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.'"

Time for a new Slashdot Poll

[kpwoodr]

Today's April fools Jokes:

- Funny
- Unfunny
- April what?
- What do you mean Paris Hilton really isn't going to advertise for Linux!?!

Re:Okay, We Give Up

[DShard]

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.

Takeover notice

[CyBlue]

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.

Re:BBC article on creationism

[Tony Hoyle]

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.

Re:Giggles.

[verus vorago]

''Scientific theory is fine, but lets try show both sides of the argument shall we?''

Scientific theory is what is taught in science class. I went to a catholic school where we were taught science (gravity, evolution, electromagnetism, etc) and creationism... *DIFFERENT* creation stories (they're stories not theories) - we all had to come up with one - I got an A+ :-)

It's been a long time since most people around here, who can reliably spell "science", believed in the literal truth of the stories in genesis.

Re:sigh

[dartboard]

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!

See this link for just one source of inflation numbers:

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/ AnnualInflation.asp [inflationdata.com]

There are hundreds more.

Re:Creationism, Environment, etc.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Don't tar us all with the same brush... I watch the news reports from the US and have a good laugh just like you do.

Oh, I'm not trying to, which is why I said "religious fanatics," not "religious believers." Most of the faithful I know are perfectly sane people; but as SmallOak pointed out, here in the US, it's the far-right fanatics who shout the loudest, and they've been frighteningly successful in co-opting "faith" as a code word for their brand of extremism. Given that we are and will almost certainly remain a majority Christian country, the only way to turn this around, IMO, is for believers who object to their belief being used solely to advance an extreme agenda to stand up and say, "Not in our name." I see some signs of this happening, but not nearly fast enough.

Re:Nice.

[d34thm0nk3y]

Dude, you don't HAVE to believe or agree with everything you read. These April fools articles should be an example of that. The fact that you are so offended from the articles you referenced makes me think you are insecure in your beliefs. Maybe you should stop and truly ask yourself why you believe what you believe.