nature that was rejected. Finally, I’ll give one of the signers’ responses to the rejection: Brian Charlesworth. I won’t give the names of the other signers of the letter (there were three), as Brian gave me permission to reproduce the letter but I haven’t asked the others.

First, the review. The book is Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity, with authors Kevin Lala [formerly “Laland”], Tobias Uller, Natalie Feiner, Marcus Feldman and Scott Gilbert, published last winter by Princeton University Press, which apparently didn’t get the book vetted by competent evolutionists. The Nature review by Eva Jablonka, Israeli evolutionist and epigenetics maven, came out in January, so I’m a bit late to the party. Still, this shows that there remains a vocal minority of biologists who can’t resist showing us the many ways that evolutionary biology is wrong or incomplete, yet they’re singing the same old tune, one that’s been rebutted many times before.

Click below to read the fulsome review of the book; one that doesn’t even mention the many issues with the “new view of evolution” that have been pointed out for years.

Before I point out a few misguided statements, I urge you to read my take on a Nature paper called “Does evolutionary biology need a rethink?“, in which one group of “revisionists, with Laland (“Lala” above) being the first author, answers, “Yes, urgently”, while another group, with Greg Wray the first author, answers “No, all is well.”  As you’ll see from reading my piece, I side with the second group. Note that that exchange is already eleven years old, yet the promoters of the “rethink” view are advancing exactly the same arguments they made back then. These arguments are misguided because they are either flat wrong (e.g., their criticism of the neo-Darwinian view that mutations are “random”), or misleading (e.g., their view that development drives evolution, with development changing first and only then permitting adaptive genetic change). In her review above, Jablonka also throws in epigenetics, her speciality, which, while important in some respects, cannot form the basis of permanent adaptive evolution because environmentally-induced changes in DNA (“epigenetic” changes) persist at most for only two generations before the epigenetic marks are wiped away during gamete formation.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, for the topic of “development leading evolution,” “nongenetic forms of evolution” (learning, culture, etc.), and epigenetics, all touted in Jablonka’s article, see my post above, this one, and my several discussions of the flaws of touting epigenetics as a critical and neglected factor in adaptive evolution.  I won’t repeat my arguments, but I will point out a couple of howlers in Jablonka’s review.  Her quotes are indented below.

First, on development as the guiding factor of evolution:

Under the extended evolutionary synthesis, the questions that are fundamental to the field change. Instead of just asking what genetic mutations might give one organism an advantage over its peers, the authors argue, evolutionary biologists should also focus on the developmental mechanisms and structures that underlie fitness differences.

It’s time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life.

A developmental focus, they say, could help in understanding phenomena that are mysterious under the modern synthesis. For example, selective breeding for ‘tameness’, whether in sheep, pigs, horses, dogs or foxes, leads to the evolution of a common series of traits that are not necessarily adaptive — including smaller brains and teeth, curly tails, white patches and flat muzzles. This link, across different animal groups, bred in different ways and at different times, baffled Darwin and others for more than a century.

. . . All these features involve the same embryonic cell type (the neural crest) and their development is thus driven by similar sets of genes.

Well, as Dawkins pointed out years ago, genes are not the “blueprint for life,” but the “recipe for life,” as one needs environmental inputs to convert the DNA into an organism. As for development guiding evolution, what Jablonka and her pals apparently mean that existing developmental pathways constrain evolution: mutations can only show their effect within and already-evolved system of gene interactions. The pleiotropic effect of “tameness” mutations on several species is easily explained because you’re selecting at the same time for the side effects of tameness genes, which happen to affect morphology and color. That’s not new, and certainly doesn’t mandate a rethink of evolution.  As Brian wrote me:

“As has always been acknowledged by anyone with half a brain, the phenotypic effects of mutations are constrained by the existing developmental system. As Haldane put it, selection on humans could produce a race with the intellect of Shakespeare and the physique of Carnera, but for a race of angels we’d have to wait for the necessary mutations, both for the wings and the moral qualities.” 

But then Jablonka as well as Lala et al. (and other miscreants like Denis Noble) use this observation to claim that NEW TRAITS AND PRESUMABLY THE MUTATIONS UNDERLYING THEM ARE NOT RANDOM. From Jablonka:

The modern synthesis dictates that genetic mutations arise at random, which makes it hard to understand why these traits would consistently evolve in all these tamed animals. But seen through a developmental lens, things are clearer. . . . Thus, new traits do not arise at random. Some are more likely than others, and suites of traits often arise together. Understanding such ‘developmental biases’ can enable researchers to better understand how traits originate, what directions future evolution might take and how rapidly evolution might proceed.

They simply do not understand what evolutionists mean when they say features (and mutations) arise “at random” in evolution. The meaning is that mutations and the traits they produce occur irrespective of whether they are good or bad for the individual’s reproduction. Of course some changes are more likely than others, and mutations often have pleiotropic (“side”) effects on other traits. This means that what is subject to selection is the net effect of a mutation on the replication rate of the mutated gene.

What are examples of the “better understanding” that comes from considering development? The ones given by Jablonka, presumably from Lala et al., are not impressive. Here’s an example called “inheritance beyond genes”:

For example, certain whales learn from their mothers how to corral schools of fish into air bubbles. Desert woodrats (Neotoma lepida) eat their mothers’ faeces, which contain gut microorganisms that allow the woodrats to digest plants rich in highly toxic creosote. And molecules called epigenetic marks, which are associated with DNA and modify gene activity, are passed down through generations too. Epigenetic marks that form when mice in the laboratory are trained to link a particular smell with an electric shock, for example, have been passed down to their grandchildren — the young mice are scared of the same smell, even though they have never received the shock.

Two quick points: have the authors ever heard of “learning”? Or that learning might be primed by genes, as our learning of languages primes us to produce comprehensible syntax, but which language we speak depends on our environment? Is imitation of adaptive parental behavior (itself either genetically primed or learned) something new? Nope.  And as for epigenesis, I have heard of the mouse study, but no epigenetic trait produced by the environment can persist for more than a handful of generations, as epigenetic modifications of DNA are wiped out during gamete formation. This form of “Lamarckian” inheritance won’t work.

