A last word on scientists’ last word

In his letter, Brian Sutcliffe rightly calls attention to the long history of scientists speaking out on scientific matters of societal importance (PHYSICS TODAY, March 2011, page 8). Here is an especially flamboyant example. Arthur Shipley, an eminent zoologist and master of Christ’s College in Cambridge, UK, wrote about the Scopes “monkey” trial then under way in Tennessee, “The average American of the Middle and Southern States is a very naïve mammal. . . . The United States is a nation of adult children and some of the things they do seem to older and more mature countries decidedly childish.”¹