The Origin of Specious. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)

I WAS TOUCHINGLY AMUSED by the title of the article "The Origin of Specious" [Sept. 23, 2002] because it brought back bittersweet memories of a minor editorial skirmish with Stephen Jay Gould. As his editor when Gould was an occasional contributor to Discover magazine, I was responsible for shepherding through the editorial process an essay he had contributed lamenting his colleague Jeremy Rifkind's blunderbuss attacks on genetic engineering. Playfully, I headlined the essay "The Origins of Specious Critics." My bosses loved it, but Steve clearly did not. ...