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The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

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Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#141

Post by jimkleiber »

ayngg wrote: post #106
jimkleiber wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment has me wondering about history and whether such previous drastic changes in communication technology have also brought waves of censorship, both by others and by ourselves. For example, with radio, the telephone, or even the printing press. In other words, not only the ability to publish/broadcast, but to have people reply to your publishing or broadcasting. I also wonder if we somehow adapt to it as we…

A similar thread could be the proliferation of literature meant to help identify and condemn witches with the invention of the printing press, which greatly influenced the witch hunt moral panic that followed. In contrast, telephones don't amplify messages in the same way, and radio had the drawback of being temporary since broadcasts couldn't easily be recorded and distributed like pamphlets and books.

Oh yeah, the witch hunts! Such an experiment through which we're living, giving people megaphones to communicate to almost anyone on the planet, whether 1-to-1, 1-to-few, or 1-to-many. And as you said, have it be recorded! What I'm typing here from my kitchen table will be sent 'round the world to however many people who are reading now...but will continue to be sent to those people for as long as this website exists and gets indexed by search engines...or longer if it gets picked up by an archive service. For negligible cost to me, practically free. Goodness.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#142

Post by ars »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #128
ars wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really is that bad. I've been reading Scientific American for decades, I no longer do, it's gotten that bad. I can even pinpoint when they passed the road of no return - it's when they mixed politics with science here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-are-living-in-... and https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientific-americ... here. That was when I realized they didn't care about actual s…

You can't really argue about backing anyone other than Trump, his presidency was a cess pool and almost ended the US as the oldest democracy in the world. They were just calling out fascism for what it is. There will always be a place for that in any magazine.

That just makes it even worse - why do they even bother backing his opponent in that case? Why do they feel a need to do this?

I [used to] read it for science, not politics.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#143

Post by sofixa »

smitty1e wrote: post #79
garyrob wrote: post #66

Something like 15 years ago I was at a conference and happened to sit at lunch table with a top editor of Scientific American. (Maybe the top one at the time, I don't remember.) I had been an enthusiastic subscriber for many years and still subscribed at that point, although I was concerned that it seemed to be dumbing itself down. I mentioned that to the editor. I forget the exact words I used, but they were an atte…

> the magazine had to have an audience They could have opted to bring the audience up to the magazine. But that is The Road Not Taken.

As if a magazine can force or entice people to have an interest in complex(-ish) scientific news. Science isn't "cool", and there's so much things available to do out there, which is easy to consume ( even on the same subject). It makes sense they tried to adapt

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#144

Post by thrill »

dtgriscom wrote: post #108

In the 70s I was an avid SciAm reader. I loved the monthly "Amateur Scientist" column, "conducted" by C. L. Stong. Lots of detailed technical info about how to make a seismometer, a nitrogen laser, an electron microscope, antibubbles, etc. etc. etc. I have the Amateur Scientist 3.0 CD-ROM, including columns from 1928 to 2001, and I just pulled out an October 1974 column, "Electrostatic Motors Are Powered By Electric…

Brilliant - reminds me of the detailed self-typed (whiteout and all) reply I got from John Glenn many years ago.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#145

Post by hazbot »

bawolff wrote: post #118
dehrmann wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to call out that quote. Apparently this is the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_McLemore Only half of the story is Scientific American going downhill. The other half is that social activism creeping into science. A professor and researcher, regardless of if they're a social activist, shouldn't disparage statistics like that. It's also troubling that she either 1) understands statistics that po…

I believe social activism should be entertwined with science - we should use science to make the world a more just and fair place, and we should look to human misery as inspiration for things we can study and improve. However, twisting scientific terms by using double meanings of terms that have differing colloquial meanings like the scientific american does, doesn't accomplish that and helps nobody.

Also your approach is more honest than saying ‘keep science apolitical’.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#146

Post by jimkleiber »

mmaunder wrote: post #133
andrew_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see small, walled groups with vibrant and varied discussion re-emerging. I hear about new small groups/chats constantly; I'm a party to several. Discussion within is without fear of consequence, ideas are discussed objectively and in earnest. Disagreements are expected and welcome. Sometimes tempers flare but mutual respect is not lost and empathy is high. The soup of the day is candor, and it's delicious. It's a m…

Where? For the love of rational thinking, where???

That's what I'm wondering as well. On which platforms? Group chats? Discord? Discourse? One I've never heard?