Here’s one more:

Furthermore, some organisms construct environments to benefit the development of subsequent generations. Dung beetles, for instance, make balls of cow dung, into which they add their own faeces as food, and lay a single egg. The nutrients and microbes in these balls influence how the larvae develop, and in turn the sizes and shapes of the beetles and how they evolve.

Is it a revolutionary insight to discover that parents do things that benefit the fitness of their offspring? Human mothers feed their babies, and sometimes what they feed them could affect their own future evolution. Big whoop!

This all shows that the insights that supposedly mandate a new theory of evolution aren’t new at all, but are comfortably part of the already-existing Modern Synthesis of evolutionary theory.  But these authors, it seems, want to make their mark by advancing the same old tired arguments that have long been refuted.

Along with several other authors, Brian Charlesworth noted that Jablonka seems resistant to even mentioning the many objections to the “new” theory of evolution. Brian and others sent the letter below to Nature for consideration for publication. The references given in the submitted letter are included, and I’ve put in the links. Doug Futuyma’s paper is especially thorough and on the mark, and here’s his point, given in the last sentence of the abstract: “Evolutionary theory will continue to be extended, but there is no sign that it requires emendation.”

The letter:

We are writing to express our concern about the review in Nature by Eva Jablonka of the recent book by Kevin Lala et al. (Evolution Evolving)(16th January 2025 pages 539-541). The book expounds the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis” or “EES” which is claimed by its proponents to repair problems with the science of evolutionary biology. Prof. Jablonka was a co-author with two of the book’s authors of an article promoting these claims 1, which would seem to be a conflict of interest for its reviewer. The article that accompanied that publication and refuted such claims 2, is not mentioned by Jablonka, nor are other critiques of the EES, e.g., 3. These papers make clear that several of Jablonka’s assertions are wrong, including the claim that evolutionary biologists believe that mutations “arise at random” with respect to their effects on traits, and that constraints imposed by development on evolutionary changes have been ignored by them. The review gives a false impression of the current state of the flourishing field of evolutionary biology, which owes little to the EES. It is regrettable that Nature should give a platform for such disinformation.

1          Laland, K. et al. Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Yes, urgently. Nature 514, 161-164 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/514161a

2          Wray, G. A. et al. Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? No, all is well. Nature 514, 161-164 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/514161a

3          Futuyma, D. J. Evolutionary biology today and the call for an extended synthesis. Interface Focus 7, 20160145. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2016.0145 (2017). [JAC: This is a Royal Society journal]

What transpired is that Brian says he heard nothing from Nature for a long time. He wrote back to the editor asking what happened to the joint letter. The editor explained that an automatic email response had been sent saying that if the authors didn’t hear anything within three weeks, then the letter was rejected. Brian says he didn’t see that response and admits it could have been binned without him reading it.  The editor also explained why the letter above was rejected, but I can’t reproduce that email without permission. However, you can get a sense of what the editor said from Brian’s final response here:

Dear EDITOR’S NAME REDACTED

Thank your for response. I and my co-authors do not consider it to besatisfactory, for the following reasons.

First, no automated response was received by me; our email was simply ignored.

Second, you say that “the comment piece cited in the review did include both pro and con arguments and authors from both camps”. I assume that you are referring to the reference to Laland et al. 2015, which is the only citation given by Jablonka. This was a polemical piece, arguing for the EES [“Extended Evolutionary Synthesis”] with a few dismissive references to works by mainstream evolutionary biologists.

Third, if asking someone to review a book by their close collaborators is not a conflict of interest, it’s hard to see what would constitute one.

Fourth, you say that “it didn’t make a fresh point that would be of broad interest to readers”. The point of our letter was to make it clear that Jablonka and other advocates of the EES consistently ignore the counterarguments made by ourselves and others in the evolutionary biology and genetics community. Indeed, her review contains the same tired old mistatements about randomness of mutations and developmental constraints that she and her clique keep on making. lt’s hardly our fault that these are not novel. The title of the review “A new vision for evolution is long overdue” gives the completely misleading impression that there are serious problems with our field. This is a view that is held only by a small, but extremely vocal, fringe group, most of whom (including Jablonka) have made no significant original research contributions to the field. No other field of science seems to get this kind of treatment from Nature.

Fifth, you say that “in the end the main goal of our book reviews is to set out issues in a readable way for readers across all disciplines, and we consider that Jablonka did a reasonable job here”. This seems to assign lesser importance to scientific accuracy. Indeed, you have just published a letter about the Jablonka review by a Chinese scientist trying to revive Darwin’s long discredited theory of pangenesis. He states that the theory was published in the last edition of the Origin of Species in 1859 (in fact, the last edition was published in 1872 and contains no reference to pangenesis, which was described in Darwin’s Variation in Animals and Plants under Domestication in 1868. Seemingly, the most basic fact checking is not done by Nature).

In view of these concerns about the treatment of the field of evolutionary biology by Nature, which are shared by my cosignatories (who are all regarded as leading figures in the field, and members of various national academies), I am cc-ing this email to your chief editor.

Yours sincerely,
Brian Charlesworth

Sadly the readers of Nature who are not evolutionary biologists will now think that Lala et al.’s book has indeed shown the need for a “new vision of evolution.” Given the history of the arguments made by the authors, and Jablonka’s summary of the book in her review, there is no such need. Nature blew it by rejecting the letter, which makes essential points (especially Jablonka’s failure to say that the “new vision” is deeply controversial), and also by getting a pal of the book’s authors to review it. What kind of review did they expect?

Science-Based Medicine has its knickers in a twist about Krauss’s new edited volume—without having read it

August 1, 2025 • 10:45 am

Yes, Science-Based Medicine (SBM) used to be a respectable place, and, indeed, still has some good articles. But it also went “progressive”, as evidenced by its cancellation of the late Harriet Hall’s favorable review of Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage, its commissioning of a negative review to replace it (progressives aren’t allowed, you see, to deal with gender dysphoria in a rational manner), and then pushing upthe dumb claim that sex isn’t binary in humans or other species (see my post about the site and its views here).

