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- FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 4
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- Our end-of-the-year covers over the past two decades have
- been a fairly eclectic mix of both the sacred (Mother Teresa, the
- Virgin Mary) and the profane (Big Cars, Bart Simpson). Breaking
- news provided the selections in between. This year our cover is
- temporal . . . that is, scientific, but with God undeniably in
- the details. It is a rigorous examination of how science and
- religion are intersecting at the end of the century, how the
- achievements of modern science just might be reinforcing
- religious faith rather than undermining it. To pull off such a
- challenging assignment, we chose Robert Wright, a science writer
- whose column "The Information Age" for The Sciences magazine won
- the 1986 National Magazine Award for essays and criticism.
- Wright, now a senior editor at the New Republic, has benign
- memories of his first experience as a writer for TIME. "The
- editors were astonishingly tolerant of my stylistic
- idiosyncrasies," he says. "I had assumed I would be brutalized,
- but I wasn't." While calling himself "a fairly hard-core
- scientific materialist," Wright adds, "but I do like to think
- there is more to this universe than meets the eye." In somewhat
- the same vein, one admiring critic has described him as "a
- science writer fighting off a nasty case of existential dread."
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- Our intent, of course, is not to define Wright's beliefs
- but to help readers understand the evolving relationship
- between the spiritual and empirical worlds. To help that
- process, associate editor Richard N. Ostling has written a piece
- accompanying the main story that tells of working scientists of
- various faiths who are perfectly willing to affirm their belief
- in God the Creator.
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- At the end of each year since 1927, we at TIME have named
- the Man of the Year, that person who, for better or worse, has
- had the most impact on the year's events. For an advance (and
- very inside) briefing on the 1992 choice, tune to CNN on
- Saturday, Dec. 26, at 9 p.m. EST. "It is our mission," says CNN
- executive producer Stacy Jolna, "to keep TIME's secret safe and
- to translate the Man of the Year cover story into a compelling
- television production." Working with Jolna was a special "SWAT
- team" of half a dozen secret operatives who spent the past three
- weeks culling the best sound and pictures from thousands of
- hours of videotape to put together this year's show. Viewers
- will learn not only the identity of the 1992 Man of the Year
- but also how he (or she) was selected and who the runners-up
- were.
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