Colin McEnroe Show: Tracking Retractions

History's most famous scientific retraction was, according to legend, immediately retracted. That would be Galileo in 1633, when he was obliged by the Inquisition to retract his position that the Earth moves around the Sun.

Legend has it he muttered, as he left the chamber, Eppur si muove -- and yet it moves. This is probably not true -- he would have been risking death with that one mutter -- but we want to believe it's so. We want to believe the mechanism by which we recant or retract is valid.

You could argue that the notion of retracting what is false is an absolute necessity for a rational society. Which is why we don't do it very well in our current state. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent story of Shirley Sherrod who was wrongly maligned by a range of courses, including the NAACP. It called for retractions all around. Not sure anyone used that word.

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