SBM is back again with a woke-like and, frankly, blinkered and misguided take on a new collection of essays edited by Lawrence Krauss, The War on Science, which I describe here (note: Luana  Maroja and I have a joint essay as one of the chapters). Here it is, click the cover to go to the Amazon page.

The book, which has been over a year in the making, largely describes the inimical effect of the “progressive” Left on science. The point, of course, is to keep science as pure as possible by keeping it unpolluted by ideology.

But the SBM take on our book, highly negative, is below; click the screenshot below to read it.

And that’s the rub for SBM.  They have their knickers in a twist because it’s about the damage done by the Left, and, author Howard argues, we should have given all of our our attention to  the palpable damage that the Right is doing to science. In other words, he wanted both-sideism and didn’t get it.  As I wrote in my description of the new volume, it’s pretty clear that, right now, Trump and his minions are indeed doing more serious damage to science, though that will hopefully be undone when we finally (fingers crossed) get a Democratic administration. But the Left also continues to damage science, and that is what the book is about.

And it’s not that we have neglected Trump’s depredations on science either (just see my Nooz this a.m. for one of many examples in which I’ve gone after Trump’s attacks on science!) It’s just that the book is about what the Left is doing to science (the authors, by the way, come from all parts of the political spectrum.   And we can’t have that.

The most curious thing is that the author of the SBM screed—neurologist and psychiatrist Jonathan Howard—didn’t even read the damn book! He’s going by the table of contents alone as well as by the authors, whom he seems to despise en masse. Not only that, but he adds that he doesn’t think that other people should read the book, either. As he says.

So no, I wont [sic] read The War on Science. Even if contains some valid points, they are completely irrelevant, like being warned about a broken taillight as my car careens over a cliff. There is no reason why anyone should care about the flaws of DEI trainings, real or imagined, in 2025. None of it matters.

And though I don’t think anyone should read this book, its mere existence has great value. It both explains and memorializes how we got to this sad moment. Many renowned scientists and scholars, some of whom should have been valuable allies, were blind to the real danger until it was too late.

As if our criticism could have stopped Trump! But yes, plenty of us have criticized what Trump has done; it’s just that we didn’t put that stuff in the book assembled a year ago–before Trump did the heavy blackmailing.

At any rate, did Dr. Howard even contemplate that reading this book might teach him something, even if only to hone his arguments? Nope.  He just thinks we needed to write about something other than what we wrote about. Granted, had I been editor I would have not chosen every single essay for publication, but a lot of them are pretty damn good. Pity that Howard won’t read them and tries to dissuade others from doing so.  Check out the table of contents here and decide for yourself if it’s worth reading—or if parts of it are worth reading.

Here are some of Howard’s criticisms of our “one-sideism”:

The War on Science is best thought of as a work of science fiction, dispatches from a parallel universe where MAGA doesn’t exist, Wokism is all-powerful, and science was obliterated by DEI and trans people. It’s a complete inversion of what’s actually happening.

. . .However, it’s not just that these renowned scientists and scholars created a fantasy world, their imaginations provided fuel and ammunition to the people who are currently taking a wrecking ball to things in the real world. Many key Trump officials, past and present, got into power by portraying themselves as woeful victims of censorship and cancel culture (Marty Makary. Vinay Prasad,JayBhattacharya, and Kennedy). These Trump officials weaponized their perceived victimhood to distract from their disinformation, attack respected scientists, and bash the institutions they are now trashing.

Predictably, these renowned scientists and scholars were happy to lend their legitimacy to this feigned victimhood. Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad recorded podcasts with future Trump officials about “silencing the opposition” about “academic freedom“. Now that they are in power, these same Trump officials are leading the way, purging, censoring, and defunding scientists. Saad’s chapter is titled Universities as Dispensers of Parasitic Ideas. As Trump crushes universities, Saad wants people to think these ticks, leeches, and mosquitoes deserve their fate.

. . .As Christina Pagel wrote in her article Donald Trump’s ‘War on Woke’ is Fast Becoming a War on Science. That’s Incredibly Dangerous:

Donald Trump’s attacks on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives since his January inauguration have been intense, indiscriminate and escalating. A tragic plane crash was baselessly blamed on DEI. All DEI programs within public bodies have been ended and private contractors face cancellation if they also don’t comply. Webpages that defend religious diversity in the context of Holocaust remembrance have been taken down.

Science and academia have been particularly targeted. Universities are threatened with losing federal funding if they support DEI. Government reports and government-funded research are being held back if they include prohibited terms such as “gender”, “pregnant person”, “women”, “elderly”, or “disabled”. Grants funded by the National Institutes of Health are being cancelled if they address diversity, equality or inclusion in any form.

This is what these renowned scientists and scholars enabled.

Sorry, but what Howard is arguing is what comes out of the south end of a cow facing north. We didn’t enable Trump; we criticized a threat coming from the other end of the political spectrum, and a threat that may be more permanent since much of it comes from scientists themselves.  This book, which hasn’t yet appeared, did nothing to facilitate Trump’s election, nor did our previous writings.  Howard is peeved because we didn’t write the book he wanted, and so, like a petulant two-year-old, he not only refuses to read it, but tells other people not to read it, either. Perhaps he should at least read it himself before he warns off others!

In a discussion about this with colleagues today, I got this reaction from Richard Shweder, a professor here in cultural anthropology and psychology:

It is a curious review seemingly assuming that the only threat worth attending to is the most salient one of the moment.  The threat can come from the State. It can come from the administration of a university.  And, with due respect to the founders of the AAUP who believed academic freedom would be well-served by a system faculty governance,  the threat can also come from the faculty itself.

And my colleague Dorian Abbot in Geophysical Sciences added this:

In the context of this book, “War on Science” really refers to epistemological attacks on the scientific method, rigor, and merit. A society deciding it doesn’t want to provide as much funding for science as it used to is not a war on science in this sense.  To deal with that problem we need to show the people that we are generating value for them, not political actors, and not discriminating.

