Q -

"In the heat of the debate:"

The journal "American Scientist" is published weekly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and contains a lead article on advances in a particular field, written by a leading investigator, short reports by scientific teams and individuals on their ongoing research, etc.The short papers are followed up by the authors in their full publications.

This is an accurate description of Scientific American, which is where the Gottfred article appeared.

"Scientific American, the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., has been bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology for more than 150 years.

"SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is a member of a distinguished international publishing enterprise -- Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH."

While it is not a "peer reviewed professional journal" "Scientific American draws much of its content from such sources, and is respected as a reliable reporter on mainstream science to the general public. It is, however, a "journalistic product" rather than a "scientific journal" in the traditional sense.

The principal magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science is, I believe, called just Science.

The American Scientist magazine is published by "Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society." Some, but not all articles are "peer reviewed" prior to publication, and those that are not are clearly identified.

Any of the three would be a credible source, but in this case the article does come from Scientific American.

This is not an argument with the article. I've read it and find it contains much useful information. I've also checked some of the references it cites, and my assessment is that it is a "worthy input" here.

I'd suggest further, that some who've already commented about it should read it first. It's not all that long, although there are a couple of "big words" in it.

John