Vanity Fair magazine (as in Bonfire of the) recently published a hit piece on Frederick Seitz. Nick Shulz comments at TechCentral Station:
Frederick Seitz, the former president of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and the former President of Rockefeller University, the highly regarded New York-based research institute. Seitz is emeritus professor at Rockefeller
…the magazine is trying to blacken permanently the reputation of Seitz, one of America’s highly regarded scientists, for not toeing the fashionable line on global warming.
…What’s strange is that the NASA scientist Jim Hansen — most famous of late for claiming he has been muzzled by the Bush administration for raising his concerns about climate change — would participate in the attack on Seitz. Hansen participated in a press conference this week with Hertsgaard and activists from a green group during which they announced the startling “revelation” about Seitz. When a noted government scientist participates in the sort of character assassination attempted on Dr. Seitz, something is truly rotten in the state of American science.
Vanity Fair’s attempt to vilify Frederick Seitz is what you might expect from a magazine that breathlessly promotes such gurus as Julia Roberts, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Daryl Hannah, Martin Short, and Bette Midler – who among them possess a single B.A. (University of Wisconsin-Superior) in international marketing of fitness and business administration – as environmental policy experts.
The Other Club post, The heat goes on, mentioned another distinguished scientist’s comment regarding ad-hominem attacks on scientists who disagree with statist conventional wisdom that “Global Warming is a more serious threat than terrorism.”
These celebrities are certainly entitled to hold such opinions, but that Vanity Fair thinks anybody should care is indicative that Vanity Fair is aptly named, and a sad comment on its readers’ intelligence.
H/T Amy Ridenour