Once again SBM proves itself misguided and censorious. It’s gotten too progressive for its own good, to the point where it tells people not to read books that they think are critical of what progressives are doing.  So it goes.It may pay Dr. Howard to read Alice Dreger’s new piece at the Heterodox Academy Substack site, “Why should those on the left care about open inquiry in higher ed?” It describes a panel at the recent HxA meetings I attended. Two quotes from Alice:

Despite a long-running – and troubling – stereotype among some that intellectual freedom is solely a right-wing cause, many of us who think and vote on the left have cared about threats to open inquiry for a long time. While more on the left may now be getting active in this area due to new threats from the right, left-of-center scholars have long been concerned about restrictions on research, teaching, and expression, including those originating on the left.

. . .In the lively Q&A period, challenged by an audience member who raised the concern that too much intellectual humility could lead to doubting obviously real things, Studebaker reiterated his commitment to being open to different ideas, saying we must “leave open the possibility that some idea could emerge in a room like this subsequently in time that initially might be unimaginable to us but could lead us somewhere genuinely valuable.”

“I don’t think that that’s an abdication of a commitment to human values,” Studebaker concluded. “I think it is an affirmation of human potential.”

It’s not yet time to throw John Stuart Mill in the dumpster.

Science finally retracts the 2010 “arsenic life” paper by Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al.

July 25, 2025 • 11:30 am

Fifteen years ago (!) a group of authors headed by Felisa Wolfe-Simon published a paper in Science heard ’round the world, a paper that garnered huge publicity. (If you can’t get it by clicking the second link, since the paper has largely been vanished, try this archived link.)

Why the problem? I explained this in February of this year:

A remarkable discovery appeared in the journal Science in 2010.  Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues reported finding, in California’s salty Mono Lake, a bacterium that could [in the lab] substitute arsenic for phosphorus in its metabolism.  This was stunning, as phosphorus was thought to be an essential constituent of many biological macromolecules, including proteins and DNA—the latter using phosphorus as part of its backbone.  (The bacterium was, by the way, named GFAJ-1, standing for “Give Felisa a job,” as she was apparently looking for a permanent academic position.)

At any rate, this was huge news, and implied, to many, including hype-promoting journalists, that if life could thrive on arsenic, perhaps the chances of life on other planets was higher than we thought. Wolfe-Simon herself implied that perhaps there was a “shadow biosphere,” on Earth, including organisms that we didn’t know of because their biochemistry was so different from that of life we knew.

The publicity attending this discovery was huge: NASA held a press conference in which Simon was the only one of the dozen authors to appear. Simon also gave a TED talk on this subject, and in 2011 Time Magazine named her one of “Time’s 100 people,” supposedly the most influential group in the world.

The problem, which emerged pretty rapidly, is that this discovery was wrong. The research was sloppy, the reviewers apparently didn’t have the proper expertise to review the paper, and researchers who did have the expertise began pointing out the discovery’s flaws, first online and then in a series of eight critiques published in Science.

You can see my four posts on this paper here, including the original publication plush simultaneous pushback, along with a more recent New York Times article that more or less whitewashed the paper by painting Wolfe-Simon as a victim (see Greg Mayer’s take in the same post). I wonder if the NYT will finally give a more balanced view of the controversy in which Wolfe-Simon fought like a honey badger for the accuracy of the paper’s results. She was far from being a victim.

Click below to read the editorial retraction, but I’ve reproduced it below:

Here’s what Thorp said:

 The Research Article “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus” by F. Wolfe-Simon et al. (1) has been the subject of discussion and critique since its online publication in 2010. In 2011, Science published the print version of the paper accompanied by eight Technical Comments (2–9) and a Technical Response from Wolfe-Simon et al. (10), along with an Editor’s Note (11). In 2012, Science published two papers that failed to reproduce the finding that the GFAJ-1 bacterium can grow using arsenic instead of phosphorus (12, 13). 

Science did not retract the paper in 2012 because at that time, Retractions were reserved for the Editor-in-Chief to alert readers about data manipulation or for authors to provide information about postpublication issues. Our decision then was based on the editors’ view that there was no deliberate fraud or misconduct on the part of the authors. We maintain this view, but Science’s standards for retracting papers have expanded. If the editors determine that a paper’s reported experiments do not support its key conclusions, even if no fraud or manipulation occurred, a Retraction is considered appropriate. 

Over the years, Science has continued to receive media inquiries about the Wolfe-Simon Research Article, highlighting the extent to which the paper is still part of scientific discussions. On the basis of the 2011 Technical Comments and 2012 papers, Science has decided that this Research Article meets the criteria for retraction by today’s standards. Therefore, we are retracting the paper. Author Ronald S. Oremland is deceased. Author Peter K. Weber disagrees with the Retraction. Authors Felisa Wolfe-Simon, Jodi Switzer Blum, Thomas R. Kulp, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Shelley (Hoeft) McCann, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, John F. Stolz, Samuel M. Webb, Paul C. W. Davies, and Ariel D. Anbar also disagree with the decision to retract and have posted an online letter  explaining their objections, available at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu5488#elettersSection, explaining their objections. 

H. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief, Science 

Well, now, Thorp brings up an interesting point: should papers be retracted if their data don’t support the conclusions? In my view, no.  There are tons of papers published in which authors make claims that go beyond the data but in which there is no fraud.  A famous example, and one which I criticized in two papers in Evolution, was Sewall Wright’s famous “shifting balance” theory of evolution.  By combining several real phenomena like genetic drift with speculations about possible phenomena like adaptive peak shifts, Wright confected a grand overarching theory of evolution” (SBT) that was unsupported by the data. But most evolutionists bought the SBT and it appeared in all the textbooks.

But our criticisms were on the mark.  Even Jim Crow, Wright’s colleague and friend at Wisconsin, admitted that we (Michael Turelli, Nick Barton and I) were right. Likewise, many of Theodosius Dobzhansky’s papers have conclusions unsupported by the data.  But they stand unretracted in the literature. And, indeed, even though the conclusions may have been overstated, the data are still valuable, and should not be retracted.  Retraction should be reserved for papers containing fraud or misconduct, not papers whose data don’t support the conclusions, for those papers have still gone through peer review and they have data that might be useful. The main culprits should be the reviewers who let shoddy data into the literature.