I ask because I've been flirting with the idea of having more closed off groups, playing with using Discourse for it, as it's a self-hosted platform and I can tweak plugins/themes and close it off to the public. But I'm open to others, and more so, really just curious to learn about some of these communities, how or why they've chosen the level of exclusivity/inclusivity that htey have, etc.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#147

Post by maxlybbert »

bmitc wrote: post #96
ribs wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium is where the piece we’re talking about was posted - “The Shameful Decline…”. While the article in SA does seem appalling, I don’t see this single article’s publication as justification for this broad indictment of SA. It’s concerning, yes. But it’s ONE ARTICLE, and that’s all the piece talks about. OP may well be right, but they haven’t shown it by the citing of ONE ARTICLE.

I was not and am not commenting on the Medium article. I was referring to the Scientific American article. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-complicated-l... For me, it's enough to think something is seriously wrong there at Scientific American. The more I think about it, the more the article makes little sense to me. I can't even understand what it has to do with E.O. Wilson. The timing of the article w…

It’s common for a media company to have a file and even a pre-written obituary for famous people. That way there’s no need to cobble together an obituary hours after getting word that, say, Steve Jobs has died.

I take it that Scientific American didn’t have a pre-written obituary for E.O. Wilson.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#148

Post by john_moscow »

twofornone wrote: post #134
weeblewobble wrote: post #129

The opinion piece in question ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-complicated-l... ) strikes me as a restrained and sober attempt to explore the possibility that Wilson and others did bad science by presuming differences between races were due to genetics. Maybe you think the piece is wrong but it's just someone expressing some ideas, it's not intended to incite the woke mob or whatever. If anything, the…

>presuming differences between races were due to genetics Its not a farfetched presumption that natural selection continued after the emergence of the homo sapien species. What is less likely is the notion that evolution magically stopped above the shoulders while geographically distinct human groups spent thousands of generations adapting physically, culturally, and likely cognitively to drastically different enviro…

>What is less likely is the notion that evolution magically stopped

Well, the problem is that the science stopped being about "what is more likely" and turned into "what is more pleasant to hear to an average person". Back in the times of physical magazines and written letters, reading a scientific article required non-trivial effort, that worked as a sort of a selection bias, ensuring that the reader would be sufficiently educated, professional and open-minded [1]. These days, finding racism everywhere has become the claim for fame and meaning of life for too many people, so we all now have to take it into account.

The funny part is that genetically were are very similar to the cave people some 50K years ago, and the huge difference in life quality is caused purely by what we learn, what values we teach to our kids, and where we pick our role models. Any genetic differences between races would pale in comparison to something you can learn in your lifetime. But this baby has somehow been thrown out with the water - one side is now convinced that all problems of certain demographics are unfixable and are caused by genetics, the other side attributes 100% of them to an unquantifiable oppressor and thinks that burning books and renaming formulas will somehow solve them, but nobody actually wants to put effort developing personality traits and habits that actually help a person achieve success in life.

[1] as in "willing to examine weird-looking ideas from a rational standpoint, even if they personally don't like them" as opposed to "supporting the politically expected ideas even if they contradict the rational approach"

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#149

Post by monkeybutton »

01100011 wrote: post #52
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.

Speaking of National Geographic, I just let my subscription lapse and have no intention of renewing it. I used to love their longer articles but now they've just been getting less and less engrossing. Sometimes I wonder if it is me that has gotten depressed, and uninterested in reading them. But then I look at other aspects of my life and realize that no, its not me, its their content that has gotten depressing and uninteresting.

Re: The Shameful Decline of Scientific American

#150

Post by mjklin »

smitty1e wrote: post #79
garyrob wrote: post #66

Something like 15 years ago I was at a conference and happened to sit at lunch table with a top editor of Scientific American. (Maybe the top one at the time, I don't remember.) I had been an enthusiastic subscriber for many years and still subscribed at that point, although I was concerned that it seemed to be dumbing itself down. I mentioned that to the editor. I forget the exact words I used, but they were an atte…

> the magazine had to have an audience They could have opted to bring the audience up to the magazine. But that is The Road Not Taken.

“The foolish crowd is accustomed to place an equal value on the good and the bad: I give it the worst, for that is what it praises.” In this manner a writer of indecent farces was wont to excuse his errors and a sly poet who heard him answered in the following way: A master gave straw to his humble ass and said to him: “Take this, since with this you are content.” He said this so many times that one day the ass became angry, and answered, “I take what you are willing to give me but, unjust man, do you think that I like nothing but straw? Give me grain and you will see whether I eat it.” Let those who work for the public know that perhaps they blame the public in vain, for if it eats straw when they give it straw, when they give it grain, it eats grain.

Tomás de Iriate, Spanish (1750-1791)

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