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Scientific American Gives Up
IvyMike writes "The April issue Scientific American opens with a Perspectives column titled Okay, We Give Up. It opens, 'For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.'"
But they're still trying to make a buck charging for the article.
How American.
These NEVER get old. Really. Seriously. Okay, I give up.
We don't even get a full joke!
wait for it. .. .. .. .. ..
unfunny
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/0 1/1359201&tid=99&tid=14
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
THEY need to hire Paris Hilton
GETPKG - Package Management for Slackware
Registration Required, but at least that's better than cash:
/ 11281408.htm
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
This one actually made me giggle like a little schoolgirl. Giggle with joy that they finally admit that creationism is a valid theory.*
*Parts of this statement may be false.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
This issue brought to you in part by the Bush Administration
_
free cursors
Me too.
...but look at our current political and social climate in regards to theology - this may be tongue in cheek, but it's not unthinkable. That should keep you up at night - it does for me, anyway.
I have no truck with people believing there's some grey-haired grandfather in the sky that remembers everyone's birthday, but please, keep it out of our schools, and off of our laws.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
Okay, We Give Up
There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right, and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of socalled evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.
Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do. Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without comment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No more discussions of how policies affect science eitherâ"so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.
(courtesy of Mr Bob Hates You.)
"Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
They're changing their name to "Christian Scientific American."
I laughed out loud, even though I'm alone in the room. No joke.
Fox News is the joke
intelligent design in these spoofs.
I think an accurate portrayal of Bush would be enough of an April Fool's joke.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
April 2nd in Australia.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
I would fully expect to see an article just like this on the 2nd and not consider it a joka at all...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
You sure this one is a fake?
With creationism snaking its way into science curriculums and environmental issues (e.g., global warming, ocean dead zones, etc.) being pretty much ignored in the good old USA, it's as good a time as any for scientists to say "aw, fuck it!"
Will you people please get into the Slashdot-April-1st-mentality? All I see is "OMG NOW FUNNY!"
It's not ment to be funny! It's a day where just random joke articles are posted, if you don't like it go read a book. It's a giggle once a year, the "it's not funny" feeling you get after 4 of them is all part of it.
I like muppets.
It is interesting they harp on the most easily defensible position (evolution) to defend themselves against criticisms that are based additionally on things such as their coverage of global warming, abortion, etc. Yes it is an April fools joke. They are not calling us idiots for falling for it, they are calling us idiots for criticizing them for not sticking to science. Which involves more than just their take on evolution.
All you easterners have made all the necessary bad jokes for the day by the time I have my bagel. Thereafter, we know what's been done horribly and have the chance to either a: realize we're no-talent hacks and not try the stupid jokes, or b: make the same joke a second time in the same way that wasn't funny the first either.
Ain't it great?
My little site.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It may be an April's Fool joke, but Scientific American has exhibited some rather obvious biases in the past. They've never seen an arms control treaty that they didn't like, and they've consistently attacked all proposals for strategic defense. It's not that these are issues that shouldn't be debated, it's the one-sided approach that the magazine has pursued in this and other areas. They tend to lose their objectivity when covering issues that are dear to the editors and publisher.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The object is not to fool you, pinhead, it's to present the fake articles produced by geeky news sites around the net.
Surely, user 22596, you know the drill by this time, yet every year the whiners turn out with their stumpy moralism about how April Fool's Day ought to be run.
Please spend one day a year without slashdot and allow those without your Protestant rectitude to see if they can't make some amusing bits from the raw materials provided by the stories.
Kill, Tux, kill!
It's obvious they've become increasingly frustrated by the overwhelming atmosphere of stupidity that has descended over our politics and media lately.
They wanted to lash out at the source of their frustration, but in a way that didn't imperil their status as a reputable (well that's debatable) publication. So they choose the one day of the year when people can go nuts and say what they really mean, and then throw up their hands and say April Fools!
Our society is like a toned-down of Japan in this way, we have a built in release valve for venting our frustration at being bound by certain rules and regulations most of the time. *fwooot*
Everybody knows that the earth was built using a cast of characters including: The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and 3 of the 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles. (Rafael, Donnatello, Leonardo)
Intelligent design is the best April Fools joke placed on us by our culture.
"Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?"
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Today's April fools Jokes:
- Funny
- Unfunny
- April what?
- What do you mean Paris Hilton really isn't going to advertise for Linux!?!
This sig has been removed pending an investigation.
Fox has a news channel?
This sig has been removed pending an investigation.
For the length Of time I have been reading them, they have always been what they are, namely laymen accessible science. It is the best _affordable_ science magazine out there. If you are looking for in depth peer-reviewed science, you have nature at $320 a year subscription.
In the other direction you have Discover (which continues to move south). It is even cheaper a year then SciAm. I think it is only a matter of time before G4 buys them and merges game content into the already fluffy content.
wow now thinking that evolution is correct is "liberal", this is how far donw we have gone.