And, as Thorp noted above, the authors were given a chance to reply to the retraction. Here’s their response (references can be seen at the links):

Ariel Anbar
Paul Davies
Gwyneth Gordon
Tom Kulp
Shelley (Hoeft) McCann
Jennifer Pett-Ridge
John Stolz
Jodi Switzer Blum
Samuel Webb
Felisa Wolfe-Simon 

In 2011, we published a manuscript in Science proposing that an extremophilic microbe isolated from arsenic-rich Mono Lake, CA (GFAJ-1) utilized arsenic (As) in place of phosphorus (P) in its biochemistry (1). This provocative hypothesis was based on our interpretation of data from growth experiments and compositional studies of key biomolecules. The high-profile nature of the publication’s release focused attention on its interpretations of As-substitution in DNA, drawing widespread attention, criticism, and follow-up research (e.g., 2-5, but see also 6). In the years since, an alternative interpretation emerged that GFAJ-1 is an extremely As-resistant bacterium that remains dependent on P but uses several novel tactics to grow under P-starved conditions (2, 3). 

Nearly 15 years later, the editors of Science have retracted our publication. We do not support this retraction. While our work could have been written and discussed more carefully, we stand by the data as reported. These data were peer-reviewed, openly debated in the literature, and stimulated productive research. 

The editors’ basis for retraction is that the “paper’s reported experiments do not support its key conclusions”. No misconduct or error is alleged. This represents a major shift from the standards Science adhered to in the past, which aligned with those of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). COPE guidelines state that “Retraction might be warranted if there is clear evidence of major errors, data fabrication, or falsification that compromise the reliability of the research findings” (7). In going beyond COPE, the editors of Science explain that “standards for retracting papers have expanded”. 

We disagree with this standard, which extends beyond matters of research integrity. Disputes about the conclusions of papers, including how well they are supported by the available evidence, are a normal part of the process of science. Scientific understanding evolves through that process, often unexpectedly, sometimes over decades. Claims should be made, tested, challenged, and ultimately judged on the scientific merits by the scientific community itself. 

I agree with the authors’ point here, though they are a bit disingenuous, not admitting that a passel of other scientists could not reproduce their data, and therefore they no longer stand by it. Instead, they dug in their heels.  Their point is right but they are not being fully honest about what happened. My solution: Science can put a disclaimer beside with the original paper saying that the results could not be reproduced, but no—no retraction.

But wait! There’s more! Thorp, a man for whom I don’t have a huge amount of respect, had to have the last word, and published the attached along with Valda Vinson, the executive editor of Science.  Again, click on the headline to read, but I’ve put Vinson and Thorp’s response to the authors’ response below:

The text of Vinson and Thorp:

On 2 December 2010, Science published online the Report “A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic Instead of phosphorus” by F. Wolfe-Simon et al., which caused a media sensation and a firestorm in the scientific community that has continued for years. Today, Science is retracting the paper.

The Wolfe-Simon et al. Report described a bacterium, GFAJ-1, that purportedly not only grew in the presence of arsenate, which is normally highly toxic, but grew “by using” the arsenic atoms and incorporating them into nucleic acids. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which contributed authors to the paper and provided funding, held a press conference announcing the findings as proof of “arsenic life,” a breakthrough in astrobiology. The scientific community immediately expressed skepticism, raising serious questions about both the plausibility of arsenic-containing nucleic acids and the way the experiments were conducted.

Science was flooded with commentary on the problems with the paper and held off publishing it in print. Eventually, the paper was published in the 3 June 2011 issue, along with eight Technical Comments, a Technical Response from the authors, and a note from Editor-in-Chief Bruce Alberts explaining the decision and timing. The authors agreed to make the bacterium available, and in July 2012, Science published two papers showing that the bacterium was resistant to arsenate and did not incorporate it into biomolecules. One of the Technical Comments had pointed out that the nucleic acids that were analyzed were not sufficiently purified before the acquisition of spectra that suggested the presence of arsenic. Given the evidence that the results were based on contamination, Science believes that the key conclusion of the paper is based on flawed data.

At no point has there been any discussion or suggestion at Science of research misconduct or fraud by any of the authors. Nonetheless, the response of many in the scientific community, especially on social media, went beyond technical criticism and instead verbally abused the authors, especially the first author. Science emphatically rejects and condemns all ad hominem attacks that have been directed toward the authors.

In his 2011 Editor’s Note, Alberts explained that the publication of the Technical Comments was “only a step in a much longer process.” We are ending that process today by retracting the paper. We have made this decision after an extensive set of deliberations and discussions among the editors. We have consulted with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and are confident that our decision aligns with their guidelines for research integrity.

Over the years since the paper was published, and especially in the past 5 years, as research integrity has become an even more important topic, Science has moved to retract papers more frequently for reasons other than fraud and misconduct. In this case, a number of factors led to the publication of a paper with seriously flawed content, including the peer review process and editorial decisions that we made. With this retraction—and with all retractions and corrections—we acknowledge and take responsibility for the role that we played in the paper’s publication.

The authors of the paper all disagree with our decision, as noted in the Retraction. All but one of the authors have signed an eLetter explaining their disagreement. In their eLetter, the authors state that Science “went beyond COPE” in our decision. We disagree. COPE guidelines have for some time allowed for editorial retraction due to honest error or naïve mistakes.

Despite our disagreement with the authors, we hope this decision brings the story to a close. We also hope that the scientific community will engage graciously and with professionalism in this resolution.

Valda Vinson is the Executive Editor of the Science journals. vvinson@aaas.org

H. Holden Thorp is the Editor-in-Chief of the Science journals. hthorp@aaas.org

This would have sufficed as the explanation for the original retraction, even though there should have been no retraction. Instead, what’s right above could have been the editors’ first word, not their last: an explanation of the problems with the paper. The editors simply had to have the last word, publishing two notes instead of one.

