I'm conflicted about all of this because I gave up reading Scientific American when I felt it had become too political.
But of course, you can't remove politics from science. Scientists are human and humans are political. When a scientist chooses an area to investigate, it is influenced by their politics. You can ask scientists to be factual, but you can't ask them to be non-political.
It's not SciAm's fault that scientists (and science writers) are political.
The root failure, IMHO, is that several professions, including scientists, journalists, and teachers have become overwhelmingly left-wing. It was not always that way. In the 80s, 35% of university employees (administrators+faculty) donated to Republicans. In recent years it has been under 5%.[1]
I don't know the cause of this. Perhaps conservatives began rejecting science and driving scientists away; or perhaps universities became more liberal and conservative scientists left to join industry. Maybe both.
Personally, I think it is important that this change. Science is the foundation of all our accomplishments, as a country and as a species. My hot take is that trust in science will not be restored until there are more conservative scientists.
Sadly, I think restoring trust will take a long time. Maybe this change at Scientific American will be the beginning of that process. I certainly hope so.
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[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01382-3.pdf
But of course, you can't remove politics from science. Scientists are human and humans are political. When a scientist chooses an area to investigate, it is influenced by their politics. You can ask scientists to be factual, but you can't ask them to be non-political.
It's not SciAm's fault that scientists (and science writers) are political.
The root failure, IMHO, is that several professions, including scientists, journalists, and teachers have become overwhelmingly left-wing. It was not always that way. In the 80s, 35% of university employees (administrators+faculty) donated to Republicans. In recent years it has been under 5%.[1]
I don't know the cause of this. Perhaps conservatives began rejecting science and driving scientists away; or perhaps universities became more liberal and conservative scientists left to join industry. Maybe both.
Personally, I think it is important that this change. Science is the foundation of all our accomplishments, as a country and as a species. My hot take is that trust in science will not be restored until there are more conservative scientists.
Sadly, I think restoring trust will take a long time. Maybe this change at Scientific American will be the beginning of that process. I certainly hope so.
---------
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01382-3.pdf