Shocking Racist Ideas Are Getting Treated as Science in Leading National Publications

By Steve Rendall

September 22, 2014 | Nicholas Wade was a leading New York Times science writer for three decades, at one point the editor of the “Science Times” section. He retired from full-time work at the paper in 2012, and in May 2014 published A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, a book that has been described as a full-throated defense of “scientific racism” (New Statesman, 5/20/14 [3]). Wade’s embrace of the pseudoscience of eugenics raises questions about his tenure at theTimes, and about corporate media vigilance when it comes to racism.

Media frequently fail to challenge racism in high places (FAIR Blog, 6/27/14 [4]) - in part because some highly placed corporate media figures are themselves attracted to racialist ideologies. Extra! (4/05 [5]) documented this after New York Times columnists David Brooks (12/7/04 [6]) and John Tierney (10/24/04 [7]) approvingly cited the work of Steve Sailer, a central figure in the promotion of racist and anti-immigrant theories.