The Amateur Scientist - Forrest Mims

Forrest Mims

After Walker left, Scientific American decided to rededicate the column to hands-on projects and so they hired Forrest Mims III, a renowned writer of books for Radio Shack and an amateur scientist. However, during a conversation between Mims and the publisher, it came up that Mims was an evangelical Christian who rejects Darwinian evolution and advocated a creationist or intelligent design view of origins. Mims was later asked his views on abortion, and he replied that he was against it. Not wanting to be perceived as supporting Creationism, which is universally regarded as unscientific, Scientific American fired Mims. Mims charged religious discrimination, without success. In total three of Mims' columns were published, along with several letters to the editor (concerning his firing).

Although the incident didn't diminish Scientific American's commitment to the column, it did make them reluctant to hire another amateur scientist to write it. The publisher invited many potential columnists to submit individual articles, and some of these were published under "The Amateur Scientist." But the magazine was unable to find anyone with both professional credentials and the breadth of scientific interests necessary to recapture the popularity the column enjoyed under Stong and Ingalls. And without a regular columnist, the department languished, appearing only sporadically between 1990 and 1995.