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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
473 points Bostonian | 3 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bashmelek ◴[19 Nov 24 00:17 UTC] No.42178778[source]▶
To be honest, even 18 years ago, long before this editor in chief, I found Scientific American rather ideological. Maybe it got more obvious over time, but I don’t see its recent tone categorically different.
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1. itishappy ◴[19 Nov 24 00:48 UTC] No.42179009[source]▶
Any examples? I'm in the same boat as you, and while I agree with the premise, I don't recall anything as egregious as the examples from the article:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/denial-of-evoluti...

https://archive.is/H8hJw

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-term-jedi...

https://archive.is/oMzz7

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2. bashmelek ◴[19 Nov 24 02:25 UTC] No.42179545[source]▶
From my own impression back then, it was less political but more subtly ideological. Truth be told, I have my own ideology as well. Some things that I remember were an article that used a trolley problem of throwing someone in the way to save five as the “obvious rational” choice; and how the covers would often try to link entanglement or dark matter to consciousness. It was numerous little things like that.
3. setgree ◴[19 Nov 24 11:06 UTC] No.42182170[source]▶
Bias might emerge as much in choice of topics to cover as in the tone of the coverage. On X, someone mentioned that Wired’s coverage in the past 5-10 years is striking for how little it discusses SpaceX, for example.