Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

SciAm was transformative to my life, I think. My father brought home a stack of them, maybe a couple year's worth, for me when I was twelve or so. I read them over and over again during my teens, slowly puzzling understanding out of the articles that were initially so far beyond me. Learned more from that stack of magazines than some years of high school.

But that was in the 80s. For the last couple of decades, Scientific American just makes me sad. Crap I wouldn't bother reading.

In the early 70's I loved The Amateur Scientist, "conducted" by C. L. Stong. Great articles, with real technical details, giving you a real chance to build real equipment. To pick one article at random, from February 1972: "A Simple Laser Interferometer, an Inexpensive Infrared Viewer and Simulated Chromatograms". Very, very cool.

There's nothing like that out there now.

Back when I was 11 or 12, in the early '70s, one of my father's friends who was training for medical school left a box of Scientific Americans in our loft. I discovered them and would spent hours and hours poring over them trying to understand the articles and soaking up the air of unbounded optimism which I now realise was derived from the Moon landings. This was a major factor in pulling me towards science and maths. Later, at university, I came to realise that all SciAm articles are to some extent oversimplifications and that you should really go to original sources for true understanding. However, at that age they were just what I needed.