The New York Times distorts the situation with the refuted 2010 “arsenic life” paper

February 14, 2025 • 11:10 am

A remarkable discovery appeared in the journal Science in 2010.  Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues reported finding, in California’s salty Mono Lake, a bacterium that could substitute arsenic for phosphorus in its metabolism.  This was stunning, as phosphorus was thought to be an essential constituent of many biological macromolecules, including proteins and DNA—the latter using phosphorus as part of its backbone.  (The bacterium was, by the way, named GFAJ-1, standing for “Give Felisa a job,” as she was apparently looking for a permanent academic position.)

At any rate, this was huge news, and implied, to many, including hype-promoting journalists, that if life could thrive on arsenic, perhaps the chances of life on other planets was higher than we thought. Wolfe-Simon herself implied that perhaps there was a “shadow biosphere,” on Earth, including organisms that we didn’t know of because their biochemistry was so different from that of life we knew.

The publicity attending this discovery was huge: NASA held a press conference in which Simon was the only one of the dozen authors to appear. Simon also gave a TED talk on this subject, and in 2011 Time Magazine named her one of “Time’s 100 people,” supposedly the most influential group in the world.

The problem, which emerged pretty rapidly, is that this discovery was wrong. The research was sloppy, the reviewers apparently didn’t have the proper expertise to review the paper, and researchers who did have the expertise began pointing out the discovery’s flaws, first online and then in a series of eight critiques published in Science. As Wikipedia notes,

 If correct, this would be the only known organism to be capable of replacing phosphorus in its DNA and other vital biochemical functions.[14][15][16] The Science publication and an hour-long December 2, 2010 NASA news conference were publicized and led to “wild speculations on the Web about extraterrestrial life”.[17] Wolfe-Simon was the only one of the paper’s authors at that news conference.[18] The news conference was promptly met with criticism by scientists and journalists.[19] In the following month, Wolfe-Simon (and her co-authors and NASA) responded to criticisms through an online FAQ and an exclusive interview with a Science reporter, but also announced they would not respond further outside scientific peer-review.[20][21] In April 2011 Time magazine named Wolfe-Simon one of that year’s Time 100 people.[22][23]

The Science article “A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus” appeared in the June 3, 2011 print version of Science;[1] it had remained on the “Publication ahead of print” ScienceXpress page for six months after acceptance for publication. However, Rosemary Redfield and other researchers from the University of British Columbia and Princeton University performed studies in which they used a variety of different techniques to investigate the presence of arsenic in the DNA of GFAJ-1 and published their results in early 2012. The group found no detectable arsenic in the DNA of the bacterium. In addition, they found that arsenate did not help the strain grow when phosphate was limited, further suggesting that arsenate does not replace the role of phosphate.[24][25]

Following the publication of the articles challenging the conclusions of the original Science article first describing GFAJ-1, the website Retraction Watch argued that the original article should be retracted because of misrepresentation of critical data.[26][27] In October 2024, Science editor Holden Thorp notified the article’s authors of its intention to retract, arguing that, whereas formerly only misconduct justified retraction, current practice allows it for unreliablity.[22]

I wrote about the controversy at the time; see my several posts here.  Simon et al. apparently were dead wrong.  This was first revealed byblog posts by Rosie Redfield (who later published a critique in the literature) and followed by eight critiques in Science about the Wolfe-Simon et al, paper, and two failed attempts to replicate their results, both of which failed. Wolfe-Simon did not get her coveted job and, as the new NYT article below reports, she now spends her time making music on the oboe, and working part-time on bacteria that apparently can use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate.

Now the NYT has revisited the controversy on its 15th anniversary, and has published a long and remarkable article that does its best to exculpate Wolfe-Simon and demonize her critic. As the headline below implies, she further “changed science forever.”  That’s wrong. Why do they do this? Greg Mayer has two theories, which are his, and I’ll mention them below.

Click below to read the NYT article by Sarah Scoles, which is also archived here.

The article is remarkably soft on Wolfe-Simon, downplaying the scientific sloppiness of her theme and making her into kind of heroine who was unfairly attacked by a social-media mob They don’t mention microbiologist Rosie Redfield, a prime critic responsible for pointing out the errors of Wolfe-Simon et al., though one link goes to her.  The article implies, as I said, that “her discovery” (it was a group of people!) nevertheless changed science forever, for it was critiqued on social media (something that the NYT implies is bad), and from then on science has been vetted, even before papers are formally published, by non-scientists or scientists who publish their criticisms on social media, including blogs. This, claims author Scoles, has affected science so it’s never been the same.

Scoles is wrong and grossly exaggerates the situation.  Papers were criticized on social media long before Wolfe-Simon’s, but hers received special attention solely because not only was it a remarkable phenomenon, one hard to believe, but also because the authors gave it huge hype, helped along by the press. Remarkable results deserve remarkable attention. And, in the end, the problems with the Wolfe-Simon paper and the failure to replicate it found their way into the scientific literature, so that nobody now believes that there was an arsenic-using bacterium.  This is the way science is supposed to work, and in this case it did work. A sloppy and incorrect report was corrected.

Now others, including Science‘s editor Holden Thorp, as well as David Sanders in the Retraction Watch article below from 2020, feel that Wolfe-Simon et al. paper should be retracted.  I disagree. Retraction, if it’s used for anything, should be reserved for papers that were duplicitous, containing fake data or false assertions.  Wolfe-Simon et al. simply produced an incorrect and poorly reviewed paper, but there was no cheating. The paper should stay, and its simply met the fate of many papers that were wrong (remember, at least two Nobel Prizes have been given for sloppy and incorrect science). It is an object lesson on how wonky results get fixed.

Click below to read this Retraction Watch article from 2021, or see the more recent article here.

The question remains: why did the NYT paint a misleading picture of Felisa Wolfe-Simon, of her detractors, and of the scientific process? Why did they go so easy on her, making her into a heroine who was unfairly mobbed—to the point where she could not find an academic job.  Greg Mayer suggested two theories:

1.) Greg notes that because the article “makes her out as a victim”, it plays into the “victim narrative” of scientists who were treated unfairly (she was a woman, too, which feeds into that narrative).  And newspapers love victim narratives.

