Nicholas Wade Explained

Nicholas Wade
Birth Date:1942 5, df=yes
Birth Place:Aylesbury, England
Nationality:British
Education:Eton College
Alma Mater:University of Cambridge (BA)
Known For:A Troublesome Inheritance

Nicholas Michael Landon Wade (born 17 May 1942[1]) is a British author and journalist.[2] He is the author of numerous books, and has served as staff writer and editor for Nature, Science, and the science section of The New York Times.[3] [4]

His 2014 book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History was widely denounced by the scientific community for misrepresenting research into human population genetics.[5] [6]

In May 2021, Wade published an article in support of the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis,[7] contrary to the prevailing scientific view,[8] [9] [10] [11] and fueling controversy on the origins of the virus.[12]

Early life and education

Wade was born in Aylesbury, England[2] and educated at Eton College.[13] He is a grandson of Lawrence Beesley, a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic.[14] [15] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from King's College, Cambridge in 1964, and immigrated to the United States in 1970.

Career

Wade was a science writer and editor for the journals Nature from 1967 to 1971, and Science from 1972 to 1982.[16] In a 1976 article in Science, Wade documented the controversy surrounding E. O. Wilson's book :[17] portraying Wilson in a sympathetic light, and the opposing Sociobiology Study Group more critically.[18]

Wade's 1977 book, , covered the then new and controversial field of gene splicing.[19] His 1981 book, , described the competition between Andrew Schally and Roger Guillemin, whose discoveries regarding the peptide hormone led to them sharing the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. (1982), co-authored with William J. Broad, discusses historical and contemporary examples of scientific fraud. Wade joined The New York Times in 1982 as a staff and editorial writer,[2] was appointed science and health editor in 1990;[20] he left the Times in 2012.[21]

In the 2000s, Wade's books began to focus on human evolution. He released in 2006, which is about what Wade referred to as "two vanished periods" in human development, and The Faith Instinct in 2009, about the evolution of religious behaviour.[22] [23] In 2007, Before the Dawn received a Science in Society Journalism Award from the National Association of Science Writers.[24]

A Troublesome Inheritance

In 2014, Wade released , in which he argued that human evolution has been "recent, copious, and regional" and that genes may have influenced a variety of behaviours that underpin differing forms of human society.[25] The book has been widely denounced by scientists, including many of those upon whose work the book was based.[26] [27]

On 8 August 2014, The New York Times Book Review published an open letter signed by 139 faculty members in population genetics and evolutionary biology which read:

After publication, the letter was signed by four more faculty members. In response to the letter, Wade said these scientists had misunderstood his intent.

The book was further criticised in a series of five reviews by Agustín Fuentes, Jonathan M. Marks, Jennifer Raff, Charles C. Roseman and Laura R. Stein, which were published together in the scientific journal Human Biology.[28] Marks, for instance, described the book as "entirely derivative, an argument made from selective citations, misrepresentations, and speculative pseudoscience."[29] Biologist H. Allen Orr called the book "lively and generally serviceable", but said it was "not [...] without error", stating that Wade had overstated the evidence for recent natural selection in the human genome.[30]

COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis

In May 2021, Wade published a 10,000-word article on Medium and later in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled "The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?" in which he argued that the possibility that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered and had leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, couldn’t be dismissed.[31] [32] [33] Wade's article fuelled the controversy around the origins of the virus, and has become one of the most-cited pieces in support of the lab leak hypothesis.[34] Wade's argument is at odds with the prevailing view among scientists that the virus most likely has a zoonotic origin. While some experts have supported taking the lab leak possibility seriously, the majority consider it very unlikely, unsupported by available evidence and bordering on speculation.[35] [36] [10] [37] David Gorski of Science-Based Medicine described Wade's argument as a conspiracy theory.[38]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Wade, Nicholas 1942– . Encyclopedia.com . Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series . 28 July 2021 . 21 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211021173133/https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/wade-nicholas-1942 . live .
  2. Web site: Nicholas Wade . Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors . Farmington Hills, Mich. . Gale In Context: Biography . 17 November 2011 . GALEH1000102428 . subscription . 28 July 2021 . 14 March 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230314155111/https://galeapps.gale.com/apps/auth?userGroupName=&sid=bookmark-BIC&origURL=https%3A%2F%2Fgo.gale.com%2Fps%2Fi.do%3Fp%3DBIC%26u%3D%26id%3DGALE%7CH1000102428%26v%3D2.1%26it%3Dr%26sid%3Dbookmark-BIC%26asid%3D1cc43651&prodId=BIC . live .
  3. Web site: The Bookshelf talks with Nicholas Wade . Amos Esty . . 25 May 2006 . 25 October 2007 . https://web.archive.org/web/20071025044922/http://www.americanscientist.org/template/InterviewTypeDetail/assetid/51892.
  4. Gitschier . Jane . Turning the Tables—An Interview with Nicholas Wade . . 1 . 3 . 2005 . e45 . 1553-7390 . 10.1371/journal.pgen.0010045 . free . 16205791 . 1239940 .
  5. News: Callaway . Ewen . 8 August 2014 . Geneticists say popular book misrepresents research on human evolution . Nature newsblog . 31 May 2021 . 11 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210711184625/https://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/08/geneticists-say-popular-book-misrepresents-research-on-human-evolution.html . dead .
  6. News: Racism, the Misuse of Genetics and a Huge Scientific Protest . Michael . Hiltzik . Michael Hiltzik . . 12 August 2014 . limited . 15 April 2020 . 28 October 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191028193104/https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-huge-scientific-protest-20140812-column.html#page=1 . live .
  7. Web site: Wade . Nicolas . 2021-05-05 . The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora's box at Wuhan? . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220105230734/https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ . 5 January 2022 . 25 May 2021 . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
  8. News: Beaumont . Peter . 2021-05-27 . Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far . The Guardian . live . 27 May 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210601204151/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/27/did-covid-come-from-a-wuhan-lab-what-we-know-so-far . 1 June 2021.
  9. Hakim . Mohamad S. . 2021-02-14 . SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories . Reviews in Medical Virology . 31 . 6 . e2222 . 10.1002/rmv.2222 . 1099-1654 . 7995093 . 33586302 . free.
  10. Frutos . Roger . Gavotte . Laurent . Devaux . Christian A. . 18 March 2021 . Understanding the origin of COVID-19 requires to change the paradigm on zoonotic emergence from the spillover model to the viral circulation model . Infection, Genetics and Evolution . 95 . 104812 . 10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104812 . 1567-1348 . 7969828 . 33744401.
  11. Web site: COVID-19 Virtual Press conference transcript - 9 February 2021 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20210525140841/https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/covid-19-virtual-press-conference-transcript---9-february-2021 . 25 May 2021 . 2021-02-13 . www.who.int.
  12. Web site: Thorp . H. Holden . 2021-05-13 . Continued discussion on the origin of COVID-19 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20211022234635/https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/continued-discussion-origin-covid-19 . 22 October 2021 . 2021-06-23 . Science . Editor's Blog.
  13. News: Spirit level . 17 December 2009 . The Economist . 2018-02-14 . 1476-8860 . limited . 14 February 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180214142142/http://www.economist.com/node/15124974 . live .
  14. News: 'Titanic 2': Love Over A Ouija Board. The Canberra Times. January 4, 1998. NewsBank. 14 March 2023. 14 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230314155105/https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/user/login?destination=document-view%3Fp%3DAWNB%26docref%3Dnews/148A8CECDBC826F0. live.
  15. News: Wade . Nicholas . As Hundreds of Men Perished, One Ignored a Rumor to Survive . The New York Times . 9 April 2012 . 21 May 2022 . 9 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210709231904/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/science/beating-the-odds-to-survive-the-titanics-sinking.html . live .
  16. Web site: Nicholas Wade: Journalist & Science Author, Speaker PRH Speakers Bureau. www.prhspeakers.com. en-US. 2017-12-09. 30 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210630111755/https://www.prhspeakers.com/speaker/nicholas-wade. live.
  17. Wade . Nicholas . Sociobiology: troubled birth for new discipline . Science . 1976-03-19 . 191 . 4232 . 1151–1155 . 10.1126/science.11643305. 11643305 . 1976Sci...191.1151W .
  18. Currier . Richard . Sociobiology: The New Heresy . Human Behavior: The Newsmagazine of the Social Sciences . 5. 11 . November 1976 . 16–22. English.
