Category: science journalists acting badly

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.

Now the editors of Natural History back the non-binary nature of sex, showing their scientific ignorance

May 3, 2025 • 11:30 am

Yesterday when I criticized Agustín Fuentes’s article in Natural History trying (and failing) to show that sex isn’t binary, I gave the magazine a break. After all, it hasn’t been nearly as bad as Scientific American, and I gave it a break because it published a gazillion essays by Steve Gould (yes, some of them were misguided, touting punctuated equilibrium, but they were all entertaining).

But now I’ve changed my mind, for I’ve learned that the editors actually published a justification in the magazine for publishing Fuentes’s piece. I guess they knew it would be controversial, and it is. It’s just flat wrong, but also misleading in a very annoying way: making points about variation within the sexes that have nothing to do with his thesis (and the title of his book from which the article was taken): “Sex is a Spectrum: Why the Nonbinary View is Problematic.”  His presentation shows that some (but not all) aspects of sexual behavior, sexual dimorphism, and so on are more continuous that the discontinuous existence of the sexes themselves. In all animals there are two reproductive systems, male and females, with exceptions ranging in proportion from 0.00005 to 0.00017.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, friends and comrades, is in all relevant respects a binary.

Fuentes, in other words, was attacking an argument that nobody had made, since we all realize there’s variation in sex-related traits, but his thesis was not about that. It’s about whether there is variation in the types of gametes in plants and animals (especially humans) that are the basis for defining sex (actually it’s really a “recognition” of a binary, not an a priori definition designed to impose a false binary on nature). And Fuentes uses many of the bogus tropes employed to “prove” that sex is nonbinary, even showing a photo of a bluehead wrasse, a fish that forms polygynous groups. When the alpha male dies, one female gets rid of her ovaries and develops testes, taking over the top job.  But there are still only two sexes!  I have to say that you have to be either ignorant or tendentious to use this animal as an argument against the sex binary, and Fuentes isn’t ignorant.

At any rate, the editors’ apologia–or rather “explanation”—is below. What burns my onions about this is their contention that “the science behind Fuentes’s thesis. . . is solid.”  The claim that “the number of mating types (often called “sexes”) has been variable over hundreds of millions of years, ranging from two and sometimes three in most animals, to as many as seven in single-celled animals. . ” is wholly misleading.  Well, Dear Editors, all animals and vascular plants have just two sexes (which ones have three?), though single-celled organisms, algae and fungi can have more “mating type”, which I’m okay with calling “sexes”if you want. But Fuentes and the editors, are defending the thesis that animals, including our own species, have nonbinary sex. This is not true.

Note as well that the editors have been taken in by the claim that the variability of “sexual behavior” and of “sexual activity” within and among species show that there is variability in the number of sexes beyond two.  This is a false argument, as anybody who knows biology and isn’t warped by ideology should know.

What bothers me most about this editorial is the editors’ sanctimonious claim that they are acting “in the public interest” by recognizing the “science” in this debate, but the bogus-ness of that science is all on Fuentes’s side. Shame on you, editors of Natural History? Have you actually followed this debate? How can it be that the Supreme Court of the UK has apprehended and resolved this debate better than do editors of a science magazine.

This is what happens when scientists’ work is distorted by their ideology, and by now I shouldn’t have to tell you what the distorting ideology is.

Here is the editors’ preface:

h/t: Robert

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.

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.

John Horgan defends Scientific American, its editor, and its colonization by progressive ideology

November 19, 2024 • 9:30 am

I’ve written a fair number of posts about science writer John Horgan over the years, and also pointed out posts in which others took Horgan to task for his miguided views or even lack of understanding of the science he wrote about.

Horgan became well known for his 1996 book The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Science in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. Its thesis is summarized by Wikipedia:

Horgan’s 1996 book The End of Science begins where “The Death of Proof” leaves off: in it, Horgan argues that pure science, defined as “the primordial human quest to understand the universe and our place in it,” may be coming to an end. Horgan claims that science will not achieve insights into nature as profound as evolution by natural selection, the double helix, the Big Bang, relativity theory or quantum mechanics. In the future, he suggests, scientists will refine, extend and apply this pre-existing knowledge but will not achieve any more great “revolutions or revelations.”

