From:    Stephen Matheson
To:      All                                    Msg #87, Oct-05-93 11:05PM
Subject: Forrest Mims: Setting the record straight on SciAm (Part 0 of

Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group
Subject: Forrest Mims: Setting the record straight on SciAm (Part 0 of 1)
From: sfm@manduca.neurobio.arizona.edu (Stephen Matheson)
Message-ID: <28tqnf$s61@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins

After the most recent discussions on the subject of Forrest Mims's
dismissal from Scientific American and his subsequent charge
of religious discrimination, I sent Mr. Mims some fairly
complete transcripts of our doings (as I had announced at the
outset).  About a week ago, he sent me an article addressing some
issues of concern to him, and I've agreed to post it for him.
It appears in the following article (Part 1 of 1).

As before, I will collect any responses and forward them to Mr. Mims.

References describing the incident are available on request.
Please note that my defense of Mr. Mims and my cooperation with
him in posting to Usenet should not be interpreted as agreement
with -- or approval of -- his specific beliefs on the subject
of evolution.
--

Steve Matheson   Program in Neuroscience   University of Arizona
sfm@neurobio.arizona.edu



From:    Stephen Matheson
To:      All                                    Msg #88, Oct-05-93 11:10PM
Subject: Re: Forrest Mims: Setting the record straight on SciAm (Part 1

Organization: University of Arizona UNIX Users Group
Subject: Re: Forrest Mims: Setting the record straight on SciAm (Part 1 of 1)
From: sfm@manduca.neurobio.arizona.edu (Stephen Matheson)
Message-ID: <28tr10$sca@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins


                    Setting the Record Straight about
                           Scientific American


DATE: September 24, 1993

FROM: Forrest M. Mims, III

SUBJECT: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

I have received a disk with various Internet messages and
exchanges about the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN-Mims affair. This
response is to correct several important errors and to clarify
various matters.

1. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN published three, not one, of my columns.

2. Of the three senior editors, only Jonathan Piel wanted to
dismiss me. The other two supported me and made public statements
to the press on my behalf.

3. In spite of various postings to the contrary, I fully intended
to cover ALL areas of science in "The Amateur Scientist."
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN considered my proposal to write 32 specific
columns for more than a year. I was specifically told that ALL of
the proposals, which covered everything from computers and
biology to aerial experiments and ozone, were acceptable topics.

4. Jonathan Piel offered to buy and publish three of my columns
during a telephone call he placed to me on October 4, 1989:

  "There's no question that on their own merits the columns
  are fabulous! If you don't do them for us you ought to do
  them for somebody because they're great...Give me three of
  them and I'll run them and give Jearl [Walker] a
  vacation...I'll buy them from you...Forrest, I trust you
  implicitly. You're a man of honor and integrity...In its own
  right what you've written is first rate. That's just not an
  issue. It's the public relations nightmare that is keeping
  me awake."

  (Published in part in HARPER'S, March 1991.)

5. In a letter to me dated October 27, 1989, Piel denied he
offered to buy and publish the three columns:

  "First, let me set the record straight. Neither I nor anyone
  else on behalf of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN agreed to 'buy and
  publish' any of the installments that you prepared for 'The
  Amateur Scientist'...we undertook no obligation to publish
  those articles...."

This letter's denial of Piel's own words made it obvious that it
was pointless to continue discussions with Piel. Therefore, I
wrote Claus Firchow, then president of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.
Firchow's lawyer called a few days later to ask what it would
take to make me happy. I told him all I wanted was for SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN to abide by its agreement to publish and pay for my
three columns. He quickly agreed. The lawyer specifically told me
I would be free to submit proposals in the future. I have sent
many such proposals, all of which have been rejected or ignored.

6. At least one Internet message suggested that SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN would have been justified in firing me because of
scientific incompetence. Yet prior to the barrage of publicity
that arose after they fired me, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN never
questioned my qualifications. Instead, the editors sent letters
and made statements praising my work. When I visited SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN at Piel's request, he said several times in the presence
of some of his staff, "We should have hired you 10 years ago!"
When I said I had applied when C.L. Strong died, he said if he had
known, "I would have snapped you up!" Members of the editorial
staff congratulated me for getting the assignment. Piel and the
other editors played with the various instruments I brought
along, including a solar ultraviolet radiometer, a radio-
controlled camera for kites and balloons, various surface-mount
circuits, etc. Even after he asked if I believed in Darwinian
evolution, he took me to lunch with the editorial staff and gave
me a book which he signed, "Best regards to a Great Amateur
Scientist. Jonathan Piel." Although Piel was clearly concerned
about my failure to accept Darwinian evolution, he did not fire
me until AFTER a female editor asked me about abortion and then
met with Piel and asked him to call me.

