Tom Bethell (July 17, 1936 – February 12, 2021) was an American journalist who wrote mainly on economic and scientific issues.

Life and career

Bethell was born and raised in London, England. He was educated at Downside School and Trinity College, Oxford. A resident of the District of Columbia, he lived in Virginia, Louisiana, and California. From 1962 to 1965 he taught math at Woodberry Forest School, Virginia. He was married to Donna R. Fitzpatrick of Washington, D.C. He was a senior editor of The American Spectator and was for 25 years a media fellow of the Hoover Institution. He was Washington editor of Harper's, and an editor of the Washington Monthly. In 1980, he received a Gerald Loeb Award Honorable Mention for Columns/Editorial for "Fooling With the Budget."

Jim Garrison investigation

Bethell was hired as a researcher by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison to assist with his prosecution of Clay Shaw for conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. Bethell gave no credence to Garrison's charges that Shaw was involved. Shaw was acquitted after the jury deliberated for about an hour.

Controversy

In 1976, Bethell wrote a controversial article for Harper’s Magazine titled "Darwin's Mistake". According to Bethell there is no independent criterion of fitness and natural selection is a tautology. Bethell also stated that Darwin's theory was on "the verge of collapse" and natural selection had been "quietly abandoned" by his supporters. These claims were disputed by biologists. The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote a rebuttal to Bethell's arguments. Bethell was a member of the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis, which denies that HIV causes AIDS. In The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (2005), he promoted denial of the existence of man-made global warming, AIDS denialism, and denial of evolution (which Bethell denied was "real science"). Bethell endorsed the intelligent design documentary-style film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Bethell died from complications of Parkinson's disease at his home in Washington, D.C. in February 2021, aged 84.

Selected publications

Articles Books Book contributions