Yup and the church burned people for saying that the universe did not fit the platonic model Are we fair and sqaure now? Are you saying that there has been not advancements in pear reviewing in the last 150 years?
I'd encourage you to look at Science News. It's about $54 a year for a weekly magazine, which is twice as much as Scientific American. It's weekly, and I think around 16 pages, so you're getting only 64 pages a month, but there's a lot less advertising than SciAm.
But more importantly, the science reporting is a lot better. They usually report from the original journal articles in peer-reviewed journals, or from scientific conferences. When a science story comes out in the news I scan it but I don't believe it until it comes out in Science News. They don't just rewrite press releases (like most newspapers) and they certainly don't take the Wired approach of presenting scientific advances as being available at Target any day now.
Each issue contains two long-format articles that do run closer to the Scientific American model, which I think of as being more forward-looking than actual news. Sometimes they'll use them to examine one reasonably-current topic (like DNA testing) in depth, presenting an overview of the field and where the next likely advances are coming. Not blue-sky stuff, but reporting on the state of scientific research.
But the most important thing about Science News for me is that it's a weekly look at real science conducted by scientists, written for technically-minded laymen. The articles are usually around a half-page, containing a summary of the research. It's where the real work in science gets done. Waiting for it to come out in Scientific American is often months, which is dull for the kind of everyday advances made by scientists who do work (as opposed to the people who wonder if it means we're going to have time travel).
I read both SciAm and Science News, but the latter I read almost immediately whereas the former I scan and maybe get back to later.
I think the funniest thing would have been to replace Slashdot's homepage with a RIAA domain takeover notice. Of course, with a link to the real page that you can spot after reading it a second.
There are two usual cases where the word "slash" is used in budgetary issues.
The first is where one arm of our government proposes a certain level of funding for an activity and another one disagrees. The final outcome is that the funding eventually provided is less than what would have been had the disagreeing party not have disagreed. The later has effectively slashed the funding proposed by the first.
The second case is where the funding is increased at a level not keeping up with inflation. This means that programs that were in progress now need to be cut and the programs have been slashed.
In either case, the flexibility of the English language seems to allow the usage of the term (and, in fact, use of this phrase may be more accurate in terms of implied consequences than any alternative). Your desire to not use this phrase seems to be based in as much political motivation as those who want to use it.
That is all.
Ahh yes the CSM. A particular form of nutter apparently imported from the US.
Mostly they're in it for selling their own line of books, videos, etc. for which they make a pretty penny.
I had to steward for one of their conferences... they told us that they were going to get over 1000 people, and we setup for that many. 50 turned up.. I felt embarassed for the speakers.
Really they're just a fringe group, even amongst the christian groups.
The sarcastic tone indicates that they'll keep reporting as they have been.
I stopped subscribing when they started featuring stories on removing lanmines from southeast asia. The story was nothing but politics, I didn't learn a bit of science from it.
When they get back on track reporting quantum physics, biology, even economics and sociology, maybe I'll read it again. But when they're choosing ENTIRE TOPICS based on their politics, count me out.
I think you are not a Creationist then. That almost requires the literal interpretation of a particular holy text (that's your Biblical Creationism").
Most creationists I meet would not consider you one of them. Actually they would probably consider your view worst than the "communist atheistic evolutionism", because you have a chance of being heard by their "herd".
Not anymore!
I subscribed to SA until I read that editorial. I never liked the political commentary bashing the administration, when other administrations had raped various science budgets and projects but didn't seem to receive the same scorn. But I put up with it.
After the April issue came out and the editors made known their disdain of their customers through the sarcasm of their little April Fools joke, I decided I will not support them with my dollars anymore.
Give me science news not a political biased view of science. I don't ask them to start denouncing proven science like evolution, but I do think they could increase their sales if they just stuck to the science.
I call bullshit. Inflation rate is at an average of 3% for quite a few years. That's hardly just over 0% and inflation needs to be taken into account with budgets in the millions and billions of dollars!
/ AnnualInflation.asp
See this link for just one source of inflation numbers:
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate
There are hundreds more.
I hope you're enjoying your vacation on Mars, or wherever the fuck it is you've been for the last few years.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
There is plenty of place for sarcasm, and it's about time people started speaking up.
Creationism and Evolution are not even in the same CATEGORY. Creationism is a belief based on religious faith. Evolution is a scientific theory. One belong in science class, one does NOT.
It's fine if you believe in creationism, or intelligent design. Perfectly fine. It's fine if you believe in God, or Allah, or whatever you want, and it's also fine for you to spread your beliefs around.
The vast majority of religious people, including very learned scientists, don't see a conflict here. Believing that God created the universe does not conflict with exploring that universe and coming up with scientific theories, it merely underpins everything.
A vocal minority, however, has been getting way, way too much press saying that their religious beliefs should be taught in science class, and that Evolution is a big lie.
