Daniel Schacter's Letter: (*Note: Professor Schacter,an unassailably credible memory scientist and chair of Harvard's psychology department, said informally, re Stanton's piece, that he had "never seen my views so blatantly misrepresented." July 9, 1997 Columbia Journalism Review To the Editor: In "U-Turn on Memory Lane," Mike Stanton asserted that in my 1996 book, Searching for Memory, I say that "there is no conclusive evidence that false memories can be created." Because it is lifted out of context, this statement is misleading. I wrote that "there is no conclusive scientific evidence from controlled research that false memories of sexual abuse can be created -- nor will such evidence ever exist, because of ethical considerations (p.272)." Although there is considerable experimental evidence reviewed elsewhere in the book that false memories of nontraumatic events can be created, my point here was that it is not ethically permissible to carry out the type of experiment that could provide definitive evidence for false memories of sexual abuse. I wrote in the same paragraph that "several separate strands, when considered together, support the conclusion that some therapists have helped to create illusory recollections of sexual abuse (p. 272)." I enumerated seven different bases for this conclusion. Journalists can contribute to resolving the controversy over false and recovered memories by accurately representing the views of scientists. Daniel L. Schacter Professor and Chair of Psychology, Harvard University Cambridge, MA
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