This thesis of course has not been supported. To name two new mysteries in physics that arose after Horgan (writing largely about physics) claimed that the field was moribund, we have new evidence for both dark energy and gravitational waves. The book hasn’t worn well, and his subsequent work never came close to the popularity of his 1996 book. As he writes about himself (yes, in the third person) on his own website:

Although none of Horgan’s subsequent books has matched the commercial success of The End of Science, he loves them all. They include, in chronological order, The Undiscovered Mind; Rational Mysticism; The End of War; Mind-Body Problems; Pay Attention, a lightly fictionalized memoir; and My Quantum Experiment, which like Mind-Body Problems is online and free.

Apparently Horgan supports himself with a sinecure as a teacher and Director of the Center for Science Writings (CSW) at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Given that he has gone after me several times over the years, and in an unprovoked way (reader Lou Jost once called him a “contrarian” in a comment).  And his rancor continues in the latest post on his own website (below), in which, defending departed Scientific American editor Laura Helmuth, he can’t resist insulting a number of us:

Well before Scientific American’s editor vented her despair over the election, social injustice warriors were bashing the magazine for its political views. Critics include anti-woke bros Jordan Peterson, Charles “The Bell Curve” Murray, Pinker wannabe Michael Shermer, Dawkins wannabe Jerry Coyne and the right-leaning Wall Street Journal and City Journal.

Seriously, Horgan, “social injustice warrrions?” and “woke bros”? And what’s with the nicknames and “wannabes”? No, I don’t want to be Richard Dawkins: I’ve never aspired to that level of renown nor do I have the talent to achieve it.  Horgan simply can’t resist mocking everyone who has “bashed” Scientific American, apparently unable to distinguish between criticism and “bashing.”  Yet despite his historical nastiness to others, Horgan characterizes himself on his webpage as a “nice guy”

John Horgan is a science journalist who has knocked many scientists over the course of his career and yet stubbornly thinks of himself as a nice guy

And, in the piece below, also praises Helmuth for her niceness:

She is also—and I’ve heard this from her colleagues and experienced it first-hand–a kind, considerate person. That’s a heroic feat in this mean-spirited age.

I am perfectly prepared to believe that Helmuth is a kind and considerate person, and have never said otherwise. It’s a pity that Horgan himself has failed to achieve this “heroic feat.”

At any rate, Horgan wrote for Scientific American between 1986 and 1997. As he says in his third-person bio, “Horgan was a full-time staff writer at Scientific American from 1986 to 1997, when the magazine fired him due to a dispute over his first book, The End of Science.” But he later wrote several other pieces for the magazine: “From 2010-2022 he churned out hundreds of opinion pieces for the magazine’s online edition.” Several of these were under the editorship of Helmuth, who headed the magazine from 2020 until about a week ago.

As you know, Helmuth resigned from Scientific American after posting several expletive-filled tweets on election night, something that I showed and discussed here. Although she later apologized, she announced her resignation five days ago.  It’s not clear, however, whether she voluntarily resigned or was given the choice of resigning or being fired. The president of the magazine says the former, but it seems ambiguous; as the Washington Post notes:

Kimberly Lau, president of the magazine, said in a statement that it was Helmuth’s decision to leave, and the magazine is already seeking a new editor.

and adds:

A screenshot of her posts circulated on X, and one account called “The Rabbit Hole” asked its followers on Nov. 12 if Helmuth was “someone who is entirely dedicated to uncompromising scientific integrity?” or “a political activist who has taken over a scientific institution?”

Elon Musk, owner of X and close ally of president-elect Donald Trump, reacted to the post four minutes later with “the latter” — which spawned thousands of comments, replies and likes.

Lau, the president of Scientific American, did not respond to questions about whether Helmuth’s resignation was related to the backlash from Musk and others.

I won’t speculate about what happened, but as readers know I’ve criticized the magazine many times for its wokeness, its misguided views, its pervasive ideology, and its downright errors many times (see here for a collection of criticisms, including the magazine’s infamous indictment of both E. O. Wilson and Gregor Mendel [!] as racists).

