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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

#131

Post by pjc50 »

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.

Libertarians have a "my body my choice" position for things like raw milk and vaccines, and a "no you shouldn't be allowed that" position for abortion and hormones, because they've ended up on the rightwing side of the culture war.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by standardUser »

I sympathize with her. There's a big movement in this country that defines itself largely by opposing what its perceived enemies support. When science (or culture) makes a reasonably sound assertion, and it's met with an opposition that wields rhetoric like a weapon with no regard for rationality, it's tempting to fight fire with fire. And when the victims of that opposition are among the most marginalized in society, it's easy to feel like you have the moral high ground.

Maybe in culture it's ok to fight dirty and stretch some truths in order to force newer perspectives into the zeitgeist. Maybe it's even neccesary when the opposition is willing to lie outright, and loudly, as a first resort. But that doesn't work with science. Even if the motivations are pure, it's destined to backfire. It should backfire. Science itself is under assault and losing its ability to hold together some semblance of a shared reality. If people start to believe that science is just as corruptible as journalism because of shitty science journalists, we're fucked.

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

#134

Post by FrustratedMonky »

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?

Warp Drive is impossible? So never ever write about it or you are an evil person spreading false information?

Speculation is also about looking to the future, 'what might be possible'. These are opinions.

And. 'A Lot' of people confuse raw data with 'facts'. Every single paper or news report is taking 'raw data' and 'figuring out what it means'.

So, there is always bias, but also it is impossible to report anything without trying to 'infer' information out of the raw data. There is no such thing as 'just report the facts'.

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

#135

Post by jhbadger »

KaiserPro wrote: post #106

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 h…

>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.

I think you'd need a bit more evidence for that being "political". A far more plausible reason for the removal is that Britain doesn't have bears to any degree (there have been isolated sightings but most think they've been extinct there for over 1000 years).

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

#136

Post by bapsfan »

If anyone is interested, there's some discussion of this piece on the subreddit of the Blocked and Reported podcast (which is co-hosted by Jesse Singal, the author of this article):

https://old.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1gult0b...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlockedAndReported/comments/1gult0b...

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

#137

Post by Nevermark »

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…

Informed opinion, clearly labeled so, on interesting but non-controversial non-ideological topics can be great instigators of curiosity.

What might have come before the Big Bang?

Do quantum superpositions really collapse somehow based on some as yet uncharacterized law, or does our universe produce a web of alternate futures, still connected but where straightforward links are quickly statistically and irreversible obscured?

There is a science friendly basis for interesting opinions of particular experts, in areas of disagreement or inconclusive answers, when clearly labeled as opinion, whose opinion, and why that experts opinion is of special interest.

Also, opinion on the state of science education, funding or other science relevant non-scientific topics, with all due modesty of certainty makes good sense.

But injecting ideological opinions, and poorly or selectively reasoned ones, or unestablished conjectures falsely posed as scientific truth, into a format that claims to be representative of science based information, is a tragedy level disservice.

Not to mention, with respect to Scientific American in particular, a betrayal of many decades of higher standards, work and reputation.

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

#138

Post by gregwebs »

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…

Should a publication with science in its name publish opinions with obviously (to a scientifically skeptical mind) incorrect factual statements?

When we see opinions leaning very consistently one way at a publication it invariably turns out their non opinion pieces have some of that bias.

That bias always includes ignoring scientific accuracy in favor of political ideals.

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

#139

Post by nasmorn »

wk_end wrote: post #105
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.

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 d…

[flagged]

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

#140

Post by tomgp »

jhbadger wrote: post #135
KaiserPro wrote: post #106

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 h…

>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. I think you'd need a bit more evidence for that being "political". A far more plausible reason for the removal is that Britain doesn't have bears to any degree (there have been isolated sightings but most think t…

It's true! Britain has no bears so we like any refrence to them to be removed from our books ensuring we never have to think about them.
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