Sir John Maddox: Think Global, Act Local

In this age of super specialization, journalists also find themselves being labelled as ‘science’, ‘environment’, ‘development’, ‘politics’, ‘film’, ‘health’, ‘defence’ journalists, etc. In the ‘science’ category one person that became a legend was Sir John Maddox.

Sir John, who is said to have reinvented science journalism, passed away on April 12.

The Economist pays tribute to his memory: “Sir John’s scientific rationalism, recalls David Dickson, a former news editor of Nature, led him into many controversial areas that further served to raise the magazine’s profile.

“He led an assault on AIDS denialists and their supporters at the Sunday Times, and ended up in disputes over homeopathy, cold fusion and with Rupert Sheldrake, a parapsychologist.” More here…