Michael Shermer, a Sci. Am. columnist, who was given a pink slip because he contradicted the magazine’s “progressive” views, has also summarized the increasing wokeness of the magazine, as has James B. Meigs. (See also my critique of articles from just the single year of 2021.)

In the end, I think Helmuth’s desire to make Scientific American a magazine infused with and supporting progressive leftism not only severely degraded the quality of a once-excellent venue for popular science—perhaps at one time our best popular-science magazine—but also ultimately led to her leaving the room.

But John Horgan now defends both the magazine and Helmuth in his latest blog post (click below), implicitly assuming that Helmuth was fired—and fired largely because people like me criticized the magazine:

The intro:

Well before Scientific American’s editor vented her despair over the election, social injustice warriors were bashing the magazine for its political views. Critics include anti-woke bros Jordan Peterson, Charles “The Bell Curve” Murray, Pinker wannabe Michael Shermer, Dawkins wannabe Jerry Coyne and the right-leaning Wall Street Journal and City Journal.

On election night, Sci Am editor Laura Helmuth called Trump voters “racist and sexist” and “fucking fascists” on the social media platform BlueSky, a haven for Twitter/X refugees. Yeah, she lost her cool, but Helmuth’s labels apply to Trump if not to all who voted for him.

Although Helmuth apologized for her remarks, Elon Musk (perhaps miffed that Scientific American recently knocked him) and others called for her head. Yesterday Helmuth announced she was stepping down.

Trump spews insults and wins the election. Helmuth loses her job. Critics of cancel culture cheered Helmuth’s cancellation. I’m guessing we’ll see more of this sickening double standard in coming months and years.

Note the implicit assumption that Helmuth was fired (“loses her job”). Well, I didn’t cheer her cancellation (yes, some people cheered her departure), and I doubt that she’s been canceled. She’s been gone only a week, and I doubt that she’s been blackballed in science journalism. At any rate, Scientific American does have a long way to go if it’s ever to repair the reputation it once had, a reputation that was eroded with Helmuth at the helm.

Horgan lays out his rationale for the piece:

I’m writing this column, first, to express my admiration for Helmuth. She is not only a fearless, intrepid editor, who is passionate about science (she has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience). She is also—and I’ve heard this from her colleagues and experienced it first-hand–a kind, considerate person. That’s a heroic feat in this mean-spirited age.

Indeed! Would that Horgan himself was kind and considerate! But in fact I’d settle for “not obnoxious,” but for Horgan that’s not in the cards.

He proceeds to defend the magazine’s politicization:

I’d also like to address the complaint that Helmuth’s approach to science was too political and partisan. Yes, under Helmuth, Scientific American has had a clear progressive outlook, ordinarily associated with the Democratic party. The magazine endorsed Joe Biden four years ago, shortly after Helmuth took over, and Kamala Harris this year.

Sci Am presented scientific analyses of and took stands on racism, reproductive rights, trans rights, climate change, gun violence and covid vaccines. Critics deplored the magazine’s “transformation into another progressive mouthpiece,” as The Wall Street Journal put it. Biologist Jerry Coyne says a science magazine should remain “neutral on issues of politics, morals, and ideology.”

What??!! As Coyne knows, science, historically, has never been “neutral.” Powerful groups on the right and left have employed science to promote their interests and propagate lethal ideologies, from eugenics to Marxism. Science journalists can either challenge abuses of science or look the other way.

I became a staff writer at Scientific American in 1986, when Jonathan Piel was editor. The magazine bashed the Reagan administration’s plan to build a space-based shield against nuclear weapons. I wrote articles linking behavioral genetics to eugenics and evolutionary psychology to social Darwinism. I got letters that began: “Dear Unscientific Unamerican.” My point: the magazine has never been “neutral,” it has always had a political edge.

First, Horgan here conflates the practice of science itself with the presentation of science in magazines like Scientific American.  Yes, the actual doing of science should, as far as possible, be politically neutral, and so should articles published in scientific journals. (Sadly, the latter hope is now repeatedly violated.) The ideological erosion of biology, as Luana and I called our paper in Skeptical Inquirer, has led to the loss of trust in biology and in journals themselves; and the same is happening in all STEMM fields. You wouldn’t think that math could go woke, for instance, but it has, and medical education has long been colonized by ideology, to the point where it endangers the health of Americans.

