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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

#151

Post by rayiner »

standardUser wrote: post #133

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 misguided and toxic to center your worldview around the “most marginalized” or to think that focusing on them somehow gives you the moral high ground or frees you from the obligation to play by the meta-rules of society and its institutions. Or to think that your worldview somehow has a monopoly on helping marginalized people. You invoke “rationality” but as Spock would say, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

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

#152

Post by Nevermark »

bsenftner wrote: post #124
resource_waste wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

Simple advertising too. It is a constant reinforcer of subconscious anti-rational thought.

Even if you imagine you never buy anything due to exposure to advertising, advertising is still hammering away, with its manipulative motivated based impressions on our minds.

If some source of information is worth consuming, at least for me it is worth paying to consume without advertisements if that is an option.

The fact that YouTube video advertising isn’t scratching the chalkboard level unacceptable to many people is all the evidence I need to know they have been deeply impacted by ad programming.

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

#153

Post by abirch »

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.

I love and hate this quote by Carl Sagan in 1995

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

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

#154

Post by rayiner »

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.

[flagged]

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

#155

Post by logicchains »

psychoslave wrote: post #126
carabiner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Statistically there are absolutely robust correlations between month of birth and certain traits, but because of stuff like age-at-starting-school not voodoo about the stars. So it's not surprising people keep noticing such patterns, they're just incorrect at identifying the root causes.

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

#156

Post by Nevermark »

abirch wrote: post #153
resource_waste wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love and hate this quote by Carl Sagan in 1995 I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the peo…

I don’t think “prophet” was to a title he aspired to, but like other insightful forward thinkers, he managed to be one.

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

#157

Post by abirch »

hnburnsy wrote: post #107
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-...

What isn’t factual in this article? Is it political because it discusses puberty blockers and transgender adolescents?

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

#158

Post by doodaddy »

bsenftner wrote: post #124
resource_waste wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

I agree that there seems to be, on the whole, a downward trend of educated, critically thinking populace. The statistics and anecdotes align to make this clear. But I struggle to pick the cause. Certainly I don’t buy into the idea that there are rooms of politicians and school board members discussing how to keep the population uneducated.

Behind every outcome is an incentive. So what do you think is the incentive that’s behind the decline?

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

#160

Post by jmull »

Popular science has always promulgated culture.

If you're only complaining now, it's just because you don't like the culture SA is promulgating today.

I don't disagree that SA has a lot of nonsense in it, but that's a long trailing symptom. We've been in a time for a while now where easily observable facts are untrue and manufactured fictions are true, as long as it follows a self-serving narrative.

Helmuth became editor in chief of SA in 2020 -- well after reality stopped mattering pretty much anywhere.

No doubt a publisher trying to keep a traditional publication afloat in the internet age noticed. (And no doubt the publisher has noticed it's now time to flip the politics the other way, hence Helmuth is out.)

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