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The Gould Effect: When a Science Journalist Dislikes a Scientist | Scientific American

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If a journalist finds a scientist annnoying, that can complicate his assessment of the scientist's work. BY JOHN HORGAN This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American I recently confessed that my personal feelings toward proponents of a scientific claim affect my judgment of the claim. I focused on cases in which my feelings were positive; that is, I like the proponent. Things can get even knottier if I dislike the advocate of a claim, theory, worldview. I call this “the Gould effect,” but I could have called it the Gell-Mann effect, Edelman effect, Prigogine effect, Popper effect—and so on. Many of my subjects have irked me. My dislike of Gould, however, had an especially strong impact on my assessment of his oeuvre. Gould, who died in 2002, was an influential paleontologist/evolutionary biologist who challenged conventional Darwinian theory. He was the co-inventor of punctuated

November 2, 2015 Add Us On Google Add SciAm The Gould Effect: When a Science Journalist Dislikes a Scientist If a journalist finds a scientist annnoying, that can complicate his assessment of the scientist's work. By John Horgan Join Our Community of Science Lovers! Sign Up for Our Free Daily Newsletter Enter your email I agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American and Springer Nature Limited Privacy Policy . We leverage third party services to both verify and deliver email. By providing your email address, you also consent to having the email address shar

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