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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
473 points Bostonian | 2 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.42s | 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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1. psychoslave ◴[19 Nov 24 11:06 UTC] No.42182171[source]▶
We also maybe have to deal with the common misconception that a fact proceeds somehow from an absolute objective perspective. But as far as humans are concerned, there are only human points of views grounded in human cognition and human interests. Some human points of views might try to encompass more than the direct individual own experience might otherwise limit to, sure, but that is still human endeavor.

Fact and factitious have a common Latin root for a reason.

Even the carefully engineered autonomous probe will only gather data according to some human conceptions of what matter to be recorded or dismissed, what should be considered signal rather than noise.

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2. Nevermark ◴[19 Nov 24 12:22 UTC] No.42182653[source]▶
> there are only human points of views grounded in human cognition and human interests.

“Only”? No.

The entire point of having a scientific approach, an ever longer list of ways to weed out mistakes and misperceptions, is that raw human cognition can be improved upon.

Repeatable results, independently reproduced results, peer review, control elements, effect isolation, … the list is actually very long.

Not every one of the methods we have collected applies to every step in knowledge, but every step we take can be validated by as many of them as apply.

And new ways of falsifying false conclusions continue to accumulate.