I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
In its seeming never-ending quest to keep the alien myth alive, the Roswell Daily Record recently provided a breathless account of weird rock splatters found by a U.S. researcher and British writer near Socorro. Physicist R. Ronald Rau, one of the few scientists the discoverers have allowed to peruse their evidence, declared he saw signs of “high impact and high temperature yield” that could be caused by “a so-called ship to the surrounding area.” Hedging his bets, he divined that the source of that impact was a UFO “because the unknown source is unknown.”
Hmmm, some of us at the New Mexico Independent wondered (not marveled). So we made a quick inquiry of the sensible folks over at New Mexicans for Science and Reason. No one there has seen evidence of the “so-called ship,” but sagely pointed out that the intrepid discoverers (Ed Gehrman and Philip Mantle) were the same folks who were still defending that clumsy “alien autopsy” video as late as 2005.
Look, there’s a place for reckless boosterism and there’s quite another place for credible journalism. That’s why outfits like the Poynter Institute and the American Press Institute offer courses on math and science. (For a good time, take Poynter’s free e-course on math, with nifty quizzes that conjure PTSD shudders of that didn’t-study-for-an-algebra-test nightmare.)
The point is to treat polling data, health studies and scientific discoveries with care, not wide-eyed abandon.
Word to the good folks in Roswell: The truth is out there. And it isn’t necessarily other-worldly.
