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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

#581

Post by lukas099 »

anon291 wrote: post #570
some_furry wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccine denial's conclusions are so woefully unscientific that one can excuse the lack of technical precision in the synthesis of a pro-vaccination slogan.

There are legitimate reasons to be concerned over the COVID vaccines that have nothing to do with 'vaccine denial' [1]. What does 'vaccine denial' even mean? I've never met anyone who denies the existence of vaccines. [1] Such as the elevated cardio vascular risk for young men that exceeded their risk from COVID.

If we know that [1] is true, then we know it because of science. So believing it is not against trusting the science.

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

#582

Post by slopeloaf »

ben7799 wrote: post #513
FredPret wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think most of the Anti-Rogan sentiment is mostly people attributing things to him that he does not actually do or say. People from the far left are so opposed to listening to him their opinion of him is almost completely formed by hearsay and taking small snippets of what he or his guests say out of context. I fell victim to this. After the recent talk about just how important his show was in the election I listene…

I was an early fan from 2016-2018 (stopped listening as regularly after 2018 and dropped off entirely after 2020). I agree he is not far right

Rogan definitely shifted right during this time though. Enough so that I and many others close to me found it off putting to continue. A shame because I’ve never found a replacement show.

Calling him far right is incorrect, but I believe the criticism has always been about the people he platforms and not his views. Whether or not you agree with that critique is up to you

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

#583

Post by mkopinsky »

nyeah wrote: post #407

The Reason article blurs the distinction between SciAm's opinion pieces and its factual (or putatively factual) reporting. That's disconcerting. "Opinion piece" objectively means "free bullshit zone". Reason is usually much more responsible than this. SciAm has of course fallen into terrible disrepair. But that happened long ago and the cause wasn't BS in the editorials. Who even reads editorials in a science magazin…

Most of the Reason article's criticism is of its factual reporting. The JEDI thing is indeed an opinion piece (and it's legitimate to criticize a magazine for its opinion pieces being stupid), but the puberty blocker stuff (not linked directly from the article, but it's at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-puberty-... ) was an article, not an opinion piece.

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

#584

Post by gs17 »

nyeah wrote: post #407

The Reason article blurs the distinction between SciAm's opinion pieces and its factual (or putatively factual) reporting. That's disconcerting. "Opinion piece" objectively means "free bullshit zone". Reason is usually much more responsible than this. SciAm has of course fallen into terrible disrepair. But that happened long ago and the cause wasn't BS in the editorials. Who even reads editorials in a science magazin…

> "Opinion piece" objectively means "free bullshit zone".

I'm not a fan of Michael Shermer, but he claims SciAm demanded a complete revision of a column, and then later rejected one of his columns, right before getting rid of him entirely. So there's at least some rules about what opinions they're willing to publish, and that was under the previous editor-in-chief (as in the one before the one the article is about). The opinions that make it to press are curated, so if there's something off about them, the editors should be held responsible, and the op-eds don't have a different editor-in-chief than the main articles.

> Who even reads editorials in a science magazine?

I see no reason not to consider them as a significant part of the magazine's image. If the articles were all the same but the editorials were all written by, e.g. young earth creationists about their views, wouldn't what they put in that "free bullshit zone" shape your perception of the whole?

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

#585

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #492
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can't "defuse" a wedge issue, you can only decline to be manipulated. That is an individual act. There is no "side" to a wedge issue, it is a false dichotomy crafted to create maximal division. They are focus group tested and refined to do so. The "War on Christmas" effects a greater sense of persecution while framing it as a nonexistent conflict. There is no War on Christmas. I can say Merry Christmas or not, an…

I agree with most of what you're saying except for the contention that the dichotomy is false. It's a good wedge issue precisely because it's a true dichotomy. Even when attempting to dismiss the debate as fabricated and pointless, you end up taking a side on accident, flatly stating that there's no War on Christmas and that it doesn't really matter whether you say Merry Christmas to others. On the other side of the wedge, people believe that Christmas is quite literally the second most important day in the world, and fear that we might put our immortal souls at risk if we don't properly commemorate it.

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

#586

Post by giraffe_lady »

aspenth wrote: post #387
giraffe_lady wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the gender of someone born with XX chromosomes, two ovaries, a penis, and develops male secondary sex characteristics like a beard? Intersex variants are 1% of the population, it's as common as red hair. The strict gender binary is the anti-science view I'm sorry to say. And again I say this as someone who is a member of a rigorous religious tradition that does not have any real flexibility about this. Nonethe…

> What's the gender of someone born with XX chromosomes, two ovaries, a penis, and develops male secondary sex characteristics like a beard? Did you just make this up or did you have a specific disorder of sexual development in mind? Presence of two ovaries suggests it's a female DSD anyhow. > Intersex variants are 1% of the population, it's as common as red hair. This figure is controversial and includes conditions…

Yeah it's approximately as hypothetical as all the cases of trans athletes we're apparently taking seriously in this thread. Eg greater than zero known cases but likely no one commenting here has ever encountered either phenomenon in the course of life.

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

#587

Post by pfdietz »

exoverito wrote: post #421
pfdietz wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biological denialism What is this? I would have thought that the idea that some people who are outwardly one sex have brain wiring for the other sex is quite plausible. Development is very messy.

The significant increase in non-binary gender identity and rapid onset gender dysphoria suggests there's a cultural factor at work. A 2021 systematic review found mixed results for transgender brain structures mirroring their self-identified sex, with most neuroanatomical measures mapping to their birth sex. Though I agree with you that development is messy. We should be much more concerned about exposing children to…

> a cultural factor at work

For example, recognition of the existence of the syndrome and reduction in social stigma. Kind of like how the rate of homosexuality increases when you stop subjecting them to vivisection.

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

#588

Post by disentanglement »

GMoromisato wrote: post #578

I'm conflicted about all of this because I gave up reading Scientific American when I felt it had become too political. But of course, you can't remove politics from science. Scientists are human and humans are political. When a scientist chooses an area to investigate, it is influenced by their politics. You can ask scientists to be factual, but you can't ask them to be non-political. It's not SciAm's fault that sci…

Or perhaps the republican party has developed such an astonishing anti-science attitude that hardly any reasonable scientist can support them? Imagine doing research on vaccines and hearing the soon to be secretary of health speak on that topic. As long as these kind of people count as "conservatives" in the US, how could you be a conservative scientist?

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

#589

Post by lukas099 »

someuser2345 wrote: post #337
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.

Scientific American isn't a social media platform; by publishing these opinion pieces, they implicitly support them. Would you be ok if they published an opinion piece bashing evolution and defending creationism?

> by publishing these opinion pieces, they implicitly support them.

Not at all. Especially if the articles are from guest writers and not the typical editors.

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

#590

Post by CamperBob2 »

mrandish wrote: post #553
grecy wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is exactly the problem we face now in so many aspects of life. If cell phones or microwaves or a hundred other things were harmful we would not find out, because of all the lobbying and armies of scientists paid to find and publish a very narrow version of truth

> If cell phones or microwaves or a hundred other things were harmful we would not find out While I agree that there may be things which have subtle but cumulatively harmful effects over time, the two specifics that you cited (cell phones and microwaves) are very poor examples because they've been deployed so broadly for so long, the chances there is some significant medical harm still undetected is vanishingly small…

Also, trial lawyers would rapidly become the wealthiest people on Earth if genuine, reproducible evidence of harm from non-ionizing radiation could be found.

If you thought the tobacco and silicone breast implant settlements were impressive...

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