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posted by martyb on Monday June 22 2020, @02:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the R.I.P. dept.

Among other things, he covered the Apollo moon landings, the rise of recombinant DNA technology and the emergence of AIDS.

RIP David Perlman, the Dean of American Science Writing:

The world will sorely miss the wit and wisdom of David Perlman, long admired as the senior statesman of American science writing, who passed away on June 19, 2020, at age 101. He was born during the 1918 flu pandemic and died in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The former San Francisco Chronicle reporter and science editor emeritus was remarkable not only for his longevity—including more than seven decades in the news business—but for the extraordinary breadth of his coverage, from space shots to fossil remains, women's reproductive health and nuclear disarmament.

Dave's enthusiasm for each story was infectious; his curiosity about all things science was limitless. He entertained and informed generations of newspaper readers and inspired a cadre of American journalists to cover the wonders of science, as well as its influential—and sometimes controversial—role in modern society. I was one of the many "kiddos" fortunate enough to know Dave, first as a mentor and then as a lifelong colleague and friend.

I called him regularly, and, in recent months, he always answered with a cheerful, "I'm still alive." Wheelchair-bound in his longtime San Francisco home, Dave avidly followed newspaper and cable news coverage of the COVID-19 crisis. We reminisced about Tony Fauci, the widely admired government infectious disease guru on the White House Coronavirus Task Force who has often disagreed publicly with President Trump. We had both gotten to know Fauci while reporting on HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. "I hope he can survive under Mr. Trump. We are safer with him there," he said.

We also talked recently about one of the "greatest problems" facing American science: the rise of public denialism and its impact on all areas of research, from climate change to evolution. Those who distrust scientists and deny scientific findings "are increasing in power, and their voices are growing louder. That worries me a lot," he said, noting the damaging effect of President Trump's anti-science stance, particularly on climate science research.

When Dave retired in August 2017, at age 98, he "was thought to be the oldest full-time reporter in the U.S.," according to the Chronicle. Known in the newsroom as "Dr. Dave," his retirement party drew colleagues, friends, scientists, the late San Francisco mayor Ed Lee and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein. Dave began as a copyboy for the paper in 1940, after a starter newspaper job in Bismarck, North Dakota and also had a postwar newspaper stint in Paris before returning to the Chronicle. "I still get the Chronicle every day. I wouldn't miss it. And I will continue subscribing to the Chronicle until the day I die," he said in a 100th-birthday interview on the Chronicle's podcast The Big Event. With characteristic humor, he added, "Maybe there's a way of sending it to the afterlife; I don't know whether there is a posthumous edition. If there is, I will be reading it."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @03:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @03:19AM (#1010927)

    For example we still have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McPhee [wikipedia.org] but he may be part of a dying breed of "explainers" that really report on things, dig hard to get to the underlying facts.