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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

#591

Post by jjk166 »

mrandish wrote: post #533
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…

> blurs the distinction between SciAm's opinion pieces and its factual (or putatively factual) reporting. To me, based on the content and context, the main quote written by the departing editor the article cited was clearly an opinion (or editor's column) piece and not part of SciAm's science reporting. While this article didn't focus on it, the biggest factor when the editor-in-charge of a publication is biased isn'…

> the biggest factor when the editor-in-charge of a publication is biased

The editor-in-charge, and indeed every human being, is always biased. There will always be articles that don't make the cut and there is always going to be some criterion by which a decision is made. Some biases are more disruptive than others. Publicly acknowledged biases can be easily accounted for. You don't want an unbiased editor-in-charge, they're really just a person whose biases you don't recognize.

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

#592

Post by Veen »

jpmattia wrote: post #550
Veen wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science on vaccines is solid, but there are potential side effects (that's also solid science). So when it comes to, for example, giving kids the vaccines, we have to balance the likelihood of serious side effects with the necessity of preventing the disease. In the case of COVID, the disease's risk to kids is extremely low, but they are still vaccinated. That is a political decision, and it is perfectly reasonab…

> That is a political decision, and it is perfectly reasonable to dispute it. "Political decision" as a euphemism for allowing non-experts to decide how to minimize deaths? The same non-experts who couldn't even get the Monty Hall problem right, let alone the complexity of medical probability and statistics of [false | true] [positives | negatives] in Bayesian scenarios? Good luck with that.

There's the problem with naive utilitarianism. The experts want to minimize deaths across the population. I want to minimize the risk to my otherwise healthy children (hypothetically. I don't have children and I am vaccinated). These legitimate desires can and do conflict. Who has precedence is entirely political, not scientific.

And plenty of medical experts get the Monty Hall problem wrong.

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

#593

Post by kenjackson »

tlogan wrote: post #222

The issue isn’t that Scientific American leans “pro-Democrat” and it is political. It always has, and that’s understandable. The real problem is that the modern Democratic Party increasingly aligns with postmodernism, which is inherently anti-science (Postmodernism challenges the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge, framing it as a social construct shaped by culture, power, and historical context, ra…

The modern Democratic party doesn't believe that. Sure, there are movements in the party that probably believe that, but it's very much a minority view. Lets avoid trying to frame minority or fringe views as the mainline belief of either party.

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

#594

Post by squigz »

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…

It might be because what being a "conservative" in America means has been grotesquely distorted into what it is today.

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

#595

Post by jjk166 »

23B1 wrote: post #462
nyeah wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or not. If it's a genuine question, the articles are labelled.

Labeled by whom, and following what set of rules or guidelines? Are those rules agreed upon and enforced in some way? What are the consequences for breaking those rules?

It's weird we're at the point where there are a decent number of adults who have likely never read an actual magazine.

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

#596

Post by squigz »

bithead wrote: post #364

"In the process, SciAm played a small but important role in the self-immolation of scientific authority—a terrible event whose fallout we'll be living with for a long time." Which is it - small or important? All that seems like a bit much.

What a strange bit of pedantry. 'Small but powerful' is a very common phrase that I don't really see any problem with.

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

#597

Post by quasse »

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…

> Perhaps conservatives began rejecting science and driving scientists away

There isn't even a "perhaps" about this. My parents (both physicists at a research university) voted Republican my whole childhood. The last 15 years has changed that despite the fact that they are still fairly conservative.

Why would they align with people who are vocally anti-education, consistently work to undermine trust in the scientific process, censor research and constantly try to shift schooling away from being a public right to a private good?

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

#598

Post by sitkack »

Crayfish3348 wrote: post #523

A book came out in August 2024 called "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola," by Susan Greenhalgh. She's a professor (emeritus) at Harvard. The book is a history. It shows how the Coca-Cola Company turned to "science" when the company was beset by the obesity crisis of the 1990s and health advocates were calling for, among other things, soda taxes. Coca-Cola "mobilized allies in academia to create a soda…

This is how propaganda works, you don't spread falsities and untruths, but change the mix of what signals get amplified.

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

#599

Post by kenjackson »

tlogan wrote: post #243
felixgallo wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, a portion of Democratic Party leadership has appeared to move away from science and reason in some cases. One example that frustrated me as a taxpayer and parent with kids in school: here in California, it was Democratic policymakers who removed Algebra from high school curricula, arguing that it would help address disparities among minority students.

Can you point me to the high school where Algebra was removed? I know they were doing work on when to introduce Algebra I, but I've never seen any mention of the class being fully removed from a high school.

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

#600

Post by nativeit »

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…

The comment section under the article on Reason’s website explains a lot of what drives their own editorial choices, this article included. It made a few perfectly valid points while twisting backwards to arrive at its very preconceived conclusions, and gave their readers a much-desired hit of satisfaction that they could point to something and claim there personal perspectives had been proven out as a systemic reality. As per usual, the truth is buried somewhere in the lacking nuance.
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