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.

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/

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.

Libertarianism theoretically could go either way. Theoretically, do what you want with your bodies.

However, libertarianias as they exist tend to be socially conservative - somehow they end up agreeing with GOP position on social issues. In this case, convervatives hate trans people, so libertarians too.

Libertarians, at least the ones that subscribe to Reason, are not socially conservative. Just read a few articles and this is very apparent.

The 2024 Libertarian Party Presidential candidate was a pro-trans gay man.