I dropped Scientific American almost 20 years ago. It has become devoid of original thinking or reliable science. It has become a political pamphlet full of "progressive" nonsense.
You might want to give them another shot. Something very odd is going on over there.
I subscribe to the magazine and the current issue has a huge article (not available online) that efficiently dismantles the entire brouhaha surrounding human-caused species extinction. It takes each point of the envirowackos and points out its flaws. It also picks apart the whole methodology for species cataloguing. While it doesn’t come right out and say the whole thing is a scam, it does very clearly blow holes in the arguments of the chicken-littles (almost to the point of out-right mocking them.) It was exactly the opposite of what I expected to read.
The prior month’s issue featured an article that offered up tons of evidence that the great liberal mantra that smaller class sizes equate to better education (pushed like religion by the teacher’s unions) was completely specious.
And a few issues before that, they printed an article comparing the advantages and disadvantages of drilling in ANWR that featured completely reasonable examination of the environmental impact, and minimized the threat to the region.
There has been a noticeable editorial shift over there in the past few months.
For those that would protest "science can't be left-wing" I refer y'all to Gross and Levitt's works for instance. Or Sokal's Transgressing the Boundaries.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.