American Scientist

To the Editors:

Robert Dorit’s recent piece "The Superorganism Revolution" (Perspective, September–October) contains an error. He quotes an amusing rejection letter supposedly written to Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in the 17th century as if it was real—when in fact the scientist and writer Chet Raymo wrote it in 1992 as a spoof. It is a tribute to Raymo’s writing skill that several writers other than Dorit have also been taken in, although unfortunate that the editors of American Scientist were as well.

Tom Hager
Eugene, OR

Dr. Dorit responds:

My last column indeed begins with a quotation purportedly taken from a rejection letter received by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek from the Royal Society. I learned about that quotation from a trusted colleague early in my career, and have since seen it cited in other works, including Richard Lockshin’s 2007 book The Joy of Science. As Hager points out, the quotation is not the response of the Royal Society to van Leeuwenhoek, but instead a well-crafted 20th-century parody penned by Chet Raymo, a physicist and science writer, in a column he originally wrote for the Boston Globe. When I wrote that the purported letter of rejection would have been "better left unwritten," little did I realize that, in fact, it had been.

The accuracy of all my work is paramount to me, and I regret that this mistake evaded my scrutiny. The fact that the quote has been cited repeatedly in legitimate sources made it appear genuine, but neither its repetition nor its ready availability make it true. I should have followed the quotation back to its source. Fortunately, the inauthenticity of this rejection letter has nothing to do with the thrust of my article, nor with the remainder of it.

One of the pleasures of writing this column is the opportunity to interact with readers, and several, among them Hager and Joseph Fineman, were kind enough to point out my error and direct me to the origins of this spoof. I am grateful to them for the correction, as I am to Fiona Keates at the Royal Society, for confirming that no such letter can be found in the society’s archives.

A corrected version of my column is posted on the American Scientist website.

Editors’ note:

We regret the error and have corrected it in the online version.