  19. Web site: Shechter. Yaakou. 1977. The Ultimate Experiment: Man-Made Evolution. 2021-06-25. American Scientist. en. 17 August 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210817141859/https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-ultimate-experiment-man-made-evolution. live.
  20. News: Times Appoints a Science Editor . . 18 September 1990 . 6 November 2021 . 6 November 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211106230352/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/18/science/times-appoints-a-science-editor.html . live .
  21. Web site: Oral History . Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory . https://web.archive.org/web/20210627225753/https://www.cshl.edu/archives/institutional-collections/oral-history/. 27 June 2021.
  22. Book: Salevouris, Michael J.. The methods and skills of history : a practical guide. 2015. Conal Furay. 978-1-118-74544-1. 4. Chichester, West Sussex, UK. 273. 885229353. 15 May 2021. 14 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230314155151/https://www.worldcat.org/title/885229353. live.
  23. News: Shulevitz. Judith. 2009-12-24. The God Gene. The New York Times. 2021-05-15. 0362-4331. limited. 5 May 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210505122136/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/books/review/Shulevitz-t.html. live.
  24. Web site: September 13, 2007. Science-in-Society Journalism Award winners. 2021-06-25. National Association of Science Writers. 26 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210626001509/https://www.nasw.org/article/science-society-journalism-award-winners. live.
  25. Book: Wade, Nicholas. A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History. Penguin Publishing Group. 2014. 978-0698163799. New York.
  26. Web site: Coop . Graham . Eisen . Michael . Nielsen . Rasmus . Przeworski . Molly . Rosenberg . Noah . Letters: 'A Troublesome Inheritance' . The New York Times Book Review . 8 August 2014 . 25 September 2014 . We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade's conjectures. . Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics, Stanford University . 16 October 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20141016000438/http://cehg.stanford.edu/letter-from-population-geneticists/ . live .
  27. News: Balter . Michael . Geneticists decry book on race and evolution . Science . 8 August 2014 . 30 June 2022 . 6 August 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220806174908/https://www.science.org/content/article/geneticists-decry-book-race-and-evolution-rev2 . live .
  28. Human Biology: International Journal of Population Genetics and Anthropology Vol 86 Iss 3 . digitalcommons.wayne.edu . Summer 2014 . 10.13110/humanbiology.86.issue-3 . 24 July 2021 . 24 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210724005823/https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol86/iss3/ . live .
  29. Marks . Jonathan . 2014 . Review of A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade . Human Biology . 86 . 3 . 221–226 . 10.13110/humanbiology.86.3.0221 . 25 July 2021 . 24 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210724011655/https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol86/iss3/6/ . live . subscription .
  30. Orr . H. Allen . 5 June 2014 . Stretch Genes . New York Review of Books . 17 May 2014 . 18 May 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140518222825/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/05/stretch-genes/ . live .
  31. Web site: Wade . Nicolas . 2021-05-05 . The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora's box at Wuhan? . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20220105230734/https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ . 5 January 2022 . 25 May 2021 . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
  32. News: Mukunth. Vasudevan. 2021-05-12. In COVID Origins Storm, Fauci Denies US Funded Controversial Study in Wuhan. The Wire Science. 27 May 2021. 31 May 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210531014355/https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/in-covid-origins-storm-fauci-denies-us-funded-controversial-study-in-wuhan/. live.
  33. Web site: Eban. Katherine. 3 June 2021. The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19's Origins. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20210606201656/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins. 6 June 2021. 19 July 2021. Vanity Fair. Katherine Eban.
  34. Web site: 2021-06-08. Michael. Hiltzik. Michael Hiltzik. Column: A Nobel laureate backs off from claiming a 'smoking gun' for the COVID-19 lab-leak theory. 2021-06-23. Los Angeles Times. limited. 23 June 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210623134939/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-08/nobel-laureate-baltimore-smoking-gun-for-the-covid-lab-leak-theory. live.
  35. Web site: Ward . Myah . Rayasam . Renuka . 19 May 2021 . Experts weigh in on the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis . 2021-06-23 . Politico . Politico Nightly (newsletter) . 18 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210718011417/https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/05/19/experts-weigh-in-on-the-wuhan-lab-leak-hypothesis-492915 . live .
  36. Web site: Ling . Justin . 15 June 2021 . The Lab Leak Theory Doesn't Hold Up . 2021-06-23 . Foreign Policy . limited . 1 July 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210701220552/https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/15/lab-leak-theory-doesnt-hold-up-covid-china/ . live .
  37. Holmes. Edward C.. Goldstein. Stephen A.. Rasmussen. Angela L.. Robertson. David L.. Crits-Christoph. Alexander. Wertheim. Joel O.. Anthony. Simon J.. Barclay. Wendy S.. Boni. Maciej F.. Doherty. Peter C.. Farrar. Jeremy. September 2021. The origins of SARS-CoV-2: A critical review. Cell. 184. 19. 4848–4856. 10.1016/j.cell.2021.08.017. Jiang. Garry. Geoghegan. Jemma L.. Andrew. Rambaut. Robert F.. Kristian G.. Leibowitz. Andersen. Michael. Worobey. Susan R.. Weiss. Tim. Skern. Stuart J.D.. Neil. Julian L.. Xiaowei. 34480864 . 8373617 .
  38. Web site: David . Gorski . 2021-05-31 . The origin of SARS-CoV-2, revisited . Science-Based Medicine . 2021-06-23 . 1 June 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210601072923/https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-origin-of-sars-cov-2-revisited/ . live .

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