7. At least one message questioned my ability to do science. My
fourth installment of "The Amateur Scientist" was to have
described TOPS (Total Ozone Portable Spectrometer), a miniature
ozonometer designed and assembled exclusively for SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN. Although the TOPS column was rejected solely because of
my personal beliefs, the instrument was used to detect waves in
the ozone layer during the 1991 solar eclipse (F. Mims and E.
Mims, "Fluctuations in Column Ozone during the Total Solar
Eclipse of 1991," GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, 20, 5, 367-370,
1993). Last summer TOPS was the first ozone instrument to find an
extrapolated calibration error in NASA's primary ozone satellite,
Nimbus-7/TOMS (F. Mims, "Satellite Ozone Monitoring Error,"
NATURE, 361, 505, 1993). On June 23, TOPS detected the lowest
summer ozone (230 Dobson units) over Texas since satellite
observations began in 1978 (manuscript in preparation).

Another instrument I built exclusively for SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN,
but which was refused publication, was a miniature sun photometer
that uses an array of six light-emitting diodes as detectors (F.
Mims, "Sun Photometer with Light-Emitting Diodes as Spectrally
Selective Detectors," APPLIED OPTICS, 31, 33, 6965-6967, 1992).
This instrument, which slips in a shirt pocket, measures total
column water vapor and the optical thickness of the atmosphere.
The instrument, for which a patent is now pending, can be easily
modified for simple transmission and reflectance spectroscopy in
the field. Papers about two other instruments I built for
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, but which were refused publication, are now
in preparation.

8. There have been several messages about the Rolex Award I
received in May which was advertised in the June issue of
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. The award was for an international network
(Sun Photometer Atmospheric Network) that will use an advanced
version of the TOPS instrument developed for but rejected by
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. The upper half of the instrument can be seen
in the photo in the ad and the entire instrument is shown in a 2-
page ad that was published in various international magazines.

9. I had absolutely no hidden agenda with respect to writing "The
Amateur Scientist," and I had no intention of ever attempting to
embarrass the magazine. In a letter to me, Jonathan Piel
specifically stated he had no concern about my motives. (I will
be glad to post this letter verbatim.) My beliefs about abortion
and Darwinian evolution were strictly personal. Prior to
SCIENTIIC AMERICAN, none of the editors at the more than 70
publications for which I have written ever asked me about my
personal beliefs.

10. In May I spoke with John Hanley, the new president of
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. Hanley was quite friendly and agreed to
review my request to again write for SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. He said
no one else at the magazine would see the proposal and gave me
his private fax number. Several weeks later he rejected my
proposal, citing a letter from the magazine's lawyer's of 1990
which, in effect, supported Piel's denial that he had previously
agreed to buy and publish my columns. Hanley told me I should
submit future proposals to Piel, but Piel does not respond to
them. He has also declined to correct four specific errors in
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN about which I have informed him, even though
I have assured him it is unnecessary to cite my name. Why do I
want to write for SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN in view of all that's
happened? "The Amateur Scientist" shaped my career. C. L. Stong
once told me I would some day write the column. And I want very
much to see "The Amateur Scientist" provide the same kind of
constructive, hands-on science that Stong and, to some extent,
Jearl Walker did.

This message corrects the principle errors on the disk I
received. I'll be happy to answer questions relayed to me and to
post verbatim copies of correspondence to and from SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN if anyone is interested. I have informed Jonathan Piel
and John Hanley at SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN about your discussions and
offered to post their response verbatim, but they have not
responded.

Forrest M. Mims, III


_________________________________________________________
---------------------------------------------------------
End of article posted for Forrest Mims by:


--

Steve Matheson   Program in Neuroscience   University of Arizona
sfm@neurobio.arizona.edu