Pseudo-history, and related issues

[john m roberts]

This is true across the board in academia. I've heard astronomers speak contemptuously of Carl Sagan and evolutionary biologists treat Stephen Jay Gould as a hack. Professional jealousy figures heavily in this. Anyone who writes best-sellers is a figure of contempt for those whose writings never reach a wide audience. They don't sass Stephen Jay Hawking, though, despite the popularity of his writing. He's a guy who bites back and they don't want to endure his withering scorn. There are hundreds of scientists today who chose science as their profession because they read Sagan or Gould as youngsters. Incidentally, Sagan himself said he got into planetary science because he was intrigued as a boy by the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Imagine some stuffy academician making such an admission now.