No, I see no problem in principle with scientific journals pointing out scientific problems with social issues. Reagan’s “Star Wars” program, for example, was criticized by three authors (including Hans Bethe) in a 1984 issue of Scientific American. And scientific data on covid, published in journals, was critical in assessing how to best attack the pandemic. To the extent that public policy depends on scientific fact, and to the degree that those facts inform policy, it’s perfectly fine for scientific journals and magazines to correct the facts and show how such corrections might change policy.

But Scientific American went much further than that, taking on social-justice issues that were purely performative and had no possible salubrious effect on society, or even dealt with matters of fact. To see some of this mishigass, I call your attention to the collection of 2021 posts I made about ludicrous or mistaken articles in the journal—and this is but a small selection.

1.) Bizarre acronym pecksniffery in Scientific American.Title: “Why the term ‘JEDI’ is problematic for describing programs that promote justice, diversity, equity, and Inclusion.”

2.) More bias in Scientific American, this time in a “news” article. Title: “New math research group reflects a schism in the field.”

3.) Scientific American again posting non-scientific political editorials.Title: “The anti-critical race theory movement will profoundly effect public education.“

4.) Scientific American (and math) go full woke.  Title: “Modern mathematics confronts its white, patriarchal past.”

5.) Scientific American: Denying evolution is white supremacy. Title: “Denial of evolution is a form of white supremacy.”

6.) Scientific American publishes misleading and distorted op-ed lauding Palestine and demonizing Israel, accompanied by a pro-Palestinian petition. Title: “Health care workers call for support of Palestinians.” (The title is still up but see #7 below)

7.) Scientific American withdraws anti-Semitic op-ed. Title of original article is above, but now a withdrawal appears (they vanished the text): “Editor’s Note: This article fell outside the scope of Scientific American and has been removed.”   Now, apparently, nothing falls outside the scope of the magazine!

8.) Scientific American: Religious or “spiritual” treatment of mental illness produces better outcomes. Title: “Psychiatry needs to get right with God.”

9.)  Scientific American: Transgender girls belong on girl’s sports teams. Title:  “Trans girls belong on girls’ sports teams.”

10.) Former Scientific American editor, writing in the magazine, suggests that science may find evidence for God using telescopes and other instruments. Title: “Can science rule out God?“

And of course the magazine was full of op-eds that pushed a progressive Leftist viewpoint. When I emailed Helmuth offering to write my own op-ed about the malign effects of ideology on science, she turned me down flat.  There was no balance in the magazine—not even in the op-eds.

The rest of Horgan’s short rant goes after Trump and his appointees, for he seems to connect Helmuth’s resignation with Trump’s victory. Yes, in one sense they were connected, because Helmuth scuppered herself by being unable to control her tweets on election night, calling Trump supporters “fucking fascists.” But to imply that the critics of the journal were “right-wing”or “social injustice warriors” is just wrong.  People like me, Pinker, Dawkins, and Shermer are classical liberals, and criticized the magazine because it was becoming a vehicle for ideology rather than science.

The Atlantic unfairly disses Dawkins

September 27, 2024 • 9:30 am

The Atlantic decided they needed a piece on Richard Dawkins’s “farewell tour”, but they either chose the wrong journalist or asked the author to write a semi hit-piece that made Dawkins look bad. Not completely bad, mind you, for the author does mention a few good things Dawkins has done. But, overall, the piece depicts an aging man who simply needs to fight battles, and now there are no battles to fight.  Once it was creationism, says senior editor Ross Andersen, but now it’s the lesser battle of “fighting wokeness”.

