John Maddox

Sir John Royden Maddox (27 November 1925 – 12 April 2009) was a Welsh theoretical chemist, physicist, and science writer. He was an editor of Nature for 22 years, from 1966 to 1973 and 1980 to 1995.

Quotes

• It's unnecessary to introduce magic into the explanation of physical and biological phenomena when in fact there is every likelihood that the continuation of research as it is now practiced will indeed fill all the gaps that Sheldrake draws attention to.
  • About Rupert Sheldrake's book A New Science of Life, in a BBC interview, 1994.
• This century has been so rich in discovery and so packed with technical innovation that it is tempting to believe that there can never be another like it. That conceit betrays the poverty of our collective imagination.
  • Introduction of What remains to be discovered: mapping the secrets of the universe, the origins of life, and the future of the human race. Martin Kessler Books. 1998. p. 1. ISBN 068482292X. 

Quotes about Maddox

• John Maddox, the editor of Nature... retired in 1995. In August of that year, Maddox wrote an editorial entitled "Is the Principia Publishable Now?" in which he questioned whether or not Newton would get his ideas published today, given the current practice of peer review. Maddox speculates on what a reviewer would have written on receiving the script... He toys with the idea that Huygens (a contemporary... and opponent of Newton's ideas) would have written caustically about the gravitation ideas of Newton—"by what means, pray, does the author fancy that this magic can be contrived over the great distance between the Sun and Jupiter and without the lapse of time?"
  • Al Kelly, Challenging Modern Physics: Questioning Einstein's Relativity (2005)