Nicholas Wade


Nicholas Wade is a British author and journalist. He served as the staff writer for the Science Times section of The New York Times from 1982 to 2012. He is the author of the controversial book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History.

Early life and education

Wade was born in Aylesbury, England and educated at Eton College. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1964 where he was an undergraduate student of King's College, Cambridge.

Career

Wade emigrated to the United States in 1970. Wade has been a science writer and editor for the journals Nature, from 1967 to 1971, and Science, from 1972 to 1982. He joined The New York Times in 1982 and retired in 2012, but he freelances occasionally for his former employer. He had been an editorial writer covering science, environment and defence, and then an editor of the science section.
Two of his books deal with the more controversial aspects of scientific research. His 1980 book, The Nobel Duel: Two Scientists' Twenty-one Year Race to Win the World's Most Coveted Research Prize, described the competition between Andrew Schally and Roger Guillemin, whose discoveries regarding the peptide hormone led to them sharing the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. According to the Washington Post Book World, it "may be the most unflattering description of scientists ever written." ', co-authored with William J. Broad, discusses historical and contemporary examples of scientific fraud.
In 2014, Wade released , in which he argued that human evolution has been "recent, copious, and regional" and that genes may have influenced a variety of behaviours that underpin differing forms of human society. The book was criticised in the New York Times Book Review of Sunday 13 July; David Dobbs wrote that it was "a deeply flawed, deceptive, and dangerous book" with "pernicious conceits". Libertarian political scientist Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, praised it as scientifically valid, and predicted that opposition would be "fanatical" due to political correctness.
Over a hundred geneticists and biologists categorically dismissed Wade's view of race in a joint letter published in The New York Times on 8 August 2014:
Wade replied:
Other scientists claimed that Wade had misrepresented their research. Other books on human evolution by Wade include ', about what Wade has called the "two vanished periods" in human development, and The Faith Instinct, about the evolution of religious behaviour.

Personal life

Wade is the grandson of teacher and author Lawrence Beesley, a survivor of the RMS Titanic.