Since Andersen himself shows signs of “progressive” thought in his piece (he defends, for example, the teaching Māori legends as science in New Zealand), he may have an animus against Richard. I don’t know, but I know two things. First, Andersen shows no signs of having read Dawkins’s books or followed his career.  Second, Anderson ends his piece, which describes his opinion of Richard’s recent lecture in Washington D.C., by saying “I was bored.” His pronouncement is distinctly un-journalistic given that Andersen describes a very enthusiastic audience lining up to get books signed, and bespeaks a reviewer more concerned with his own personal reaction than with the effect of Dawkins, his writing, and his Washington discussion on the audience (and on society in general).

Click on the headline below to read it, or, if you can’t, you can find it archived here. Several readers sent me this piece—I suppose expecting to get my reaction. So here it is: the piece stinks.

The dissing starts off in a subtle way with the title (granted, Andersen may not have written it, but the Atlantic approved it). But in the second sentence, Andersen says this:

[Dawkins] has adapted his swaggering Oxbridge eloquence to a variety of media ecosystems.

Anybody who knows or has even heard Richard knows that his eloquence is not “swaggering,” but measured and reserved.  But I’ll leave that aside and pass on. Here, also, in the first paragraph, Andersen describes Dawkins’s first foray into atheism:

In 2006’s The God Delusion, another mega–best seller, Dawkins antagonized the world’s religions.

“Antagonized the world’s religions”?  Well, yes, some believers may have been offended, but what about adding that this book made an eloquent argument against religion, and, in fact (as Andersen says later!), changed people’s lives for the better. That sentence is like saying, “In Mein Kampf, Hitler antagonized the world’s Jews.”  It may be true, but both statements are certainly pejorative and woefully incomplete.

Throughout the piece, Anderson describes how energized, worshipful, and jazzed up the audience was. But of course Anderson was “bored”.  Here is part of his description:

Now, at age 83, Dawkins is saying goodbye to the lecture circuit with a five-country tour that he’s marketing as his “Final Bow.” Earlier this month, I went to see him at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. Dawkins has said that when he visits the U.S., he has the most fun in the Bible Belt, but most of his farewell-tour appearances will take place in godless coastal cities. After all, Dawkins has a new book to sell—The Genetic Book of the Dead—and at the Warner, it was selling well. I saw several people holding two or three copies, and one man walking around awkwardly with nine, steadying the whole stack beneath his chin. The line to buy books snaked away from the theater entrance and ran all the way up the stairs. It was longer than the line for the bar.

As for the audience, which was surely diverse:

The packed theater looked like a subreddit come to life. Bald white heads poked above the seat backs, as did a few ponytails and fedoras. This being an assembly of freethinkers, there was no standard uniform, but I did spot lots of goatees and black T-shirts. The faded silk-screen graphics on the tees varied. One was covered in equations. Another featured a taxonomy of jellyfish extending onto its sleeves. These people had not come here merely to see a performer; Dawkins had changed many of their lives. A man in the row behind me said that he had attended Dawkins’s show in Newark, New Jersey, the previous night. As a Christian teen, he had sought out videos of Dawkins, hoping that they would prepare him to rebut arguments for evolution. He ultimately found himself defeated by the zoologist’s logic, and gave up his faith.

. . . Jake Klein, the director of the Virginia Chapter of Atheists for Liberty [JAC: the “warm-up” act], told a similar conversion story onstage, before introducing Dawkins. Klein said The God Delusion had radicalized him against the Orthodox Judaism of his youth. Millions of other creationists had similar experiences, Klein said. He credited Dawkins with catalyzing an important triumph of reason over blind superstition.

Indeed, Dawkins has changed many lives for the better; his books were an important impetus for people not only accepting the scientific truth of evolution, but also grasping the wonder and majesty of both natural selection and evolution—not to mention helping people throw off the constricting chains of religion. (I’m a small fish, but I myself have been told that that Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact have also changed lives.) Given the dominance of creationism in America—37% of Americans still accept Biblical creationism, 34% accept a form of God-guided evolution, while a mere 24% accept naturalistic evolution, making a total of 71% of Americans who think the supernatural played a role in evolution—accepting naturalistic evolution as true is a powerful reason to jettison your faith. And that’s what several people have told me about my first trade book.

