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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

#321

Post by pinecamp »

malwrar wrote: post #278
pinecamp wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of an evidence-based pursuit of truth that was not in any way shaped by culture, power, or historical context?

The discovery of the atom? Huge cross-continental diverse group of humans of varying levels of power and privilege running successive experiments that led to our current atomic model.

It seems to me like a lot of historical context would go into that discovery. You also mention power, privilege, and collaboration across continents.

All of these factors shape the process of doing science. I think it's an amazing (and beautiful!) thing that we can collaborate on such a scale.

Science is done by people, and I think it's silly to pretend that people can somehow operate in a way that's entirely removed from history and culture.

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

#322

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

partomniscient wrote: post #265
tomgp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strangely enough, I read about a bear that was lurking around at Paddington Station.

But that's a Peruvian bear.

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

#323

Post by pfdietz »

miltonlost wrote: post #307
alistairSH wrote: post #292

Does the author not understand the concept of "opinion piece"? Every "article" he takes issue with is NOT a scientific article, but an opinion piece.

[flagged]

I remember when libertarians were actually about individual liberty.

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

#324

Post by tpm »

dahfizz wrote: post #272
tpm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no apolitical institutions. You would see that more clearly when visiting (or god forbid living in) a dictatorship or totalitarian regime, where all institutions are either brought in line with the regime or abolished. And I do mean all including gardening clubs. Enjoy institutions having the freedom to express political opinions, it is not guaranteed to last.

"Everything is political" is such a boring tautology. Everything exists within the political climate of modern society. Institutions are forced to navigate the political landscape in which they exist. But that does not make the institutions political in nature. There is absolutely nothing political about studying the mating patterns of beetles or the composition of rocks. When people say that SA is being political, t…

> There is absolutely nothing political about studying the mating patterns of beetles or the composition of rocks.

Well, what about studying the mating patterns of humans, studying the decisions to abort, studying the decisions to change gender? Still not at all political in your country? Then, who decides if a study gets funding, who decides if it is ethical, who decides if the results can get published? It's all political decisions around the 'pure' science, which is why I mention different political regimes where stuff like this is often completely explicit unlike in more free societies where it may look like it's free of politics.

> they mean that SA is using science to thinly veil their political activism

And they should be glad, not complaining. Everyone is using their position for political activism, business owners, unions, all sorts of organisations, churches etc. There is no reason SA shouldn't do that. Of course they only complain because they don't agree with SA.

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

#325

Post by aliasxneo »

miltonlost wrote: post #307
alistairSH wrote: post #292

Does the author not understand the concept of "opinion piece"? Every "article" he takes issue with is NOT a scientific article, but an opinion piece.

[flagged]

It would be nice to add some evidence to justify the character assassination. I browsed the recent articles and it didn’t seem filled with titles targeting trans rights. Perhaps you’re thinking of a specific one?

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

#326

Post by hobs »

wtcactus wrote: post #257
giraffe_lady wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the group demanding that is "over" what you would consider appropriate? How do their demands restrict your behavior? Personally I've never noticed trans people and their push for rights & recognition having any impact on my life whatsoever. And I say this as a devout member of a rigorous and conservative religious tradition.

> Personally I've never noticed trans people and their push for rights & recognition having any impact on my life whatsoever. Do you have young children? I don’t live in the USA, I live in Europe, but I have a very small baby and I already did. The daycare, just this year announced they aren’t going to be celebrating Mother and Father’s Day anymore. Instead we will have to celebrate a Parents day. This is just a smal…

And would you say that "everyone else has to change and restrict their behavior to accommodate increasingly absurd and harmful requests from an overly demanding identity group" and that a parents day has harmed you?

As a person entirely out of the "trans debate" it almost always seems to me like right wingers or anyone who is asked to change anything at all catastrophizes it beyond all sane response.

The mild "huh that slightly bothers me" and the "they are TRYING TO CHANGE MY CHILDREN!!!" seem to be conflated to the point of making no sense.

Going from "I noticed a trans person" to "this must be stopped!" makes no sense whatsoever.

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

#327

Post by stuckinhell »

alistairSH wrote: post #292

Does the author not understand the concept of "opinion piece"? Every "article" he takes issue with is NOT a scientific article, but an opinion piece.

Do you not understand the opinion pieces are part of the problem too ?

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

#328

Post by crackercrews »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #289
crackercrews wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does a scientific magazine have an Opinion section in the first place? Has it always? I would guess the number of Opinion pieces has gone up dramatically in the last decade.

> Why does a scientific magazine have an Opinion section in the first place? Nature has an Opinion section. New Scientist does too. Most magazines do. > I would guess the number of Opinion pieces has gone up dramatically in the last decade Did you do any research on this or just throwing out random guesses?

> Did you do any research on this or just throwing out random guesses?

As I said, I said it was a guess. I tried chatgpt, but no help there. I was hoping that people here who are more regular SA readers than me would have a sense of this.

It is well-known that people do not discern reporting and opinion coverage. IMO this barrier is exacerbated in scientific publications, where science-like language is used throughout. It gives the sense that "science" is behind the opinion.

This may not sway science-savvy readers of the magazine, but when it is reported elsewhere ("Scientific American magazine says XYZ"), it surely misleads people. I'd rather science magazines stick to science, but that's just me.

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

#329

Post by giraffe_lady »

tiahura wrote: post #212
giraffe_lady wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the group demanding that is "over" what you would consider appropriate? How do their demands restrict your behavior? Personally I've never noticed trans people and their push for rights & recognition having any impact on my life whatsoever. And I say this as a devout member of a rigorous and conservative religious tradition.

Does your daughter play competitive sports? Has she been knocked down by a boy playing on a girl’s team?

Has yours? As far as I can tell there are no trans student athletes in my state at any age or competitiveness level. There are several active anti-trans organizations that consider this an issue but no specific cases of it locally for me to assess or be affected by.

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

#330

Post by tim333 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #267
underseacables wrote: post #16

I grew up believing that science was the search for truth and fact, and that it should be constantly challenged to further that. What has happened I think, is that there has been a great polarization of science as government and groups have used and twisted it to fit a political agenda. Which essentially stops that search for truth. Challenging scientific conclusions should be encouraged not cancelled.

Science is a search for truth and fact but it is performed and funded by humans and institutions . We could spin up a theorem generator that just starts from mathematical axioms and exhaustively recombines them to create theorem after theorem. This would create facts, but the process would be almost entirely useless. A pure undirected "search for truth and fact" does very little for us. Researchers decide what proble…

I still feel the ideal should be a search for truth, even if human institutions do the work. I'm a fan of Feynman's stuff:

>...As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says, "Science teaches such and such," he is using the word incorrectly.

>Science doesn't teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, "Science has shown such and such," you might ask, "How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?"

>It should not be "science has shown" but "this experiment, this effect, has shown." And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments--but be patient and listen to all the evidence--to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at. https://feynman.com/science/what-is-science/

I always took that for granted but seems some don't.

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