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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
473 points Bostonian | 1 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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nyeah ◴[19 Nov 24 16:00 UTC] No.42184916[source]▶
The Reason article blurs the distinction between SciAm's opinion pieces and its factual (or putatively factual) reporting. That's disconcerting. "Opinion piece" objectively means "free bullshit zone". Reason is usually much more responsible than this.

SciAm has of course fallen into terrible disrepair. But that happened long ago and the cause wasn't BS in the editorials. Who even reads editorials in a science magazine?

I was a Young Libertarian in my day and I recognize the urge to blame lunatics who disagree with my politics for everything wrong in the world. But this particular case isn't convincing. It died and then the loonies moved in, not the other way around.

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1. mkopinsky ◴[19 Nov 24 18:09 UTC] No.42186445[source]▶
Most of the Reason article's criticism is of its factual reporting. The JEDI thing is indeed an opinion piece (and it's legitimate to criticize a magazine for its opinion pieces being stupid), but the puberty blocker stuff (not linked directly from the article, but it's at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-puberty-... ) was an article, not an opinion piece.