Scientific American Gives Up 523
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.'"
Boy Howdy (Score:2, Insightful)
Sponsorship (Score:2, Insightful)
_
free cursors [paware.com]
Sure it's a joke... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Scientific Unamerican? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scientific Unamerican? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:C'mon folks (Score:3, Insightful)
The tragic irony is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Creationism, Environment, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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!"
Re:Sure it's a joke... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Giggles. (Score:2, Insightful)
BLAH.
NOOBS! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Unscientific Unamerican (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Political Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Giggles. (Score:3, Insightful)
Faith is the belief in continued performance based upon past experience. Not a blind belief. Though, I will grant, many make it to be that way.
Nice to see they didn't waste an opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
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*
There is no GOD. (Score:2, Insightful)
Intelligent design is the best April Fools joke placed on us by our culture.
Re:Giggles. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unscientific Unamerican (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Michael Crichton Ripped Them A New One (Score:5, Insightful)
"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?"
Re:Giggles. (Score:3, Insightful)
complete confidence in a person or plan etc; "he cherished the faith of a good woman";
Care to continue to argue? Or do you already have "faith" in your argument?
Re:Scientific Unamerican? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Creationism, Environment, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Students should be presented with both sides."
I love the "Both sides" thing when I hear it. It makes me wonder why don't we teach the Greek or Shinto or World or Warcraft creation myths in science too...
sigh (Score:1, Insightful)
No more discussions of how policies affect science either so what if the budget for the National Science Foundation is slashed?
This is the kind of political bullshit that finally drove me to drop the subscription after 6 or 7 years of it, and it's a shame. Nobody "slashed" the NSF budget, they just didn't increase it as much as you wanted. There is a major difference, and the way that you say it makes a large difference on the perception.
Such stupid language is pure politics, and bullshit politics at that. It's not science, nor does it have any place in a scientific magazine.
I noticed, too, that the Clinton administration could do no wrong, whereas the Bush administration can do no right. In actuality, there is little, if any, difference between their policies. Again, we're dealing with simplistic liberal politics.
I don't for a second blame SA for not lending any credibility to creationism or "intelligent design". However, there is plenty of stupid crap, like the sentence that I pointed out above, which has nothing to do with science yet ends up printed on their pages, anyway.
Why not get serious about depoliticizing your magazine? Seriously- I know of at least one other subscriber who dropped SA for the same reason, and I haven't even asked anybody else.
It's a shame, really, as SA used to be one of the best magazines around. Now it's little more than a snobbish, liberal "Discover".
Re:Giggles. (Score:4, Insightful)
faith Audio pronunciation of "faith" ( P )
Pronunciation Key (fth)
n.
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
I am referring to #2. You are referring to #1.
Re:Scientific Unamerican? (Score:1, Insightful)
A not-too-subtle poke if you ask me.
Re:10,000 peer reviewed scientific articles (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Creationism, Environment, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact a *real* faith doesn't need to reject anything... because if you truly believe something to be true you're not afraid of real world observations. A faith that can only hold up by rejecting most of modern science is no faith at all... it's just blind belief.
This appears to be mostly a US phenomenon (not exclusively, such nutters exist here too) - the kind of christian who buries their head in the sand and pretends everything is black and white with no grey areas, who refuses to let anyone disagree with them.. because they don't *really* have any faith at all and they're scared to be proved wrong.
Faith without reason is unreasonable
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.
Re:Giggles. (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not, then I have been trolled. Have a nice day.
There is no fossil evidence in conflict with the Theory of Evolution. If you think there is, please cite it. If it hasn't been published, write it up. If you can make a case, you'll be hailed as one of the innovators of science.
Two points do not _make_ a line. They _define_ a line in Euclidean Geometry.
People presumded that space was filled with "aether" because the then-current theory of waves demanded it. When attempts were made to measure the aether, it turned out not to be there. The person who came up with the best explanation of what was going on... his name is now a household word.
Re:sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sure it's a joke... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Giggles. (Score:4, Insightful)
If creationist feel left out of the science classroom it is because they are. There has never been anything out of the creationist camp that resembles science. I have yet to be shown anything other then criticisms of evolution, which shows that evolution is actually better tested and proves nothing of spontaneous generation.
If beating the drum of political correctness seems to be a good way to win over rational minds you don't understand your audience. If you think it is unfair that theology does not get taught in science class then think of the converse. Maybe all churches should be forced to have science curricula read after the sermon with a notice in the bibles that "The contents of this book have in no way been substantiated and has not been edited to correct obvious mistakes".
Re:Sure it's a joke... (Score:2, Insightful)
First tell me : What is the theory of Intelligent Design? What posits does it make that I can test with experiment? Who is the intelligent designer supposed to be? What problems are there in ToE that require an intelligent designer to exist?
