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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.
We don't even get a full joke!
wait for it. .. .. .. .. ..
unfunny
THEY need to hire Paris Hilton
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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.
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.
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 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!"
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
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*
If you critisise them for `not sticking to science' then you deserve to be called an idiot, as they rightly say it's impossible to isolate science from the social context in which it happens. Eg. if you don't know what is being funded, you can't know whether it's significant that there are a lot of results in some area recently; if you don't see reports of scientists being pressured by the state top change their results, how will you know what weight to put on those results?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
"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.
Fox has a news channel?
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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.
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.
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.
Quite impressive that some people still believe that buffoon Lomborg. Here is the usual website by Kåre Fog, with all the errors (pretty word for "lies") of Lomborg exposed.
This example is quite nice: in order to demonstrate that forest area is not only stable, but even increasing, in spite of all deforestation environmentalist litany along about, Lomborg has used statistics taken from a time when countries were still joining the FAO - as a result, looking at his data, all the Borneo forest appears from nothing in 1961. Never mind that FAO (Lomborg's source) published a corrected data set, that clearly shows the decline, before Lomborg's book in English edition.
As a side note: I have not seen that many articles by Lomborg in the scientific literature. In fact, according to his own website, he's published one peer-reviewed article only once, and not about environment (and I did not personally check whether it exists really, it would not be the first time the guy lies). A scientist who tries to dodge peer review by printing books instead of submitting articles is most likely just a charlatan and a snake-oil salesman. The Skeptical Environmentalist can quietly join cold fusion in the drawer of junk science.
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Not anymore!
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.
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?