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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

#731

Post by creer »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #590
mrandish wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

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

Probably not, as electronics manufacturers would quikly take that into consideration. Liability comes from both knowing and continuing.

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

#732

Post by zzzzi »

seltzered_ wrote: post #724
School-Cotton wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which article and how did he misinterpret it? I’m a casual, occasional listener to his podcast (Blocked and Reported) but don’t really know his origin story and am curious to learn more.

There's a list of resources critical of Jesse Singal here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/20353892 (found via https://bsky.app/profile/quatoria.bsky.social/post/3layjy6zb... ) (Sharing because I've been trying to do my personal learning on this topic)

A lot of awful men on that list.

Andrea James the obsessive stalker and harrasser, Julia Serrano the abusive misogynist who thinks lesbians should be shamed for not wanting dick, Ana Valens the creep who openly fantasizes about raping women in breeding farms.

If these horrible males are angry at Singal then I can only assume he's doing something right.

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

#733

Post by Manuel_D »

anonfordays wrote: post #627
tylersmith wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's called bias.

It's accurate, so by definition it cannot be bias.

You perceive it to be accurate, that doesn't mean it is accurate. Furthermore, these sorts of things are highly subject to post-rationalization. Did you write down on a piece of paper what you expected before you clicked? Or did you just click and think to yourself "yup, that's what I expected"?

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

#734

Post by anigbrowl »

willy_k wrote: post #551
jhedwards wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point (as I understand it) was not to protect the kids themselves from covid, but that kids are active vectors of illness: they get sick easily and rapidly spread it to everyone around them. Sending kids to school during a pandemic is basically asking to fast-track that sickness to everyone in the community.

That’s why you focus resources on protecting those who you don’t want kids to spread it to, the sick and the elderly, a la the suppressed Great Barrington Declaration.

It wasn't 'suppressed'; it was announced to wide acclaim, others took issue with its premises, and there were significantly more of the latter than the former. There was considerable skepticism of the sponsorship of the libtertarian AEIR, and the fact that hundreds of thousands of people had already died in the US by the time of its publication probably had a lot to do with its lack of popularity.

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

#735

Post by bongoman42 »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #448
BurningFrog wrote: post #409

To the "everything is political" crowd: The complaint is not that SciAm writes about politics. It's that they write SCIENTIFIC NONSENSE when arguing for political causes. Exhibit A: "the so-called normal distribution of statistics assumes that there are default humans who serve as the standard that the rest of us can be accurately measured against."

If you read the whole paragraph, it's obvious what the writer intended to convey: that health research often assumes that there is one average, representative person, and everybody else is clustered around that person in a normal distribution. The author asserts that this is wrong, because people are dissimilar in more complex ways, and instead often fall into different clusters, rather than one bell curve. In my opi…

If they are science communicators and they are writing things that can be explained reasonably easily in such confusing and weird ways, shouldn't they be fired?

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

#736

Post by nataliste »

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…

>cell phones

Well, as far as direct physical harms, yes, but as far as mental harms that translate to physical harms, the jury's still out:

'“Given that the increase in mental health issues was sharpest after 2011, Twenge believes it’s unlikely to be due to genetics or economic woes and more likely to be due to sudden cultural changes, such as shifts in how teens and young adults spend their time outside of work and school.'

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/03/mental-healt...

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

#737

Post by anigbrowl »

senderista wrote: post #6
refurb wrote: post #4

Yikes, quite the scathing article and example of a the politicization of science. “Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making proces…

"Trust the science" is the very antithesis of the scientific spirit. The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. If you treat scientists as some sort of infallible priesthood then you've missed the whole point of science.

If someone hand-waves away the conclusions of scientists without doing any science of their own I feel no obligation to take them seriously.

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

#738

Post by bongoman42 »

BadHumans wrote: post #377
Philorandroid wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a naive way to see it. People vote _against_ the other candidate, against what they fear is worse. And, if the theory that the frontrunner is the best representation of the party holds true, it speaks quite poorly for the Democrats appointing Harris despite Biden winning the vote of his party, no? And, again, tu quoque; even if the GOP was exhaustively comprised of reality-evading lunatics, voters and all, it…

> it speaks quite poorly for the Democrats appointing Harris despite Biden winning the vote of his party, no? Yes it does. I agree fully. > the DNC's _explicit_ support of racial identitarianism, benevolent racism, and biological denialism run in direct opposition to this supposed moral high ground they tacitly hold. I don't think benevolent racism means what you think it means and no one is denying biology. Trans pe…

umm.. Scientific American said that differences in athletic ability of men and women are not based in Biology.

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

#739

Post by UltraSane »

csours wrote: post #729
UltraSane wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment started off really well with the need for successful communication requiring at least a partial overlap of of worldviews but then goes into the weeds with the comment about Trump. No one is denying that Trump won the election. But a huge percentage of Republicans believe that Trump actually won the last election. This is a real example of how worldviews on the right and left differ radically. The drag sh…

Those are examples of things that are hard for some to accept as bare facts. Person Y won the election Person Y won the election and that is BAD Person Y won the election and that is GOOD It is not a matter of denial, it is a matter of what story is made to accept the event. If you have not had to fight about the topic, you can just make the first bare assertion. The event happened. If you have fought about the topic…

Sorry but no one is denying that Trump won the 2024 election in the same way Trump and Republicans have denied that Biden won in 2020 and claiming such is very disingenuous. And saying person Y winning the election is good or bad is a matter of opinion, not fact.

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

#740

Post by willy_k »

mike_hearn wrote: post #688
gamerdonkey wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was never any scientific basis for that belief. This is an incorrect statement that can be fixed with minutes of research. https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0610941104 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00916... One might argue about the quality of the research or point out contradicting studies, but saying there was zero basis is flat-out false. Adding that the idea was "made up"…

COVID is not the Spanish Flu or asthma. Rayiner's point was about SARS-CoV-2 and he is correct. You can read papers published in 2020 to see.

And COVID and the Spanish Flu essentially targeted opposite populations, the former being dangerous to those with compromised immune function while the latter turned strong immune systems against the body in a “cytokine storm”.
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