I lurk in talk.origins and have for a long time(Like 10-12 years). Ive read every creation/ID/loonie argument put forward to discredit ToE and all have been knocked down.
The only reason I can think of that we wouldn't teach both sides of this is that we are so insecure in our own beliefs and those of our children that we'll do anything to keep them (and ourselves?) from forming a different opinion. Yes, I'm a Christian, but I grew up in public schools learning about evolution. I was taught conflicting points of view for most of my educational career (especially college). At some point, no matter how much you "protect" your kids, they are going to hear the other sides of the argument. I've looked at the evidence of both sides, and I stand firmly in my beliefs. I don't believe in forcing my beliefs on anyone else, but I believe that each perspective should be taught equally or none at all. I don't even care if you leave "God" out of the lecture. Intelligent design gets the point across.
Thats fine. Believe what you like. Thats a good thing in a free country. The problem is that in science there is no dispute. No serious biologist would suggest that evolution is completely wrong... because we have obversed it... the ToE, so far, explains the observations pretty darn well. Thats science. Speculating about hypothetical designers of organisms is unecessary as there is no problem to solve. If you want your kids taught about the christian origins myth(Im not trying to be offensive here... I beleive its a myth... Im not stepping on your right to believe anything you want), then fine. But the proponants of creationism and ID have offered no concrete theory or "killer app" type repeatable experiments that refute ToE or show the requirment for the existence of a creator of life forms.
The point is, it's very hypocritical to promote the teaching of evolution while denying intelligent design.
No. It would be wrong to teach non-science in a science class. Teach it if you want. But not in a science class. The teacher of science would be a hypocritic, and be doing a great disservice to his/her pupils, if non-science was taught in science classes.
Re:Sure it's a joke... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to be honest with yourself and examine the origins of the universe based on purely factual knowledge, we, as a human race, know absolutely nothing about how the universe was formed.
The theory of evolution has nothing to do with the formation of the universe. It only is about the changes in a population of living things.
your opinion is based on mostly faith.
There is a big difference between religious faith (belief in the absence of facts), and belief in scientific theories that are based on facts.
The point is, it's very hypocritical to promote the teaching of evolution while denying intelligent design.
The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, "intellegent design" is not. So ID should not be taught in a science class.
Personally, I think ID should stand for "Idiot Design" - if someone designed us, why did they screw up so badly on so many things?
This makes me dislike them more (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Boy Howdy (Score:3, Insightful)
What, you can't go a day without Slashdot? 364 days a year isn't quite enough?
The Sarcasm (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Nice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Convenient.
And then throw in the editorializing in the last paragraph? No, they haven't politicized their stance at all, and anyone who'd suggest so must be one of those slope-browed Creationist religious crazies!
Personally, I think that they could have a terrific series of articles DISCUSSING politically charged topics - but instead their recent article on Global Warming was again, a strawman 'misunderstanding' of the debate. The article a while back on SDI was screed against the poolitics and the concept with little said about the scientific plausibility (or lack) of the idea. But then who am I? I'm just one of the slope-browed masses who believe that just because you have a PhD in (something) doesn't equate to being an expert in (everything). SciAm *loves* to make fun of congressmen or politicians that blunder about scientific topics, but they see no hypocrisy in their making similarly-uninformed prognostications about international diplomacy or national policy.
Ironically, they criticize the Bush Administration for 'politicizing science'. Fine, discuss the debate and show the evidence where they've done it (along with fair time for the administration to rebut if they can). But once you take sides, you are NO BETTER.
You dumb bastards, I've been a subscriber to SciAm since SIXTH GRADE (1980). Aside from a year or two in the middle, I've been a subscriber for 25 years, and it kills me to say it but I'm now cancelling my subscription. This really hurts, but it's been a long time on my mind. I admit that I really do hate you guys for driving me to this. But if I want to read this crap, I'll read Mother Jones.
"Scientific" American's sarcastic, self important, snide editorial shows precisely what they think of this reader, anyway. Goodbye, SciAm.
Re:Nice. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:sarcasm... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Nice. (Score:1, Insightful)
"I've been a subscriber to SciAm since SIXTH GRADE"
Dude, seriously. Do you actually read SciAm? Their articles are generally very good at describing the science of political issues.
"discuss the debate and show the evidence"
Did you read the last paragraph? Oh yeah, you complained that it was too political. Now you are saying that you want more policies discussed. Want to see the evidence? Open up one of your recent SciAms and READ AN ARTICLE! They explain it all right there, using a (somewhat) formal scientific style of writing with most of the information coming from peer-reviewed journal articles.