This is not about belief, it's about science. Scientific American is a science magazine, and they are right to ridicule the spin doctors who want to get them to publish unscientific information based on their religious beliefs.
I also subscribe to Science News ... which incedentally sometimes beats Slashdot to the punch on some science stories. I know it's weird that a print mag would have a story sooner than the web, but it happens.
Further, I think the writing is great. To parrot the parent a little. It's more accessible (i.e., they define terms, provide simple explication). You don't have to be as geeky as this crowd to still get the full effect of each piece, so your kids might get something out of it too. I'm no materials engineer, but found the long-form article on advances in cement interesting and informative (for example: translucent cement?!).
I don't want to get in a price argument (I don't love it because it's cheap), so I'm going with value. I'd say for the value it wins out over Nature, or SciAm, maybe even Smithsonian. If you don't have the ~$300 a year it would take you to subscribe to all four (just about anyone can get the 'pro' rate for Nature at $130/yr) and could only get just one, I would encourage Science News. If nothing else, it's a good overview of the weeks interesting stuff, and since they cite the other journals you can head off to the library if you need more info than they provide.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
http://mediamatters.org/archives/search.html?strin g=fox
961 problems with fox and counting. BTW, I love "a university media study" type citations.
"In other news, Bob Jones University researchers found that Fox news, while the most centrist of news organizations was still way out left..."
What liberal views get aired on fox? I've watched more than my fair share, and I get to listen to the dittoheads at work spout off about how great fox is all day long (I work at an Air Force Base). There is no liberal news on fox.
If you want "liberal news" try Air America radio, http://www.commondreams.org, http://www.alternews.net, or a real liberal news source. CNN used to be centrist, but even they've skewed right. Same thing with NPR. The closest thing to centrist news available is the BBC. Everything else has been pulled waaaay right. Which you don't recognize until you actually read/listen to some openly liberal stuff. Then you'll see how out of whack all "news" in this country is.
Not to mention the fact that stories that shouldn't matter nationally keep getting picked up by conservative bloggers and forced onto national media. Like Terry Schiavo. Should have been a local/regional issue at most. Got picked up and pushed nationally by conservative right-to-lifers (and I'm not even going to start on the irony of Bush's "culture of life" coming from a man who signed more death warrents than any other governer in HISTORY!)
Or have you only comfort...that stealthy thing that enters the house and guest then becomes host, then master - KG
The problem is that scientists almost unanimously agree that the ballisitic missile defense shield is unworkable in it's current state. The reason that they've "consistently attacked all proposals for strategic defense," is because they won't work, plain and simple. The ONLY test that has ever worked was under a heavily skewed test, where the target's coordinates were GIVEN to the defense missile. If you knew the government was wasting billons of your dollars every year instead of trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, would you do nothing?
Ever since the 1980's, the Union of Concerned Scientists, which includes many many professors of physics, materials science, and who have done defense-related research, wrote an open letter to Reagan saying his ICBM Shield is unworkable and a waste of taxpayer money. Nothing has changed since; Bush is still funding billions every year into a project that's scientifically unfeasable. The reason there's been so much of a campaign again the current administration by scientists is plain and simple - the Bush administration is one of the most openly hostile to science administrations there are:
1. Dismissing published/peer-reviewed AIDS studies and promoting people who then teach kids that AIDS might be transmittable through sweat and tears. REVERSING decades of improvements in the Uganda AIDS situation by promoting abstience only education - the UN has issued a strong protest against this as it threatens the lives of millions in the country.
2. Promoting people to the EPA that have no scientific background and were working in the very industries they're supposed to regulate. Repeatedly ignoring global warming studies despite almost unanimous agreement among scientists; care to point to legimate sources that say there're other reasons?
Maybe you should stop watching fox news and actually look at the facts facts I am including the national council report on the current omibus NSF bill. If you take a look at it from Fiscal year 2004 the budget was cut a total of 100 million dollars or - 1.9 \%. No it did not increase less rapidly but it was actually decreased. Here is a report on the actual final budget that was passed. The cut was 2% from FY2004. Here is the actual NSF page on the matter
I quote:
"The National Science Foundation (NSF), suffering its first budget cut in years, will operate at 1.9% below FY 04 spending levels. The Foundation is funded at $5.47 billion, $105 million below last year and $232 million below the FY 05 request.
The budget cut affects the two major NSF accounts: Research & Related Activities (R&RA) and Education and Human Resources (EHR). The R&RA Account, which funds NSF's core research directorates and programs, falls to $4,220.56, $30.8 million (0.7%) below FY 04 funding levels and $200.95 million below the FY 05 request level. Funding decisions by directorate and program will be left to the discretion of NSF, pending Congressional approval. The EHR Account drops $97.56 million, or 10.4%, below FY 04 spending levels to $841.4 million."