2.) Greg also wrote,  “The article seems in line with the Times’s embrace of woo: another example of credulous reporting of outlandish claims, a la their recent UFO coverage.”

I’m going to let Greg dilate on these theories, which are his, below, so come back to this post later on today to see what he says. I agree with him in the main, and we both agree that Wolfe-Simon’s paper should NOT be retracted.

Addendum by Greg Mayer.

My first suggestion is actually the “scientist as hero” narrative, which portrays the lone scientist as struggling against an entrenched orthodoxy that tries to suppress their discoveries. For some discussion of the narrative, its faults, but also its upside, see this post by Andrew Gelman and the links within it. The media love this narrative– sometimes it’s even true! That the “hero scientist” becomes a “victim” is even better– now you’re Galileo! It doesn’t hurt if the victim seems to be opposed by heartless male editors like Holden Thorpe; it helps if you neglect to mention that some of the most incisive criticisms were by another female scientist. But as someone once said, you can’t wrap yourself in the cloak of Galileo merely because orthodoxy opposes you: you must also be right. Getting a sympathetic reassessment in the Times also fits well with the initial strategy of maximum media attention (NASA press conference, TED talk, Glamour, Time, Wall Street Journal, etc.) as a way to advance one’s career, and with the general approach to science of the media, including the Times.

The second suggestion, which is not mutually exclusive, is that the article follows the Times recent attraction to woo, like astrology and UFOs. A lot of elite media have gotten in on the latter– see Andrew Gelman again, especially here. He points out that the media seem to think they are being skeptical of elites and authority when purveying this stuff, but while doubting authority, they gullibly accept anything else they’re told. (There’s a very similar strain in RFK Jr.’s approach to science.) But, as Gelman notes, extreme skepticism bleeds into credulity.

Holden Thorp, the editor of science, jettisons the journal’s ideological neutrality

January 9, 2025 • 9:00 am

This piece, by a pseudonymous researcher with a Substack, is another example of scientists decrying the journals and editors who make political statements in public. By so doing, the author points out, they simply decrease public confidence in science and scientists (down 10% in just five years, though still high). In other words, violating institutional neutrality in science is counterproductive. When Nature endorsed Biden four years ago, all it did was to erode confidence in the journal, and in U.S. scientists, while not moving any voters toward the Democrats.

Click the headline below to read the article for free:

The author speaks specifically about Holden Thorp, the editor of Science, certainly the most prestigious science journal in America. Thorp said this after the Democrats lost the election:

Holden Thorp, the Editor-in-Chief of Science, another preeminent science journal—the kind publishing in which makes or breaks careers of aspiring academics and the kind that defines funding and research strategies the world over, wrote a response, of sorts, to the voters “…who feel alienated America’s governmental, social, and economic institutions [that] include science and higher education”. His claim is simple: Trump’s message of “…xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth…” resonates with them. It’s the people’s fault: the people voted wrong. Well… to borrow his own words, “Make no mistake.” Holden Thorp does not speak for me.

You can find Thorp’s op-ed here.

It’s not that the author is a Trump fan, for, like me, he despises the man:

. . . Harris’ legacy is tainted by her support for the diversity and social justice activism responsible for the damage that has been done to Western academic and social institutions in its name. She lost to Donald Trump, a conman and a charlatan of historic proportions who went as far as inciting a coup to remain in power the last time he was president, and a persona as anti-science as one could imagine after Lysenko’s death, second possibly only to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In many ways, 2024 was the year the Democrats handed the election to Trump

About the Pew surveys, with links in the article:

What these surveys and studies show is that people continue to trust scientists more, than they do politicians. It follows from this that the more scientists act like politicians, the less the public will trust us. Yet, in recent decades, scientific institutions and individual scientists have been acting more and more like the politicians by engaging in activism and social engineering.

I do not know who the author is, but he/she rejects being spoken for by Thorp simply because of Thorp’s dismissal of Americans as a “basket of deplorables” and declaring that his journal adheres to “progressive” politics:

Surveys and studies on public trust in science suggest that what people question is not the science, but “… the extent to which scientists’ values align with their own”, and how this alignment—or misalignment—affects the integrity of their findings. What are the values that people expect scientists to align with? According to Holden Thorps of academia, those values are xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth. This disparaging message is nothing new. In fact, this has been the message communicated by individual academics and academic institutions to people on the outside for at least two decades, the message that can be found everywhere, from land acknowledgements to course syllabi. Academics are telling people that they stole “indigenous land”, that they are oppressors, colonizers, racists, misogynists, -phobes of all sorts, fascists, racists, nationalists. It is furthermore alleged that it is up to the enlightened academic elite to show the unwashed masses the path to salvation that lies through admitting one’s sins, accepting one’s guilt, and correcting the way one thinks, speaks, and behaves. Notably, the sins in question, as well as the alleged enlightenment of the accusers, are both imaginary.

It is not only that Holden Thorp and those like him have for decades been dripping disdain for the very people who pay their salaries, travel allowances, and research costs from their taxes; It is not only that his brand of academics have for decades been demonizing those regular voters he is talking about—bus drivers and fast food employees, teachers and policemen, servicemen and businessmen—as some sort of Nazi-adjacent monsters, accusing them of all sorts of imaginary sins. It is that those same people, while being demonized for their desire to live and enjoy normal, safe, and productive lives under the conditions afforded by the freedom and safety of Western civilization, the civilization built on the blood of the brave defenders of its values—those same people have at the same time witnessed the full-throttled support academia threw behind the black lives matter riots and Islamic terrorists—those real, living and breathing Nazis who behead children, rape women, burn entire families alive, and shoot their pet dogs; Hamas supporters were allowed to roam free on academic campuses, attacking people, vandalizing buildings, leaving a mess for the janitors to clean up, and, in general, destroying things built over generations by the very people the academics demonize.

In other words, those voters Holden Thorp is so disdainful of were witnessing the hypocrisy of the academic community, the members of which compromised the truth for political gain—exactly the sin Thorp is accusing his political rivals (Trump supporters) of. Against this backdrop, the surprising part is that trust in science and scientists remains as high as it does.

