180 Years of Standing Up for Science

I HAVE BEEN A SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN subscriber since I was 12 years old. I think if I could ask that kid if he expected to see his name in the magazine one day, he'd say yes, but he would be surprised to find it on this particular page and not in one of the stories of great discoveries that follow.

- David M. Ewalt

He wanted to grow up to be an astrobiologist and was certain the SETI program would discover an extraterrestrial radio signal soon; the only doubt he would have had was whether he'd be lead scientist in the subsequent SciAm article or only a junior member of the team.

Of course, SETI is still searching, and my name is on this page, not among the world's great scientists. But I could not be more thrilled and honored to introduce myself as Scientific American's new editor in chief.

I was lucky to grow up in a time when science was celebrated and great communicators told American children that science was not only a worthy career but also exciting and cool. I could turn the television to PBS and watch Carl Sagan in Cosmos or Alan Alda in Scientific American Frontiers; flip it to the news, and I'd see space shuttle liftoffs, high-temperature superconductors and the launch of the Human Genome Project.