Activist Scientists

The article by Michael McRae (“Ethnobiologist Forced From Brazil After Harassment By Authorities,” The Scientist, Sept. 18, 1989, page 1) on the efforts of Darrell Posey to preserve the Amazon environment and its distinctive native cultures is a timely illustration of the concern of professional scientists for those values. This is not to say, of course, that the actions taken by Posey are necessarily in the interest of all the parties to the controversies in which he has been involved.

Of note on the general subject of scientists and their concern for the environment, when John Steele was appointed recently to the Board of Directors of Exxon Corp., a number of environmental groups attacked the appointment on the grounds that Steele, according to the report in the New York Times, August 31, “was more of a scientist than an environmentalist.” This was the gist of a statement issued by...