Scientific American: "Okay, We Give Up"

Okay, We Give Up From the April 2005 Issue of Scientific American.

Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.

Read the complete April Fool's Day manifesto at Blondesense.

Comments

[Steve Brady]

"That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details."

That made my day.

[Nancy]

You shouldn't have to jump to another link (or have read the issue itself) to find out that this is an April Fool's day essay.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

It's one of the best pieces of satire I've read in a long time.

[Alon Levy]

I really liked it, too, but I agree with Nancy that you should post the April Fool's Day comment on this site.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Good point. I added that info to the post.

[Alon Levy]

Thanks.

On another note, could you increase the number of comments in the Recent Comments list, please? Your blog gets so many comments that I can't follow that list, nor can I check the most recent posts for new comments because older threads are still active. Pharyngula, for instance, has a Recent Comments page that reproduces the last 40 comments in full.

[Scott PM]

Doesn't slapping APRIL FOOLS all over it kind of, you know, ruin the entire point? I think it would be better if everyone just played along. Let's all be Intelligent Design enthusiasts for a day! Come on it'll be fun! We can all post our own baseless, idiosyncratic theories, and agree to endorse everyone else's theory no matter how schizophrenic, because of our transparent religious/political/cultural motivations. Doesn't that sound like a hoot?

Did people think that SciAm was really and truly endorsing creationism? How did that make you feel?

[Alon Levy]

In this day and age, it's impossible to tell satire from reality. Most positions taken seriously by their supporters have become a source of jokes for their opponents.

[peBird]

What an Easter treat! April Fools Day early! It's going to be a few strange days in the blogosphere.

[Bob H]

Note in the same issue a column on encouraging progress in getting stem cells to turn into neural cells, contradicting Good Doctor Frist's criticism of Christopher Reeve for being too optimistic.

[Alex]

Evolution is not even a theory, just an unverifiable postulation. Good humor, but bad example. Even Science points away from evolution... Unless you think you can hit every lottery number played in the world for the next 20,000,000,000 years.

(Stop here if you hate numbers...)

The probability of the random combination of a 40-chain amino acid, (from the so called prebiotic soup,) is a 1 in 10 to the 141st power. The average protein alone is 500 amino acids. In 20 Billion Years of evolution, this gives a single Genesis DNA Chain with the probability for 100 specific genes is 1 in 10 to the 3000 power, (approximately,).

This means that by today, we would be lucky to see ONE correct strand randomly "evolving”. The numbers tell you that the prebiotic soup should still be just soup...

My theory you ask? No clue, but get on to a subject that can do some good, this argument is moot. I could care less if a monkey, a test tube in a flying saucer, or The All Being are responsible for my being here... I am...

[Axle71]

The evolutionary process is not truly random but is totally influenced by the environment that the organic structure is evolving within.

For example, in the early stages of evolution in which atoms and molecules combined to form more complex structures, chemical properties with regards to stability within a certain environment dictated what was created.

Once organic structures obtained the capability to motivate, remember, learn, and react to their environment, this again significantly reduced random influence on the process of evolution.

Axle