More on audience appreciation for what Dawkins has done (attacking wokeness), a description tinged with opprobrium (my bolding):

Now that mainstream culture has moved on from big debates about evolution and theism, he no longer has a prominent foe that so perfectly suits his singular talent for explaining the creative power of biology. And so he’s playing whack-a-mole, swinging full strength, and without much discernment, at anything that strikes him as even vaguely irrational. His fans at the Warner Theatre didn’t seem to mind. For all I know, some of them had come with the sole intent of hearing Dawkins weigh in on the latest campus disputes and cancellations.

For nearly an hour, Dawkins stuck largely to science, and it served him well. The latter half of the evening was heavier on culture-war material. To whoops and hollers, Dawkins expressed astonishment that anyone could believe that sex is a continuum, instead of a straightforward binary. He described safety-craving college students as “pathetic wimps.” It all seemed small, compared with the majesty of the ideas he’d been discussing just minutes before.

Is the discussion of wokeness (mainly how ideology affects science) a problem? And doesn’t the author realize that the interlocutor, economist Steven Levitt, confected the questions without Dawkins’s knowledge of what they’d be? If Levitt wanted to ask Dawkins about wokeness or campus ferment, is that Dawkins’s fault? Besides, the audience wanted to hear a thoughtful person’s take on wokeness, which includes science: not only the biology of sex, but the low value of indigenous “knowledge” (see below).

And that brings us to one of several major misconceptions about Dawkins. Andersen seems to think that, throughout Richard’s life, he was motivated by contentiousness: everything he did was motivated by his need to have an enemy. That enemy was, avers Andersen initially creationism, but now has morphed into wokeness (see “whack-a-mole” above):

The day before, on a video call, Dawkins told me that he was puzzled—and disquieted—by the support he has received from the political right. He tends to support the Labour Party. He loathes Donald Trump. The New Atheist movement arose partly in response to the ascent of George W. Bush and other evangelicals in Republican politics. Its leaders—Dawkins, along with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett—worried that public-school students would soon be learning creationism in biology class. But there has since been a realignment in America’s culture wars. Americans still fight over the separation of church and state, but arguments about evolution have almost completely vanished from electoral politics and the broader zeitgeist. With no great crusade against creationism to occupy him, Dawkins’s most visible moments over the past 15 years have been not as a scientist but as a crusader against “wokeness”—even before that was the preferred term.

First, creationism is still with us, and in a big way. I gave the figures above, but Andersen, who’s supposed to know science, doesn’t seem to realize that far more Americans are creationists than are materialistic evolutionists, and more than 7 out of 10 of us think that God played some role in evolution. We have a long way to go.  Further, arguments about evolution aren’t gone, for the Intelligent Design miscreants are still plaguing us. As for electoral politics, evolution never played a prominent role there except once (in 2008, three of the Republican Presidential candidates in a debate raised their hands to show they didn’t accept evolution.) Evolution simply isn’t on the electoral agenda compared to the economy and, right now, immigration. And doesn’t Andersen know that the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is a creationist?  Further, many of us worry, and justifiably so, that the Supreme Court, which hasn’t adjudicated the teaching of evolution since 1987, might now revisit the issue and allow creationism to be taught. Given the present composition of the court, that’s entirely possible.

I’ve known Richard for much longer than has Andersen, and I can’t agree with his conclusion that Richard needs an enemy to thrive.  Dawkins started off writing a book expounding how evolution worked (The Selfish Gene), and as far as I remember that book barely mentions creationism, if at all. It was designed not to fight creationists but to enlighten both scientists and readers about how natural selection worked. This was followed by more books explaining evolution (Climbing Mount Improbable. The Extended Phenotype—Richard’s favorite—and my favorite, the Blind Watchmaker) and of course there are several more books explaining evolution.

The fight against creationism, I think, only came later, when Richard saw to his dismay that his views weren’t immediately embraced by the American public (I had the same reaction when I wrote Wby Evolution is True). He saw, correctly, that that opposition came almost exclusively from religion. And so, only in 2009 (three decades after The Selfish Gene) did Richard write an explicitly anticreationist book: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidcence for Evolution. My own parallel is having the same realization about religious opposition to evolution, which led to my writing Faith Versus Fact after WEIT. Richard’s main motivation, as I see it, was not to fight creationism, but to share the wonder of evolution and natural selection that he himself felt. Since The Selfish Gene, he’s written 18 books, only two against religion and creationism; and his most recent books,  Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution, and The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie, are pure science.

