Thank you for Bruce V. Bigelow's article on amateur science (The Scientist, June 10, 1996, page 1). Prior to this century, most science was conducted by people with little or no formal scientific training. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, and Michael Faraday come to mind. Even today, a Ph.D. is not a prerequisite for making discoveries and publishing one's findings in peer-reviewed literature. A classic example is Donald Parker, a Florida anesthesiologist who spends his ev

Paul McCarthy's story about cryptozoologists (The Scientist, Jan. 11, 1993, page 1) left me wondering why these researchers are so scorned by other scientists and by funding agencies when evolutionary biologists engage in the same activity. McCarthy noted that French zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans coined the term "cryptozoology" to describe the study of unverified animals. Of course, that's what evolutionists do when they speculate about undiscovered transitional fauna in the fossil record. Rec

The July 22, 1991, issue of The Scientist [page 12] includes a letter from Thomas H. Jukes about my debate with Arthur Caplan over the cancellation of my assignment as a columnist for Scientific American (The Scientist, Feb. 18, 1991, page 11). Jukes poses a series of curious questions. Here are his questions and my responses: "According to creationists, fossils are bones of animals that drowned in the Great Flood, with the best swimmers on top. Does Mims agree?" I collect fossil insects, arac

For more than 20 years I dreamed of some day becoming the writer of "The Amateur Scientist," the popular column in Scientific American that inspired me to become a science writer. After my dream came true, Scientific American revoked my assignment to write the column because of my views on evolution and abortion. The controversy over my dismissal from "The Amateur Scientist" has been characterized by irony. Were he alive today, Rufus Porter, the founding editor of Scientific American, would be