This is their lame-ass attempt at clever way of diffusing the very accurate charge that their magazine has grown unbearably political over the last few years. (Did you miss their tribute to congress's non-partisan champion of science - Henry Waxman a few months ago? Or their "strictly science" article that dismissed missle defense as an utterly unworkable system designed only to enrich the supporters of the Republican corruption machine.)
Instead of responding with this insulting misdirection, they should answer the question many of their readers want to know - Do they intend to be a science publication or a political publication?
Actually, in their snitty way, I guess they did answer it. I'll not be renewing my subscription.
You nailed it, dead.
National Geographic answered that one for me last year, too. That's why I dumped them after 31 years.
Ping to #10, a good summing-up of this item in particular, and our “smarmy, condescending and arrogant” press in general.
dead on!
Totally Agree...first, it was the Global Cooling (70s), Acid Rain (80s)...etc. Global Warning (90s) was the last straw...stopped mine in '94.
I wrestle with the decision each year myself. I guess I read the leftist slanted articles on global warming to see what the "science" crowd thinks they can pass off as real science. As far as missile defense they have concluded that a few lost cities is OK with them. Strange since the leftists seem to like the cities. Oh well.
They offer politically slanted science. I stopped my subscription to the Lysenko American many years ago.
Yep they have made it crystal clear that any dissent from the politically correct conventional wisdom will be met with ridicule and not serious scientific argument. It is sad because if people are not allowed to dissent to the latest theories, it is no victory for true science. Global Warming is a prime example. A substantial part of the theory is based on computer models that have more assumptions than facts, but SA will tar and feather anyone who dares questions any aspect of it.
As a believer in a Creator (but not "creationism,") bravo for your intellectual honesty.
Absolutely right, and why I killed my subscription to SA years ago. To equate as settled and well-defined a question as evolution with as amorphous and controversial an issue as human caused global climate change, or with an entirely political public policy question like national missile defense shows the poor quality of what passes for "science" at "Scientific American," and what passes for analysis on their editorial page.
Me too!!!! You got that right. I also quit my subscription some time ago.
smarmy, condescending and arrogant
Should be the subtitle of the publication....
Scientific American: Smarmy, Condescending, and Arrogant."
I canceled my subscription long ago.
Well said.
"I am a person who believes in evolution and I subscribe to Scientific American, but still I found this editorial smarmy, condescending and arrogant.
This is their lame-ass attempt at clever way of diffusing the very accurate charge that their magazine has grown unbearably political over the last few years. (Did you miss their tribute to congress's non-partisan champion of science - Henry Waxman a few months ago? Or their "strictly science" article that dismissed missle defense as an utterly unworkable system designed only to enrich the supporters of the Republican corruption machine.)
Instead of responding with this insulting misdirection, they should answer the question many of their readers want to know - Do they intend to be a science publication or a political publication?
Actually, in their snitty way, I guess they did answer it. I'll not be renewing my subscription."
I was going to start a new thread about Scientific American and their bias in their current issue, but found this old thread.
"Planet earth at a crossroads" is the Sept issue.
They have a whole issue chock of full of faves like the ol' reliable Amory Lovins touting the clean, green wave of the future, fatuous concerns over this or that problem with the modern world, and advocating their own favorite solutions.
Liberal social engineering at its best/worst, a mix of common sense pablum down to advocates' blind-sighted monomania (Amory Lovins is 80% the latter in my book).
They preface it with the usual snitty editorial saying that their critics who say they are engaging in too much advocacy can go stuff it.