As for Richard’s new “opponent”, wokeness, Andersen has to reach back into Dawkins’s Precambrian Twitter feed, basing this criticdism on just three tweets. He even mentions Elevatorgate, without noting that Richard apologized for that tweet. And as for this one, well, I see nothing wrong with it: it raises a good question for debate first broached by philosopher Rebecca Tuvel in the journal Hypatia:

Dawkins is raising the question for discussion, though Andersen denigrates this important issue by saying it’s a “just-asking-questions” (JAQ) tweet.  He doesn’t seem to realize that Dawkins was a professor and teacher, and this is very similar to the kind of questions an Oxford don would ask his students to write about.

At any rate, Andersen really shows his own wokeness, and, importantly, his ignorance of what’s going on in New Zealand, when he criticizes Richard’s emphasis on not teaching Māori “ways of knowing” alongside and coequal to modern science in New Zealand. This is an ongoing problem that I’ve written about many times, and one Andersen wrongly dismisses as a non-problem:

The tale of Lysenko is almost fable-like in its moral purity, and Dawkins told it well, but only as a setup for a contemporary controversy that he wished to discuss—an ongoing dispute over school curricula in New Zealand. According to one proposal, students there would learn traditional creation stories and myths alongside standard science lessons, out of deference to the Māori, whose language and culture British settlers had tried earnestly to erase. Dawkins noted that some eminent New Zealand scientists had “stuck their heads above the parapet” to object to this idea with an open letter in 2021, and were “unpleasantly punished” for doing so. He called this mob rule, and expressed concern for the young students. They could end up confused, he said, forced as they would be to reconcile lessons about the “sky father” and “earth mother” with those that concern the Big Bang and evolution.

I suspect that kids can hold those two things in mind. I suspect also that the project of science—no innocent bystander in the treatment of Indigenous people—will be best served if its most prominent voices address themselves to the Māori, and other such groups, in an imaginative spirit of synthesis and reconciliation. But even if I am wrong about all that, the specter of Lysenko would seem to have little bearing on a case in which no scientist has been officially punished. Complaints about the open letter did produce an initial investigation by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, as a matter of process, but nothing more.

The errors in these two paragraphs are at least four:

1.) The endeavor to keep modern science free from indigenous superstition was not just in the Listener Letter, but is an ongoing battle between rationalism and superstition.

2.) The battle continues because kids CANNOT hold two different conceptions of science in their mind at once. It is confusing and simply bad pedagogy.

3.) Scientists were officially punished for denying the scientific worth of indigenous knowledge. See this report by the New Zealand Initiative. Not only were professors punished and investigated, but the ubiquity of Māori sacralization in New Zealand has chilled both university teaching and the speech of professors and students.

4.) Andersen’s ignorance is particularly strong when, Tom-Friedman-like, he proposes a melding of Māori “ways of knowing” and science in “an imaginative spirit of synthesis and reconciliation.”  That idea has led to the ludicrous notion, for example, that kauri blight (a tree disease) might be cured by rubbing the trees with whale bones and whale oil while saying Māori prayers. That is the imaginative synthesis that’s happening at this moment, and it’s in all the sciences.

The final paragraph is, frankly, offensive to journalists and readers alike:

After he took his last bow, the lights went out, and I tried to understand what I was feeling. I didn’t leave the show offended. I wasn’t upset. It was something milder than that. I was bored.

Who cares if Andersen was bored? The crowd wasn’t bored and many paid extra for VIP tickets to get their books custom-signed and say a few words to Richard, while others formed a bigger line to get pre-signed books.  All we learn here is that the author feels superior to both Dawkins and the crowd.  I went to Dawkins’s talk here in Chicago, and I wasn’t bored, even at times when I disagreed with what Richard said.  And I’m an evolutionary biologist who’s written a lot about the fracas in New Zealand.  It appears that Mr. Andersen is not just journalistically ham-handed, but also incurious.