Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

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.

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.

Are you saying the linked is meant to demonize science? The impression I got was that he was doing the exact opposite: saying that SciAm's editorial direction was harming the public perception of science, which could have far-reaching effects. I don't see that as an anti-science stance.

It doesn't make it clear that the author's issue appears to be solely with the editorial opinion pieces and thus feeds into trending mythology that "(modern) science is bad", has replication, DEI, woke, etc. crisis.

This is the "old science" good, "new science" bad leaning that lends itself to ignoring climate costs and anything else that libertarians of various shades might object to.

What does diversity and trans and such have to do with climate science? They seem to be entirely separate topics.