Sunday, February 28, 2016

Why I no longer subscribe to Scientific American...

Why I no longer subscribe to Scientific American...  This is an excerpt from a piece by the scientist  Dr. Tim Ball (personal web site), writing on Watts Up With That?
There was a time when Scientific American (SA) occupied a unique niche on the newsstands. It was a magazine about science for the public. It was genuine science usually written by scientists, not a popular pseudo-science magazine like all the others. It was interesting because most people did not understand much of what was written. People that knew about the topic realized it was a very broad overview, but realized it was for public consumption. They published fascinating articles drawing issues to public attention without political bias. Three I recall that were valuable in the climate debate were; John Eddy’s article on the missing sunspots; Stommel and Stommel’s piece on 1816, the year with no summer; and an early article about the influence on ocean temperature measurements of the switch from leather to metal buckets and then engine intakes.

Now, SA is a sensationalist, biased, apologist outlet for the IPCC global warming science. It appears the transition was driven, even before the full impact of the internet, by declining sales. Now, in my opinion, SA is no different from any of the other pseudo-science sensationalist magazines. Coincident with the shift was a decline in contributions from scientists and an increase in articles by professional (?) journalists. With climate articles, the majority came from scientists directly involved in the IPCC deception. Doom and gloom and sensationalism sells and even better if it fits the political bias of those involved in producing the magazine.
It's also why I won't be renewing my subscription to Science News, which I've subscribed to since the '70s.  The sad truth is that these days I find better science reporting and analysis on blogs than in professionally edited magazines.  The truth stands a much better chance of emerging from those who write from interest than it does from those who write for the commercial opportunity.  It's a different example of the same thing that's happened to newspapers and magazines reporting on politics...

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