Reply to Phil Nicholls.
Elaine Morgan (Elaine@desco.demon.co.uk)
Mon, 2 Jan 1995 17:05:25 +0000
Hi Phil
You wrote: Morgan has followed the traditional path
>of popscience and pseudoscience in that she is
>presenting her theory only to a mass audience.
>Pop science ignores those with expertise in the
>area and tries to make its appeal to the public
>at large..Pop scientists only present their arguments
>to the masses.
Oh honestly! This is Catch 22. Papers submitted to
established scientific journals are vetted by believers
in the conventional scientific wisdom and if critical
of that view they are rejected. What you are saying is
"These ideas are unacceptable and the proof of that is
that we have not accepted them."
I understand and endorse the need for peer
review (even at the cost of inconvenience and frustration
to outsiders) so I'm left with two options: either consent
to be silenced altogether or look for a commercial outlet.
If my books were "scholarly" in the Nicholls sense, loaded
to the Plimsoll line with footnotes and a 20-page biblio-
graphy, no publisher would look at them. So yes, "The Scars
of Evolution" and my new book "The Descent of the Child"
were addressed to the public at large.
But God knows I have never "tried to ignore those
with expertise in the area." For over twenty years I have
built me a willow cabin at their gate and grabbed at every
opportunity of meeting, listening to, talking to, inter-
acting with them, as well as assiduously reading what they
write. Recently the gate has opened a crack. I have been
invited to speak at seminars at Oxford, London and other
universities, and been well received. Only America is still
run by the diehards.
If you really think I'm afraid to debate this
subject with anyone but "the masses", why not try wangling
me an invitation to Albany? ..Harvard? ..Yale? That ought
to call my bluff. (Or theirs.)
Elaine Morgan
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