spiked article

[Thomas Boyce]

Dear Richard Milton,

I received your letter and article via the molecular evolution disc. group
on internet.

I sympathise with your objections to censorship, and I do not think
irrepairable harm would have been done by the publication of the article.  

However, I do see that much of what you say is based on misinterpretation
or poor understanding of the facts of biology (even the history of
evolutionary biology).  If I were the editor of a biological journal, I
would have rejected the article as misinformed and naive - perhaps more for
what it leaves out rather than what little is in it.

Although I do not support censorship, it is nevertheless important to be
fair with the facts and to the people involved.  In those respects your
article fails.

Perhaps the best remedy would have been for your article to be published
along with a piece by piece dissection of its errors by Dawkins, or
whomever.  I would perform such a dissection myself, but that it appears
you've already had the benefit of same from Dawkins.

Could you also post Dawkins's objections?

__________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Thomas M. Boyce     	       	   FAX: 61-6-2464173
Entomology, CSIRO	      	       	   Telephone: 61-6-2464159
GPO Box 1700	   	       	           Internet:  thomasb at spider.ento.csiro.au
Canberra, ACT  2601	
AUSTRALIA
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