My emeritus Nobel-laureate colleague Vernon Smith sent to me the following e-mail in response to this letter of mine to Nature; I share Vernon’s e-mail here in full and with his kind permission.
Don:
Nature/editorial and MS review process now requires that research include consideration of policy consequences, and editorials recognizing the past sins of science/scientists in matters of race, gender and ethnic maltreatment.
I asked them to cancel my subscription for this reason and they did not bother to answer. Elite pretentious pigs!
It is like censoring Mark Twain for using the N word–Huck Finn without the N word is like a carriage without a horse.
I switched my subscription to Science. I used to subscribe to both, but decided it was too much. Years ago, they published the evolutionary evidence that skin pigmentation adapts, black to white, in 7000 years after moving North with less sunlight.
They should be proud that social historical changes simply show how far we have come.
Are we not obligated to see that our kids know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Vernon
