FROM THE EDITORS

Should skepticism be limited to certain fields, certain subjects or
certain groups of people?  Shall scientists, for example, be exempted
from skepticism and rational scrutiny?  We always assumed that the
answer to both questions is "No!" until recently when it was raised de
facto by a presumed skeptic.  We bring up the issue here in order to
solicit opinions from our readers.

In the October-December 1996 issue of Rational Inquiry we published an
article by Barbara B. Hemmingsen entitled "Life on Mars: A Brief Look
at the Evidence."  This article was precipitated by news conferences
and other public relation stunts by NASA earlier in the year directed
at engaging the mass media and the popular press to sell some dubious
scientific claims to the general public rather than the scientific
community (or so it appeared).  Even President Clinton got into the
act.  The claim was that a meteorite ejected from Mars long ago and
found in Antarctica contains remnants of life on that planet.  With
the public well prepared for this astonishing claim, the article
backing it up was published subsequently in Science magazine.  It was
skeptically examined by Barbara who presented some of her conclusions
in the Rational Inquiry article.  She pointed out some obvious flaws
(but not necessarily errors) in the article, and suggested that great
caution should be used before accepting some of the claims made.

The Rational Inquiry article was seen by and summarized in the
December, 1996, issue of Skeptical Briefs, the newsletter of CSICOP.
However, a reader of Skeptical Briefs in a letter to the editor in the
March, 1997, issue chastised the newsletter for publishing the summary
on the grounds that it should use its precious space for paranormal or
pseudoscience matters and not for the evaluation of scientific
reports.  However, this reader did admit that "in any research project
there must eventually be a time to open the argument to the interested
community as a whole, to obtain a wider range of views and expertise."

We believe that this time should come sooner rather than later,
particularly when the public is assaulted by scientists using the
uncritical mass media to promote extraordinary claims.  Although
irrationality is rarely present in the claims, economics, politics and
other power issues can be important factors.  Skepticism is especially
in order in science since the public must have confidence in its
integrity.  Unchecked for long periods of time, questionable and
erroneous science can have dire consequences, such as the allocation
of limited resources for wasted research, not to mention that it may
provide fodder for pseudoscientists and other charlatans.

We will continue to speak out on such matters, and we applaud
Skeptical Briefs for taking this step.  We believe that skeptics
should pay attention to all areas of human activity and not just those
that deal with the paranormal and pseudoscience.  We suspect that many
or most of our readers will agree.

___________

The editors can be reached by E-mail at "ehemming@san.rr.com".

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