Master’s Tea
About John Tierney
John Tierney writes a science column, Findings, for the New York Times. Before joining the Times in 1990, he wrote for a variety of publications, specializing in science.
Mr. Tierney wrote about New York in a column, The Big City, which ran in the Times Magazine and in the Metro section from 1994 to 2002. He was based for the next five years in Washington, where he wrote the Political Points column during the 2004 campaign and then wrote a column for the Op-Ed page. He returned to New York in 2007 to write the science column, which appears in the Science Times section on alternate Tuesdays.
He is the author of The Best-Case Scenario Handbook (Workman Publishing, 2002), which explains, among other things, how to deal with a broken ATM spewing cash, how to accept the Nobel Peace Prize and even how to cope with a polite teenage child. Tierney is also the co-author, with Christopher Buckley, of the comic novel, God Is My Broker: A Monk Tycoon Reveals the 7 ½ Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth. A parody of self-help books, it tells the story of Brother Ty, a failed Wall street trader who becomes a monk and rescues his impoverished monastery by receiving stock tips from God. It has been translated for editions in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Mr. Tierney has written about controversies in science and medicine, such as the prosecution of doctors for prescribing pain medication, and about environmental issues. His 1990 article in the Times Magazine, “Betting the Planet,” describing a wager about natural resources between the economist Julian Simon and the ecologist Paul Ehrlich, has been widely cited and reprinted. His 1996 article, “Recycling Is Garbage,” which called recycling one of the most wasteful activities in America, attracted a record number of letters from readers of The Times Magazine.
Prior to joining the Times, Mr. Tierney was a contributing editor to Discover and Health magazines, a staff writer at Science 81-85 magazine, a reporter for the Washington Star and the Bergen Record, and a free-lance writer. His reporting took him to six continents, and he published articles in The Atlantic, Esquire, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Reason, Rolling Stone, Washington Monthly, Playboy, Outside, Reader’s Digest, National Geographic Traveler, Vogue, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Mr. Tierney has won awards from American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Physics and the New York Publishers Association.
He graduated in 1976 from Yale University, where he majored in American Studies. He was an editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine.
Mr. Tierney was born on March 25, 1953, is married and has one child. He lives in Brooklyn.