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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: 0.671s | source
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devindotcom ◴[19 Nov 24 00:59 UTC] No.42179087[source]▶
Every piece called out here is clearly labeled "opinion" - did they even read the normal news and analysis sections? Countless newspapers and outlets and actual scientific journals have opinion/editorial sections that are generally very well firewalled from the factual content. You could collect the worst hot takes from a few years of nearly any site with a dedicated opinion page and pretend that it has gone downhill. But that this the whole point of having a separate opinion section — so opinions have a place to go, and are not slipped into factual reporting. And many opinion pieces are submitted by others or solicited as a way to show a view that the newsroom doesn't or can't espouse.

Whether the EIC of SciAm overstepped with her own editorializing is probably not something we as outsiders can really say, given the complexities of running a newsroom. I would caution people against taking this superficial judgment too seriously.

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defrost ◴[19 Nov 24 01:09 UTC] No.42179132[source]▶
The linked article itself is an opinion piece.

Reason does interesting stuff, sure, but no mistake it has a bias and that is a right centre libertarian view that loads factual content toward a predetermined conconclusion that individual free thinkers trump all.

As such they take part in a current conservative habit of demonising "Science" to undermine results that bear on, say, environmental health, climate change, on so on that might result in slowing down a libertarian vision of industry.

I still read their copy, I'm a broad ingestor of content, but no one should be blind to their lean either.

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leereeves ◴[19 Nov 24 02:07 UTC] No.42179458[source]▶
I agree people should be aware of the bias of their sources (all of them), but there's no reason for anyone to be mistaken about Reason. (Please forgive the wording, I couldn't think of better.)

Unlike many other sources, Reason doesn't pretend to be neutral. They admit:

"Reason is the nation's leading libertarian magazine."

https://reason.com/about/

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mitthrowaway2 ◴[19 Nov 24 03:13 UTC] No.42179785[source]▶
Does libertarianism take a position on transgender issues? (This seems to be one focus area of the article.) I can see the author has a strong view but I don't know how libertarianism informs it.
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1. wk_end ◴[19 Nov 24 09:22 UTC] No.42181459[source]▶
Any serious libertarian would say it (like most things) is absolutely none of the government's concern, at least with regards to consenting adults. There's probably a range of views when it comes to kids, though. Conversely, they wouldn't be interested in having the government policing the treatment of trans people between private parties, so they'd oppose things like legislation that protects them (or anyone) from discrimination in hiring, as an example.

FWIW, the author - Jesse Singal - is a writer I've followed for a while. I like him a lot - I find him level-headed and intellectually honest. I don't think he'd characterize himself as a libertarian rather than a liberal, despite being published by Reason here. He's just a science writer who ended up on the "trans kids healthcare" beat and has written about it extensively. I think he'd characterize his position as just "a lot of medical treatments for kids are being pushed on [in his opinion] flimsy science for [in his opinion] ideological reasons"; and he'd say that this is a scientific position rather than a political one. Of course he takes a lot of crap for this, and of course he's also attracted a fanbase of bozos for this. But his writing, generally, deserves better than either.

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2. ◴[19 Nov 24 10:03 UTC] No.42181751[source]▶
3. wk_end ◴[19 Nov 24 12:22 UTC] No.42182652[source]▶
I don't really identify as a libertarian myself, but I'm friends with several people who do and sympathetic enough to the idea that I find your accusation of paedophilia pretty distasteful.