A letter to the PNAS editor which will never be published

“Starting out the year 2021 by looking back at the year 2020 might seem like an exercise in masochism, given the horrific loss of life, the untold economic hardships, the resurgence of white supremacy across the country“

As a good friend and college and grad school classmate of Nick Cozzarelli who edited PNAS for 10 years, I find this statement by the current PNAS editor — May Berenbaum, unhelpful, unscientific and frankly appalling. Had Nick not been taken from us far too soon in 2006 by Burkitt’s lymphoma, he’d likely be editing PNAS still. Does the editor’s statement rank with any of Nick’s work on DNA gyrase or DNA topology?

It is an exercise in the religion of political correctness, showing adherence to its current catechism, for political correctness and wokeness is nothing but a religion for the secular.  In our town expressions of faith abound on front lawns complete with statues of the virgin and signs proclaiming “we believe in science’. There really is no difference.

How a hack like Berenbaum got to be editor is beyond me, given the women scientists of great stature around (Doudna, Ghez, Randall).

Is Nick — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_R._Cozzarelli — an example of white supremacy? Nick’s father was an immigrant shoemaker from Jersey City and Nick worked his way through Princeton waiting on tables in commons.