An Attempt at Censorship Costs Journal an Apology and $10,000

Dr. Granville Sewell is a tenured professor in mathematics at the University of Texas, El Paso who has published three books and has over 40 peer-reviewed articles to his credit. But when he wrote a paper questioning aspects of the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy, he found that his peer-reviewed and accepted paper was pulled by the Journal of Mathematical Letters. This despite that fact that the journal’s own editorial policy is that “acceptance of an article cannot be rescinded once an author has been notified of its acceptance, and accepted articles are supposed to be withdrawn only ‘under exceptional circumstances’ such as fraud, errors, ethics violations, and the like.” Read what John West of Discovery Institute had to say here.

Although AITSE takes no official stance on Dr. Sewell’s paper, we do support good science, based on impartial evaluation of evidence, not enforced consensus. We are glad that the offending journal apologized to Dr. Sewell for their actions and that they paid his attorney’s fees, but are disappointed that they still chose not to reinstate the article in the print publication. Is this academic freedom?