Graham Lawton said... "Why am I posting all over the shop? I’m defending myself against scurrilous accusations spread by you and other hysterical bloggers. I’m not going to sit back and let you drag my name through the mud based on some flimsy and lazy supposition about the content of my article. Let me set the record straight one more time. I wrote an article saying that many biologists now argue that one important aspect of the theory of evolution needs modifying in the light of new evidence, Whether you like it or not, that is true. See for example: http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/egenis... True. Truth. Remember it?" - David HC Soul

There's no doubt the cover of the New Scientist article was simply WRONG. but some of the attacks on the author show a streak of fundamentalist behaviour in and of themselves... Argue for or against HGT, argue about the Cover/Headline and the idiocy of the editorial staff, but please argue the science on the science not some knee jerk reaction that anyone that publishes (popular press) anything saying Dawkin's theory is not complete & work in biology, genetics, etc. is still continuing should be attacked. - David HC Soul

ps. That said, this is why I don't buy NS based on the headlines but only after thorough perusal of the articles that may interest me ... for they do the same kinds of stunt in physics and other sciences all the time.... I suspect the cover/headline editors might be graduates of daily (or weekly) tabloids... - David HC Soul

He did it to himself by going around and disparaging bloggers who wrote detailed posts both about the wrongness of the cover and about errors in his article. Total inability to listen will do that to ya.... - Bora Zivkovic

Big J Journalist: We were trying to be provocative! Science Bloggers: It worked! Big J: Bloggers suck. Bloggers: Your headline is a joke and if you don't realize that you are too. BigJ: Oh yeah, well I stand for truth! What do you stand for? Bloggers: Is this guy for real? - Jay Rosen

Also, none of you close readers even noticed the debut of curmudegeon as a verb: to curmudgeon yourself is to do what Lawton did. - Jay Rosen

Jay: noticed it, but let it slide without comment. I've tilted at that particular windmill so many times, I've tired of hearing myself on the topic.... (although my Latin teacher, a stickler for all rules of grammar, will surely be rolling in her grave that I've let her down and forgotten so much over the years). - David HC Soul

I noticed. It took me a few seconds to realize that your tweet was not a typo, but noun becoming a verb right in front of my eyes ;-) - Bora Zivkovic

"Graham Lawton -- if you had merely covered what was true, as opposed to going for artificially inflated sensationalism, you wouldn't be facing all this. You fucked up. Deal with it." - j1m

@Bora, nice job with your final comment at the link. - j1m

I was too busy catching up with work after ScienceOnline09 to write a long scathing blog post myself, but I was itching to do so.... ;-) - Bora Zivkovic

This is a big deal why? Provocative title. Nice cover. That's what covers are supposed to do. Darwin was probably also wrong about gradualism. Worrying about what creationists will think is like worrying about what a squirrel scampering in front of a car thinks about technology. - Todd Hoff

Todd, I hope you are right today, but the past century does not suggest that Creationists are as innocuous, powerless and, well, ignorable as you think. - Bora Zivkovic

I don't think they are ignorable at all, but censoring yourself because of them is letting them win. It's appeasement and that never works. - Todd Hoff

I don't see it as censoring oneself at all. Quite the opposite: saying it as it is without appeasing anyone through sensationalism. - Bora Zivkovic

They do these headlines every time - it annoys me every time too - either "big revolution" "huge discovery" or "X was wrong". It sells the mag. And let's also realise this: DARWIN WAS WRONG. The current understanding of evolution and speciation has very little in common with that of Darwin - and very little with "evolution" from the mid 20th century. (The funny thing is that most creationists are still busy fighting what the theory was in 70s) - Iphigenie

todd: "This is a big deal why?" Who said it was a "big" deal? I thought it was amusing the way the writer curmudgeoned himself. His "I am truth, who are you?" approach was--is--funny. - Jay Rosen

@todd, @Joelle, I think you're buying in much too far to the style of slopping thinking that journalists favor. "Darwin was wrong" is only a true statement if the context is such that "Darwin" readily evokes what he was wrong about. The main thing he was wrong about was how heritability works, but that was news 80 years ago, and isn't what the article is talking about....in fact, the content of the article appears to be the incorrect statement that the tree of life doesn't explain life, because hgt does. *This* is a joke, in which the author apparently believes. - j1m

Although Mendel was roughly contemporaneous with Darwin he didn't know about Mendel's research so there's no way Darwin could have got heritability right. Journalists have different jobs than scientists. In fact, if it were up to scientists the public would know very little. There are very few popularizers of complex cutting edge topics. New Scientist is one and they have to entice people to consume what they sell. The article could be pure crap, but arguing current fashions diverts from that point. - Todd Hoff

The post above links to blog posts by John Wilkins and Larry Moran who explain why the article is wrong, science-wise, and by Jason Rosenhouse who explains why the cover is bad politically. But the point is how "journalism" failed and the "journalist" behaves like Keen, Skube or Munshane. - Bora Zivkovic

@todd, here the job is what it usually is for journalists and for many people who write: to write the truth understandably. The headline doesn't do that. - j1m

This is well put: http://network.nature.com/people... and contains even more links to the blogospheric criticisms. - Bora Zivkovic

Indirect speech is simply social engineering. Was Darwin Wrong? is just a CYA way of saying Darwin Was Wrong. The fact of evolution isn't in question. The theory of how is. So when you read Darwin Was Wrong you are selectively picking what Darwin represents and jumping to conclusions. - Todd Hoff

The person writing an article won't be the same as the person who designed and approved the cover. I haven't read the former, but the latter IMHO is a cheap, cheesy and knowing stunt. If it sells papers, good for them. I think Nature should replace it's weighty editorials with pictures of topless models in lab coats. Sharon (23) works on high-Tc superconductors . She raises our temperature anytime, eh, fellas? - Henry Gee

@todd The problem is, "Darwin" without context really refers to Darwin's theory in the large. He has a single, widely-known theory If the author wanted to refer to say, for example "Darwin was wrong about whether his wife had awakened early the previous Monday," you would have to state that using extra words. The point you're making is essentially that NS's cover *can be interpreted narrowly* to mean something true (that something is also wrong, see Bora above) -- but when we judge the truth of a written sentence, we don't judge is based on what the author later weasles it to mean -- we judge it based on its meaning. - j1m

Returning to earth: Bora, can you suggest a good link to read up on the state of the art science about how much effect hgt (or any non-descent gene transfer) has on the course of evolution and what organisms look like? All I know is the old* story about eukaryotes. [*fails to resist pun] - j1m

Just follow the links in http://network.nature.com/people... and links within links. T Ryan Gregory, Larry Moran, PZ Myers, John Wilkins, Jonathan Eisen and others have covered horizontal transfer and Tree Of Life in numerous posts you can find in their archives. - Bora Zivkovic

Could not resist a smackdown: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

And Graham Lawton bit the bait: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic