Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

Does the author not understand the concept of "opinion piece"? Every "article" he takes issue with is NOT a scientific article, but an opinion piece.

A lot of people really don't understand the difference between science and opinion, and that's exactly what's gotten us into the trouble we're in today.

Can you point to some more detail on this?

If you include enough opinion pieces on highly controversial subjects and always from the same perspective your readers will start noticing. Just because they are opinions it doesn't mean that people can't deem them ridiculous.

In a different context, HN tends to have the same feelings about Scientific American, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29741171

I think there's an argument to be made that Scientific American shouldn't have opinion pieces that readers will misinterpret as scientific fact.

I remember when libertarians were actually about individual liberty.

It would be nice to add some evidence to justify the character assassination. I browsed the recent articles and it didn’t seem filled with titles targeting trans rights. Perhaps you’re thinking of a specific one?

Do you not understand the opinion pieces are part of the problem too ?

Scientific American isn't a social media platform; by publishing these opinion pieces, they implicitly support them. Would you be ok if they published an opinion piece bashing evolution and defending creationism?

And the reason is because you are lying, and you know you are lying.

This is not true at all.

I wouldn't call them far right; for example, they consistently posted articles about the culture of US police brutality, cops killing people on a hair trigger long before it became mainstream a few years ago.

Here's a take on her resignation from the Guardian if you'd like some balance https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/16/scientific-ame...

> by publishing these opinion pieces, they implicitly support them

This would seem to be true if they tend to run opinion pieces that are all from one "side". If they ran pieces that espouse conflicting viewpoints, it would not imply that they support all of the opinion pieces they publish.

From the look of it, they stick to one team. They wouldn't be taking this heat if they had a broader diversity of thought.

I can't respond to that post because it's flagged, but hard disagree on that too. Jesse Signal is far from transphobic.

Sure, but the author gave us two examples over how many issues? He didn't come remotely close to making his point. :shrug:

Opinion pieces in scientific magazine should be based on the facts, and not just on opinions.

I expect them to publish op/ed pieces they believe their subscribers will find interesting. As long as they're clearer labeled as opinion, what's the problem? Op/ed pieces have been part of journalism pretty much forever.

Especially when some other outlet reports "Scientific American says XYZ". Readers will absolutely treat this as if there are scientific underpinnings. They will give it more credence than a regular opinion piece. The vast majority of them will never know it was even an opinion piece in the first place.

I would guess that if you asked 100 random people who had heard of Scientific American, many/most would say that SA publishes science and has no Opinion section. Before this dustup, I would have been in that camp.

Depends on what you consider diversity of thought. "Bashing evolution" is not diversity of thought, it is crackpottery. Diversity of thought exists in opinions about, e.g. what evolutionary mechanisms are most important, how to interpret old evidence, what are the best opportunities for new research... A Creationist will look at that and call it "all one team" because none of them believe the universe is only 5000 years old, but that's nonsense. It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out.

Major news orgs publish op-eds they disagree with all the time. They label them as opinion.

It's actually unfortunate if publications decide only to publish things they agree with because that fails to acknowledge they could be wrong.

Evolution and creationism are settled wars (as far as science is concerned) and wouldn't be interesting to readers. It would be interesting to read a serious assessment of, say, the Covid lab leak theory.

> by publishing these opinion pieces, they implicitly support them.

Not at all. Especially if the articles are from guest writers and not the typical editors.

So?

Should it be impossible to have a rigorous scientific method for reporting and peer review in the news section, while advocating for certain actions or perspectives in the opinion page?

If someone sends me a Wall Street Journal news article that reports on facts, I can trust it, even if their opinion page is intellectually bankrupt.