The Shameful Decline of Scientific American • Hacker News Board

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#51

Post by emergentstate » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:22 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #34

> The normal distribution is not about default humans. It’s about the fact that in many statistical studies, the characteristics of the population tend to cluster around a mean. So if the average height of the human population is 5 foot 7, then most individuals will be around that height. NO!! This is known to be false. The average does not mean "most" measurements match the... mean. And it actually does happen that…

But the anecdote you're relating doesn't really say anything about the ability of a normal distribution to describe a population. It's just a natural consequence of having a high-dimensional multivariate distribution without accounting for correlation or covariance, along with a low sample size. If you have 4,063 pilots and you take the middle 30% of ten (assumed independent) factors, you're looking at 0.3^10 * 4,063 = 0.02 people who actually fall into that bin, on average -- it's more a dimensions game than anything profound.

That's not to refute the anecdote's takeaway, but the same reasoning doesn't apply to a unidimensional unimodal distribution.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#52

Post by 01100011 » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:23 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #36

What can I put in my house today that will let my children discover science and physics the way Scientific American let me discover them as a teenager?

For kids, I like some of the National Geographic books. They were a big part of my early nerding 40 years ago and they still seem to make some good books. The other big thing for me was an Encyclopedia Brittanica set, but I suppose that's ancient tech nowadays.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#53

Post by 01100011 » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

kerneloftruth wrote: post #3

I keep hoping that we reach and pass Peak Woke, but I think we're still not there. Journalism (capital J) has been thoroughly damaged by it, as is evident in so many magazines, newspapers, sites, channels, etc. I'm optimistic that there will be a renaissance of objective Journalism, and eager for it to happen.

We've been in the woke phase for 30 years now. I don't think it's going anywhere, at least as long as Western culture remains dominant.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#54

Post by selimthegrim » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:27 AM UTC

mperham wrote: post #38

modeless wrote: post #36

What can I put in my house today that will let my children discover science and physics the way Scientific American let me discover them as a teenager?

Scientific American? Just because this post had issues with one article doesn’t invalidate the entire periodical.

Their blogs where they interview a mathematician are still good.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#55

Post by 300bps » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:29 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #36

What can I put in my house today that will let my children discover science and physics the way Scientific American let me discover them as a teenager?

I highly recommend watching the new Cosmos with Neil Degrasse Tyson. When it first came out I made a big production of it with my kids. They got to eat popcorn and drink soda while we all watched the series together.

They (and I) still look back on it fondly.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#56

Post by intrasight » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #39

throwawaysea wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have been reading a lot more from alternative sources such as the ones you mentioned. I also would say that the democratization of journalism is really important today because of the politicization of so many institutions, including virtually all traditional media outlets like Scientific American. The threat to heterodox thinking isn’t especially new either - Quillette recently reposted an interview of E…

The SA article was terribly written and argued, but Wilson's own words in that interview greatly increased my sympathy for Wilson's critics who were suspicious of sociobiology. Wilson severely underplayed the connection between sociobiology and eugenics and Nazism that came before. "I'm just doing science" is a weak defense when the science is something so adjacent to what had just recently been used to murder 10mill…

You can and should be suspicious of any science. But you should not claim that science murdered 10 million people. A truly evil regime murdered those people.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#57

Post by zo1 » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

imiric wrote: post #30

Georgelemental wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many employers wokeness is a legal requirement. If they don't make all the right noises suddenly they get sued for "hostile workplace environment" and have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars. This happened to Tesla a few months ago: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/tesla-must-pay-137-million-t...

> colleagues used epithets to denigrate him and other Black workers, told him to “go back to Africa” and left racist graffiti in the restrooms and a racist drawing in his workspace. This sounds like plain racism, nothing to do with wokeness.

I skimmed the article, and I can't tell if he was able to prove that they actually said those things (like a recording or email or corroborating witnesses). Otherwise I will go on a limb and say this person 100% made it up...because "wokeness".

Also:

"[...] three other witnesses (all non-Tesla contract employees) testified at trial that they regularly heard racial slurs (including the n-word) on the Fremont factory floor [...] they also agreed that most of the time they thought the language was used in a ‘friendly’ manner and usually by African-American colleagues."

Sounds like black-people making the workplace non-White friendly. Didn't see anybody sueing because of that...because lets be honest, "wokeness" is racist against white people.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#58

Post by finite_jest » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

imiric wrote: post #30

Georgelemental wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many employers wokeness is a legal requirement. If they don't make all the right noises suddenly they get sued for "hostile workplace environment" and have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars. This happened to Tesla a few months ago: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/tesla-must-pay-137-million-t...

> colleagues used epithets to denigrate him and other Black workers, told him to “go back to Africa” and left racist graffiti in the restrooms and a racist drawing in his workspace. This sounds like plain racism, nothing to do with wokeness.

Obviously no one should be harassed at their workplace. However, the wokeness here is manifested in the $130 million the California jury has awarded. Even the infamously excessive "hot coffee lawsuit" [1] looks unimpressive compared to this.

I'm sure many of us would already be retired if we could claim even a fraction of that for every time we are treated poorly.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaura...

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#59

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

NOVA has been undergoing a similar decline.

The latest episode was about the nanoarchitecture of butterfly wings, which is a fascinating topic.

A researcher mimicked the nano structure onto a piece of metal, a disk the size of a nickel, which is so hydrophobic that two disks close to each other would float, as it had essentially a bubble trapped between them.

The subtext of the show was about "combating climate change". So the narrator ludicrously suggests that it could be used to create floating cities because global water levels are rising.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#60

Post by zo1 » Sun, Jan 16, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #35

thelettere wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right but at the same time all the evidence points towards the benefit of one's own disposition being biased towards responsibility and choice. External locus of control and learned helplessness are not fun states of mind, and an emphasis on external factors tends to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Particularly of course when this focus gets "in the air" and becomes an integral part of the culture. Which, i…

You're missing the fact that an individual's disposition and choice isn't entirely a creation of their own. Otherwise you'd see a random distribution of dispositions, rather than very different dispositions based on cultural context. The rest of your statements are vague and hand-wavy, and I'm not sure how to respond.

Not OP. Of course the two systems interact and feed eachother. The parent said the same thing, adding that linking the two too much causes a feedback loop only because we let it. I.e. letting the "victim to the system" become part of the culture, ingraining it and adding even more effect of the system over individual action.

We are forever intertwined with our environment. The only way to untangle it is to pick one guiding principle. I choose personal responsibility as it's the only way to stop perpetuating victimhood and suffering across generations.