Wow, I really hope you were just doing this for April 1st. If not, then it looks like SciAm just lost a subscriber, but not a reader.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure it's a joke... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because all the theory of "Intelligent Design" says, is, "since I don't understand how this could have evolved, it must have be designed, not evolved." For at least two hundred years, the "perfection" of the eye was given as evidence of design, until computer models should how easy it is for eyes to evolve, and molecular biology showed us eyes have separately evolved at least forty times.
Now the "Intelligent Design" proponents having had the eye explained, talk about freely rotating flagella in certain bacteria. They hang their "theory" in the contention that since "half a rotation" isn't useful, organisms with "half a rotation" could not have ben favored by evolution, and so a freely rotating flagellum could not evolve. But it turns out several of the components of that wheel are the same as components of a "needle" used by parasitic bacteria to inject chemicals into host cells, a so-called Type Three Secretory Apparatus.
All "Intelligent Design" is not a useful theory, in the sense that science uses the word "theory", because all it is able to do is say "I can't figure this out". It has no explanatory or predictive power.
Compare the "theory" of Intelligent Design to Boyle's law: a physicist on being told about changing temperature in a room full of some gas, knows there's a relation between temperature and pressure because Boyle's law predicts it. The physicist doesn't have to go to the room himself, or ask what mechanism is responsible for the temperature change, or in what direction the temperature is changing, or really even what kind of gas in the room -- the physicist can with confidence predict that pressure and temperature are dependent on one another.
It's not just that evolution is consistent with what we know, it's also consistent with what we don't know.
It has predictive and explanatory power: using evolution, we are able to say, "assuming evolution is correct, we ought to see this", and then when we do look, we see what evolution predicts.
We say, evolution tells us that meiosis helps to keep each paired chromosome like its opposite pair, because genes are exchanged in meiosis. Because meiosis only takes place in sexual reproduction, this allows us to predict that in asexual reproduction, paired chromosomes will diverge. when we look at bdelloid rotifers, we see what was predicted: their chromosomes do diverge, and we can even compare the chromosome divergence between pairs against the to the total mutational change in the entire bdelloid rotifer genome, to come up with a good idea of how long bdelloid rotifers have been reproducing asexually: abut 80 million years.
We say, evolution predicts that, since workers bees born to a queen with only one mate share more genes, on average, with their haploid nephews -- that is, males born to other workers -- than with their diploid brothers born to the queen, the workers will favor their nephews. And the prediction turns out to be true. We can also predict, using Trivers' work, that if the queen mated with more than one male, a nephew isn't necessarily more related, so the workers in that case won't favor nephews. And that also turns out to be true. (Bee examples from here [metafilter.com]).
Note that in the bee example, we don't know what mechanism allows a worker to "know" how many mates her mother the queen has had, or the mechanism that, given that "knowledge" allows the worker to modify her behavior. We just know that the worker behaves "as if" she understood the genetic math involved, and knew the mating history. Of course, bees don't do genetics or math and probably don't even remember matings -- but we don't need to see the mechanism to predict that it and the behavior must be there: evolutionary theory predicted that bees would act like "as if" geneticis
Re:This makes me dislike them more (Score:2, Insightful)
Contrast this to your average newspaper or weekly, which reduces every debate into he-said she said terms, without ever examining to the facts, assumptions and reasoning behind statements. A typical "unbiased" newspaper article might be summarized as "Mr Hozum states that the there is strong evidence that humans affect climate change. Mr Funkerdunk responded that there are many unknowns, and reducing greenhouse gases would be to expensive." Because the "journalist" should not editorialize, they leave misleading or downright deceptive statements unchallenged. Authors that pursue the holy grail of unbiased journalism usually fail to weed total bunk from valid arguments, and do no service to their readership. They also fail to achieve unbiased journalism, as there will always be assumptions and biases. I'd rather not work so hard to discover the biases and assumptions.
Union of Concerned Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Giggles. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thumper: "The Bible says 'this'."
Rational: "That doesn't mean anything."
Thumper: "But the Bible says 'that'."
Rational: "But that doesn't mean anything."
Thumper: "But the Bible says that it does mean something."
Rational: "But it's the _Bible_ that says that the Bible means something... that doesn't mean anything."
Thumper: "But the Bible says 'this'...."
Re:Michael Crichton Ripped Them A New One (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind that Brin is an actual scientist turned writer whereas Crichton is a doctor turned writer.
Now I'm not saying that there arn't doctors who are scientists however there has never been anything in Crichton's bio to suggest that he was. Whereas Brin is a fellow at JPL just for starters.
Crichton can spin a pretty good tail but even his fiction is no match for Brin when it comes to science.