Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

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.

> blurs the distinction between SciAm's opinion pieces and its factual (or putatively factual) reporting.

To me, based on the content and context, the main quote written by the departing editor the article cited was clearly an opinion (or editor's column) piece and not part of SciAm's science reporting.

While this article didn't focus on it, the biggest factor when the editor-in-charge of a publication is biased isn't what is written but rather what never appears at all. An editor's curation and broad editorial guidance is subtle day-to-day yet has enormous impact over time. I've read accounts of newsroom reporters talking about editorial bias and it's remarkable how each individual biased decision is almost undetectable and, in fact, in some cases the biased editor may not even realize their bias is cumulatively shifting coverage.

> the biggest factor when the editor-in-charge of a publication is biased

The editor-in-charge, and indeed every human being, is always biased. There will always be articles that don't make the cut and there is always going to be some criterion by which a decision is made. Some biases are more disruptive than others. Publicly acknowledged biases can be easily accounted for. You don't want an unbiased editor-in-charge, they're really just a person whose biases you don't recognize.

> The editor-in-charge, and indeed every human being, is always biased

> You don't want an unbiased editor-in-charge, they're really just a person whose biases you don't recognize.

These 2 truths are hard for some to digest, and they also diffuse the next step they want to implement: thumbing the scales to "Fix the political bias in science" by installing 'neutral' (to them) individuals to swing science rightwards.

Of course, it's not really about the science itself, it's about using science as a new front in the culture wars.