Comments on: In praise of prejudice or, Scientific American gets softening of the brain

By: RR Ryan

RR Ryan — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:26:38 +0000

The same thing happened to National Geographic. As a child, I spent many an hour poring over decades of back issues; some were as old as the 1890’s, if memory serves. When our subscription came due sometime in the 1990’s, we simply decided not to re-up. I want information, not a sermon.

By: flying squirrel

flying squirrel — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:31:32 +0000

The re-valorization of prejudice has been conducted in our time by Hans George Gadamer in his Truth and Method. Mr RK should be familiar since the opening topic is truth in the work of art. Prejudice as a concept is historically developed from Medieval jurisprudenceas a name for an interim judgement necessary for subsequent inquiry.
In this sense Gadamer discloses the historical character of culture to be prejudicial; to make implicit assumptions as a basis for further understanding. A scientific prejudice against the past, (history is bunk) when carried into the humanities makes for alienation; past = prejudice = error. The ‘revolutionary’ spirit of liberalism (PC) overvalues regicide and novelty, and undervalues or is blind to, the principled partiality of churches, schools and states. A conservatism that recognizes the importance of what doesn’t change (vs noisy fashion), that sees tradition as a benefactor and ground for our present stance, not just an object of rational critique, is a more honest (historically) intellectual stance and yields greater wisdom in government. I think it is also better equipped to discern real science from jargonized political advocacy.

By: John Moore

John Moore — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:39:29 +0000

Totally agree about Sci. Am. It has been getting worse (and, perhaps not coincidentally) smaller. An example is its constant shilling for the anthropogenic global warming alarmists, and it’s publishing of 14 pages of ad homihem attacks against the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and the consequent threat of lawsuit against him when he defended himself on his blog.

One nit to pic:

humanists–a fancy name for the scientifically illiterate–

Excuuuuse me? Not even close.

By: jw

jw — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:53:25 +0000

I subscribed to the Scientific American from 1955 until very recently. It used to be an excellent magazine with articles by distinguished scientists on physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, psychology astronomy, even economics, as well as having a fine Mathematical Games section. Its article were not only for the layman but also for scientists, and its articles were used in university science courses. Since Gerard Piel ceased to be the publisher, it has deteriorated, and I have finally let my subscription lapse. I saw but did not read Siri Carpenter’s article, but I wonder if she even knows what bias is.

By: Mike Huggins

Mike Huggins — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:08:09 +0000

(without having read the article, only RK’s synopsis) – I was wondering whether there was some actual testable “science” represented in Carpenter’s article, to get it published in “Scientific American” as opposed to “Psychology Today.” Next up, “Lysenko speaks for today.”

By: Doug Crockett

Doug Crockett — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:23:26 +0000

I had a subscription for over 25 years. Scientific American is now a publication full of direct and indirect political comment and innuendo, much like Time Magazine, but with a scientific gloss as the hook. This began when the editor changed and the magazine was revamped, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago. The magazine’s “science” is now the motor for political activism. My donnybrook was the advocacy position the publication took regarding a state education issue involving how to handle the teaching of Darwin, encouraging readers to voice the magazine’s one-sided editorial opinions to the state authorities and characterizing the matter as a threat to science. If you still have a subscription, which I don’t, you probably will find it impossible to get any acknowledgment of even the existence of legitimate dissension to the magazine’s politically-driven narratives. After all, the topic of the magazine is “science”, not politics, so politics is irrelevant. Or to put the magazine’s position more directly, the editor’s scientifically-enlightened politics is the only possible world view for rational people.

By: LSD

LSD — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:00:49 +0000

I agree entirely. We have an eleven-year old daughter who will be the recipient of a lot of this sort of stuff. I constantly wrestle with the question of appropriate and effective intervention because I don’t want to become a repetetive curmudgeon. Sceince is a fascinating realm. The sort of pseudo-scientific pedantry that needs to be thrown out of the temple can sometimes be identified with such statements as “the debate on ______ is over”; the invitation at such an announcement is to become a member of the group rather than to think for yourself. Science is not afraid of such questions as “is it a good idea for humans to try to preserve all of the threatened species in our eco system?”, but I think that most classrooms are.

The evolution of National Geographic has also been dissapointing.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:30:26 +0000

You’re right about the descent of Scientific American from once-Olympian status: it was a scientifically meticulous and editorially super-competent voice of science for serious (but not necessarily professional) readers. That was a long time ago. It was the voice of scientists doing the best work, pushed editorially into a stylistic excellence not always their own but always the magazine’s. Here such uniformity was a rare plus: the writing was sound, but it was also fully intelligible and aloof from trendiness and politics (this even in the editorial or review pieces). Au revoir! The irresistible lure of socio-political righteousness that captured the culture as a whole did not fail to work on this journal. Excellent pieces of the original kind still appear in almost every issue; but now self-righteous sophomores get the same editorial respect as in the media generally.