The article gives several more examples of the institutional capture and lack of institutional neutrality of science editors and journals, including the sad tale of Laura Helmuth and Scientific American (I note that the new, Helmuth-less journal seems to have retracted its wokeness). But the article ends on a note of hope. I have added the links from the original article.

As I was finishing this piece, there were several positive developments. As I have already mentioned, Laura Helmuth resigned from Scientific American, offering the journal a chance to reclaim its former scientific rigor. Marcia McNutt, the president of the United States National Academy of Sciences, wrote a powerful editorial Science is neither red nor blue, published in Science. The University of Michigan, formerly one of the hubs of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology squandering some US$15M/year, resolved to no longer solicit diversity statements in faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure. A UofM physics professor offered a relatively mild testimony of the damage done by the DEI initiatives and the black lives matter grift, a testimony that was unthinkable only a few years ago. More generally, in the wake of October 7th, multiple institutions adopted political neutrality. These are important first steps in reversing and repairing the damage that was done to scholarship, research, innovation, and teaching over the decades of woke/DEI insanity.

As they say, “One can hope. . . .”

The next link gives FIRE’s list of schools that have adopted institutional neutrality à la the University of Chicago’s Kalven Principles. There are now 29 of them: a good start, but still a drop in the bucket given that there are about 6,000 colleges in the U.S.

A while back Luana debated Holden Thorp about the ideological takeover of science. Here’s a video of that debate, and I don’t think Thorp came out on top

Science journalists supposedly circle the wagon around Laura Helmuth, defending her work at Scientific American

November 27, 2024 • 11:15 am

We all know about Laura Helmuth, the editor-in-chief of Scientific American, who left the journal (most likely under duress) after she published a rant on Bluesky on the night Trump was elected (see here here, and and here if you haven’t follow this kerfuffle).  And of course I’ve spent several years calling out the magazine’s missteps, attributable largely to the Helmuth’s “progressive ideology” (see here, for example).

In general, I think Helmuth’s departure will be good for the magazine so long as the owners find a decent replacement—one not infused with an ideology that will bleed into the magazine. As for Helmuth, I feel bad for her but see the rupture of her own making. Still, I hope she finds a job where her talents at science writing, sans polemics, will be useful.

The article below by investigative journalist Paul Thacker on his site The DisInformation Chronicle (click headline to read) is a bit harsh and even a tad mean, but still makes many of the points that Michael Shermer and I have been making about the magazine for a long time—points that others also noted independently. I won’t review them, because I want to concentrate on one part of the article: the part where Thacker says that science writers “circled the wagons” around Helmuth after she left, arguing that she did a very good job at the magazine. I’ve posted one example of this: John Horgan’s blog piece defending Helmuth: “Scientific American loses its bold leader.” It turns out that Horgan wasn’t alone.  Thacker gives several examples, and says that this wagon-circling is bad for science journalism as well as bad for science.

Click to read:

Some excerpts giving Thackar’s view that the journalistic praise harmful.  First, the conclusions:

Helmuth tweets on Bluesky have long served as a political water cooler for members of the scicomm community and when she announced that she was leaving Scientific American, several prominent voices in the science writers rushed to praise Helmuth, not condemn her for awful behavior and her grim tenure as editor-in-chief.

It’s important for science writers that no lessons be learned.

. . .As you can see, nothing is likely to change because the science writers in Laura Helmuth’s world fail to understand that she did anything wrong. Science writers report for, not on science, as I explained in an extensive critique of the profession.

Helmuth will be fine and will likely announce her latest gig in the coming months. She may have betrayed the journalism profession, but her actions certify her work as an inspiration to science writers.

And Thacker’s examples, with his comments indented:

Adam Rogers is a senior tech correspondent at Business Insider, covering science and technology.

Maryn McKenna is a contributing editor at Scientific American who teaches science writing at Emory University.

Tanya Lewis and Clara Moskowitz both work at Scientific American and reported to Laura Helmuth, before she was shoved out the door last week.

Maggie Fox is health and science writer and formerly at CNN. Two years back, I reported how Maggie Fox broke the news at CNN that Pfizer’s COVID vaccine was 95% effective, a story she wrote by copy/pasting Pfizer’s press release into her CNN story.

I’m not sure what are the “coming battles” to which Fox refers, but presumably they involve fights between Trump and his minions on one hand and science on the other.

More:

Dan Fagan teaches science writing at NYU and Deborah Blum is the Director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT. Like Helmuth, Blum is a former president of the National Association of Science Writers.

According to her bio on X, Amy Cooter is a sociologist and expert in contemporary US militias. If you have any clue why Helmuth had this type of person write an article on citizen militias for a science magazine, please explain in the comments.

Lila Guterman and Jake Yeston both work at Science Magazine and are colleagues of Jon “Crooked Cohen”.

Brendan Maher and Alexandre Witze both work for Nature Magazine, which has been exposed for financial ties to China and formerly employed Amy Maxmen.

This sounds like simple smearing, for surely not everybody who works for Nature can be tarred for having financial ties with China.

Note first that at least four of these journalists wrote for Scientific American and their praise thus can’t be counted as coming from someone outside Helmuth’s ambit.

Further, perhaps science journalists who are critics of the magazine or of Helmuth’s work didn’t call attention her departure because it wouldn’t help your reputation to denigrate a colleague in public. Thus counting tweets of praise doesn’t give an idea of the tenor of the science-writer community.

I asked one well-known science writer/journalist about the DisInformation piece, and got thius reply, reproduced with permission.

I’d say many science writers are staying out of it because there’s no possible way to know whether she quit, was fired. and if fired, whether she violated company policy in any way. Of course some of her colleagues rushed to her defense but there are hundreds of people in the profession. It’s remotely possible I’m the only one among those hundreds busy working on articles and ignoring her plight but I wouldn’t bet on it. 

And so the saga of Scientific American and its now departed editor-in-chief comes to an end in these pages, at least for the time being.  We’ll see if the magazine is able to recover its reputation. I’m not betting on it, as the many readers who canceled their subscriptions are unlikely to give the venue another look.