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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

reason.com

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

#121

Post by blessede »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #119
blessede wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many demands, but probably the most egregious is the insistence that males be incarcerated in women's prisons if they say they are women. Several states now have policy that enables this, and female prisoners have been sexually assaulted, raped and even impregnated as a result of this. More generally, this graphic has an astute depiction of the problem: https://i.ibb.co/ZcMWLvM/no.jpg

Is sexual assault in prison otherwise a particular concern of yours? I understand it's a massive issue affecting hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people, is activism on that broader issue how you came to be aware of this? Do you have a connection to any prisoner advocacy groups that have policy recommendations on this? I assume the sexual violence outcomes for trans women in mens prisons isn't very wonderful eit…

[flagged]

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

#122

Post by setgree »

itishappy wrote: post #20
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.

Any examples? I'm in the same boat as you, and while I agree with the premise, I don't recall anything as egregious as the examples from the article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/denial-of-evoluti... https://archive.is/H8hJw https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-term-jedi... https://archive.is/oMzz7

Bias might emerge as much in choice of topics to cover as in the tone of the coverage. On X, someone mentioned that Wired’s coverage in the past 5-10 years is striking for how little it discusses SpaceX, for example.

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

#123

Post by psychoslave »

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…

We also maybe have to deal with the common misconception that a fact proceeds somehow from an absolute objective perspective. But as far as humans are concerned, there are only human points of views grounded in human cognition and human interests. Some human points of views might try to encompass more than the direct individual own experience might otherwise limit to, sure, but that is still human endeavor.

Fact and factitious have a common Latin root for a reason.

Even the carefully engineered autonomous probe will only gather data according to some human conceptions of what matter to be recorded or dismissed, what should be considered signal rather than noise.

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

#124

Post by bsenftner »

resource_waste wrote: post #120
46307484 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do opinions need a place to go? Why can't we just demonize professionals who lack the ability to report factual content without mixing in their opinions as unfit to be writing?

When I was in my 20s, I believed you. Now that I'm in my 30s, I think we need a nanny police state making sure everyone is rational.

You can't make people rational after their education, that's the whole insanity of all this: education is the key, critical thought, not creating gullible fools. But religion and many political ideologies depend upon gullible people or they would not exist, so the powerful members of those tribes impel society (for the children!) to denigrate education to produce morons. The United States is filled with them, they may have graduate degrees but they can't logically identify a con man.

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

#125

Post by redeux »

Jensson wrote: post #101
defrost wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have to understand the current US culture context to understand the answer to that question.

Right wing propaganda outlets will often link topic like these with farcical statements similar to “from the people that brought you men in women’s’ bathrooms (trans) comes a demand that you get rid of your gas stove (climate change, indoor air health).”

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

#126

Post by psychoslave »

carabiner wrote: post #89
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…

Opinion: Astrology should be seriously considered... That label doesn't give carte blanche to publish non-scientific nonsense. Does it?

Well, that sounds like a very interesting theme to study scientifically indeed: what makes astrology such a resilient and widespread cultural practice in contemporary citizens?

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

#127

Post by strken »

46307484 wrote: post #117
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…

Why do opinions need a place to go? Why can't we just demonize professionals who lack the ability to report factual content without mixing in their opinions as unfit to be writing?

Because expert opinions are sometimes the only data available. "What will computer architecture look like in 20 years?" Clearly there's no factual content to answer that question, but I would argue that it's still an interesting question to ask an expert.

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

#128

Post by defrost »

Jensson wrote: post #101
defrost wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'd honestly have to ask the people that dislike modern science for it's acceptance of diversity, discussion of intersex genetics, publishing of climate science papers, and so forth.

They're vocal enough in forums about the place, near as I can tell these things are all harbingers of the decline and death of science as they know it.

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

#129

Post by bsenftner »

wrp wrote: post #34

I loved Scientific American as it was in the 1970s-80s, and was saddened to see what happened to it after around 2000(?), but I can see how having an editor like Helmuth would be a rational choice for the owners. The purpose of a commercial magazine is to generate income, and as Fox/CNN/NYT/Guardian realized, being objectively informative is a sub-optimal approach. I do wonder how we can ever again have something lik…

Relish the memory, it is gone and the civilization that supports such things is gone too. What we have today is a sad, sensationalist farce. We're entering a new Dark Age, and it is riding in on fascism.

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

#130

Post by strken »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #94
gopher_space wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most importantly, [the article] falsely claimed that there is solid evidence youth gender medicine ameliorates adolescent suicidality, when we absolutely do not know that to any degree of certainty. There's solid evidence youth gender medicine ameliorates suicidality. Cherry picking from a single study is dishonest.

And unscientific. To be clear - the accusation isn't SciAm was politicised, but that it was politicised in an ideologically unacceptable way. I doubt we'd hear a squeak of complaint if a new editor started promoting crackpot opinion pieces about how all research should be funded by markets instead of governments (because governments shouldn't exist), or that libertarianism is the highest form of rationality. I'll tak…

Did we read the same article? It literally has a section calling out RFK Jr, as follows:

> If experts aren't to be trusted, charlatans and cranks will step into the vacuum. To mangle a line from Archer, "Do you want a world where RFK Jr. is the head of HHS? That's how you get a world where RFK Jr. is appointed head of HHS."

What is this, if not an explicit call-out? I don't agree with or see a need to defend Reason very often, but what more do you want from them, here?

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