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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

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Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#101

Post by Jensson »

defrost wrote: post #78
karaterobot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying the linked is meant to demonize science? The impression I got was that he was doing the exact opposite: saying that SciAm's editorial direction was harming the public perception of science, which could have far-reaching effects. I don't see that as an anti-science stance.

It doesn't make it clear that the author's issue appears to be solely with the editorial opinion pieces and thus feeds into trending mythology that "(modern) science is bad", has replication, DEI, woke, etc. crisis. This is the "old science" good, "new science" bad leaning that lends itself to ignoring climate costs and anything else that libertarians of various shades might object to.

What does diversity and trans and such have to do with climate science? They seem to be entirely separate topics.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#102

Post by keiferski »

devindotcom wrote: post #31

Every piece called out here is clearly labeled "opinion" - did they even read the normal news and analysis sections? Countless newspapers and outlets and actual scientific journals have opinion/editorial sections that are generally very well firewalled from the factual content. You could collect the worst hot takes from a few years of nearly any site with a dedicated opinion page and pretend that it has gone downhill…

The opinion pieces in pretty much every major newspaper are mixed in with the “factual” content, so for the average person reading, there is no difference. See for example “top links” sections, which include both.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#103

Post by fingerlocks »

watwut wrote: post #97
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does libertarianism take a position on transgender issues? (This seems to be one focus area of the article.) I can see the author has a strong view but I don't know how libertarianism informs it.

Libertarianism theoretically could go either way. Theoretically, do what you want with your bodies. However, libertarianias as they exist tend to be socially conservative - somehow they end up agreeing with GOP position on social issues. In this case, convervatives hate trans people, so libertarians too.

Libertarians, at least the ones that subscribe to Reason, are not socially conservative. Just read a few articles and this is very apparent.

The 2024 Libertarian Party Presidential candidate was a pro-trans gay man.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#104

Post by [deleted] »

taeric wrote: post #88
tptacek wrote: post #74

I want to be sympathetic to Singal, whose writing always seems to generate shitstorms disproportionate to anything he's actually saying, and whose premise in this piece I tend to agree with (as someone whose politics largely line up with those of the outgoing editor in chief, I've found a lot of what SciAm has posted to be cringe-worthy and destructive). But what is he on about here? Or that the normal distribution—a…

Agreed fully on the JEDI stuff. I was somewhat hoping it was from an April first issue. That was bad. And I thought I recognized the name. I really do not understand how trans debate has come to dominate some online discourse. I thought the complaint on the normal distribution was supposed to be claims that many things are not normally distributed? Which, isn't wrong, but is a misguided reason to not use the distribu…

[deleted]

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#105

Post by wk_end »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #73
leereeves wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree people should be aware of the bias of their sources (all of them), but there's no reason for anyone to be mistaken about Reason. (Please forgive the wording, I couldn't think of better.) Unlike many other sources, Reason doesn't pretend to be neutral. They admit: "Reason is the nation's leading libertarian magazine." https://reason.com/about/

Does libertarianism take a position on transgender issues? (This seems to be one focus area of the article.) I can see the author has a strong view but I don't know how libertarianism informs it.

Any serious libertarian would say it (like most things) is absolutely none of the government's concern, at least with regards to consenting adults. There's probably a range of views when it comes to kids, though. Conversely, they wouldn't be interested in having the government policing the treatment of trans people between private parties, so they'd oppose things like legislation that protects them (or anyone) from discrimination in hiring, as an example.

FWIW, the author - Jesse Singal - is a writer I've followed for a while. I like him a lot - I find him level-headed and intellectually honest. I don't think he'd characterize himself as a libertarian rather than a liberal, despite being published by Reason here. He's just a science writer who ended up on the "trans kids healthcare" beat and has written about it extensively. I think he'd characterize his position as just "a lot of medical treatments for kids are being pushed on [in his opinion] flimsy science for [in his opinion] ideological reasons"; and he'd say that this is a scientific position rather than a political one. Of course he takes a lot of crap for this, and of course he's also attracted a fanbase of bozos for this. But his writing, generally, deserves better than either.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#106

Post by KaiserPro »

Science has _always_ been political. On the front page a few days ago was the story of a bunch of physicists bitching at each other over what happened in WWI

I have a book from Scientific American from the 1960s that has a whole section removed for the british audience because it contained instructions on how to run experiments on bears. That is a political act.

But, seeing as how administrations of various colours have differing approaches to funding science, its pretty hard for "science" to be a-political. Trump has expressed "policy" for completely removing NOAA, which provides massive datasets for wider research. His track record isn't great on funding wider science either. So its probably legitimate to lobby for more funding, no? (did the editor actually lobby effectively, is a different question)

Now, should the editor of SA also take on other causes, probably not. But "science" has been doing that for year (just look at psychology)

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#107

Post by hnburnsy »

devindotcom wrote: post #31

Every piece called out here is clearly labeled "opinion" - did they even read the normal news and analysis sections? Countless newspapers and outlets and actual scientific journals have opinion/editorial sections that are generally very well firewalled from the factual content. You could collect the worst hot takes from a few years of nearly any site with a dedicated opinion page and pretend that it has gone downhill…

Not true, this is not labeled anywhere I can see as opinion, but does include an editors note to a suicide helpline, and a correction...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-puberty-...

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#108

Post by twixfel »

senderista wrote: post #6
refurb wrote: post #4

Yikes, quite the scathing article and example of a the politicization of science. “Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making proces…

"Trust the science" is the very antithesis of the scientific spirit. The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. If you treat scientists as some sort of infallible priesthood then you've missed the whole point of science.

Science is built on trust because in reality it’s not practical to check every single result in a paper. Often it’s literally impossible (e.g the result from a one of a kind, billion dollar machine).

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#109

Post by blessede »

taeric wrote: post #88
tptacek wrote: post #74

I want to be sympathetic to Singal, whose writing always seems to generate shitstorms disproportionate to anything he's actually saying, and whose premise in this piece I tend to agree with (as someone whose politics largely line up with those of the outgoing editor in chief, I've found a lot of what SciAm has posted to be cringe-worthy and destructive). But what is he on about here? Or that the normal distribution—a…

Agreed fully on the JEDI stuff. I was somewhat hoping it was from an April first issue. That was bad. And I thought I recognized the name. I really do not understand how trans debate has come to dominate some online discourse. I thought the complaint on the normal distribution was supposed to be claims that many things are not normally distributed? Which, isn't wrong, but is a misguided reason to not use the distribu…

> And I thought I recognized the name. I really do not understand how trans debate has come to dominate some online discourse.

Much of it is pushback against widespread ideological capture, and in particular the authoritarian idea that everyone else has to change and restrict their behavior to accommodate increasingly absurd and harmful requests from an overly demanding identity group.

Re: Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

#110

Post by bell-cot »

bashmelek wrote: post #5

To be honest, even 18 years ago, long before this editor in chief, I found Scientific American rather ideological. Maybe it got more obvious over time, but I don’t see its recent tone categorically different.

The problem is >40 years old. I was a subscriber in the early 1980's (when SciAm was still quite good), and recall them publishing one of Carl Sagan's articles on the dangers of nuclear winter.

Whatever the correctness of Carl's science, he was an astronomer. Not a subject-matter expert. And the the article was very clearly ideological. In an era when the political winds in Washington were blowing hard in the other direction.

I was rather younger then, but still recall thinking that SciAm's approach had thrown away any chance of appealing to the Washington decision-makers, controlling the nuclear weapons, for the feel-good (& maybe profit) of appealing to the left. Which seemed hard to reconcile with them actually believing the results they published, saying that humanity could be wiped out.

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