The Island of Doubt

A paper speculating on the mechanisms responsible for the origin of life on Earth gets retracted, 52 years after it was published. Why? Because the author, a secular chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, is tired of creationists using it to support their arguments against evolution.

How sad. In his letter to American Scientist, where the paper was published in 1955, Jacobson writes that he discovered some errors in his paper:

Retraction this untimely is not normally undertaken, but in this case I request it because of continued irresponsible contemporary use by creationists who have quoted my not merely out-of-context, but incorrect, statements, to support their dubious viewpoint. I am deeply embarrassed to have been the originator of such misstatements, allowing bad science to have come into the purview of those who use it for anti-science ends.

The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. [Homer] Jacobson ran a search for his name on Google. At age 84 and after 20 years of retirement, "I wanted to see, what have I done in all these many years?" he said. "It was vanity. What can I tell you?"

He found many entries relating to his work on compounds called polymers; on information theory, a branch of mathematics involving statistics and probability; and other subjects. But others were for creationist sites that have taken up his 1955 paper as scientific support for their views.

Darwinismrefuted.com, for example, says Dr. Jacobson's paper "undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident." Another creationist site, Evolution-facts.org, says his findings mean that "within a few minutes, all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of sloshing water," an impossible feat without a supernatural hand.

"Ouch," Dr. Jacobson said. "It was hideous."

...

So Dr. Jacobson's retraction is in "the noblest tradition of science," Rosalind Reid, editor of American Scientist...

His letter shows, Ms. Reid wrote, "the distinction between a scientist who cannot let error stand, no matter the embarrassment of public correction," and people who "cling to dogma."