Full disclosure: I haven’t looked at an issue of Scientific American since college—that was in the late 80s for those counting.
In some research on another topic, I happened across it again. The publication used to be the go-to for digestible and credible scientific knowledge.
As Mr. Dylan sang, “the Times, they are a changin‘…”.
When did Scientific American get so… unscientific? In a Lexis search, I discovered that there are many laymen and scientists who are not happy with Scientific American‘s increasingly leftist and non-scientific bent over the last few decades.
One Twitter commenter said the pivot point was in 1986, when the publication went from scientific analysis to the way of biological waste matter. That was about the time I stopped paying attention to the magazine.
This is about the point @sciam turned to shit, on the third page of the list of articles published there by Lawrence Krauss: reification of metonymy naively replacing math and the uncanny (oh, the 70s: you were too open to halt the neo-rationalism/neo-positivism of the 80s). pic.twitter.com/GTeQCmCrZY
— Thaddeus Gutierrez (@Fulguritics) November 28, 2019
Apparently, in 1990, Scientific American rejected columnist Forest Mims III as a regular contributor, because he believed in creationism. Despite Mims prior interviews with the editorial team, in which he was grilled on his extensive scientific knowledge, his philosophies, and praised for his ability to translate this scientific rigor into writing, and make it exciting for young people through his Amateur Scientist columns. But, because he was a Christian who believed in creationism, he was persona non grata in the premiere publication of the science world. They had a reputation to uphold, after all.
That stance appears to have gone by the wayside, as they accept all types of hypotheses based on the current Leftist drumbeats, like climate change, transgender policy, and other agenda items disguised as science.
In 2006, that same editor who rejected Mims, University of Texas ecologist Eric Pianka, told his students that, in order for the planet to survive, 90 percent of the population must be killed off.
Creationism: BAD. Killing Humans to Save Creation: GOOD
The late scientist and mathematician Amir Aczel wrote a book about Science and God. Why Science Does Not Disprove God argued that atheistic and agenda-driven scientific arguments are flawed, and according to Aczel, those who say God and science cannot coexist, “distort both the process of science and its value.”
From the author’s 2014 Time Magazine article on this subject:
But has modern science, from the beginning of the 20th century, proved that there is no God, as some commentators now claim? Science is an amazing, wonderful undertaking: it teaches us about life, the world and the universe. But it has not revealed to us why the universe came into existence nor what preceded its birth in the Big Bang. Biological evolution has not brought us the slightest understanding of how the first living organisms emerged from inanimate matter on this planet and how the advanced eukaryotic cells—the highly structured building blocks of advanced life forms—ever emerged from simpler organisms. Neither does it explain one of the greatest mysteries of science: how did consciousness arise in living things? Where do symbolic thinking and self-awareness come from? What is it that allows humans to understand the mysteries of biology, physics, mathematics, engineering and medicine? And what enables us to create great works of art, music, architecture and literature? Science is nowhere near to explaining these deep mysteries.
Aczel gave an insightful interview to Science Friday on this concept and the book. Worth the listen, here.
In a cursory search of Scientific American‘s archives, Amir Aczel appears in their publication twice. No surprise there. The late scientist’s premises and hypotheses fail to fit the agenda being rammed through it by the scientific left. Forget rammed, let’s call it a wholesale takeover, and decades of this seed bedding has afflicted the public policy we saw unfold during the COVID pandemic.
Here are some more of Scientific American’s recent articles:
Columns peddling zoonotic connections, and denial of a lab leak of the Wuhan Virus, when even legacy media like the New York Times and CNN have come around to realizing this is not the case.
It's really hard to trace a new zoonotic disease back to the species it jumped from. The fact that we don't yet know the animal origins of SARS-CoV-2 is not surprising and not evidence for a lab leak. https://t.co/73FIhMqG35 on @sciam
— Laura Helmuth (@laurahelmuth) June 10, 2021
Allegations that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab make it harder for nations to collaborate on ending the pandemic — and fuel online bullying, some scientists say. https://t.co/r3ioxZCuZK
— Scientific American (@sciam) May 27, 2021
Then there’s that scientific basis for “violent white supremacy”, just in time to back up Dementia Joe’s rambling speech.
Violent white supremacy is part of rising domestic terrorism in the U.S. Our editorial highlights steps the Biden administration and Congress should take to stop it. https://t.co/s6Fx4jhble
— Scientific American (@sciam) February 17, 2021
This all looks more like Mad Scientific Magazine. All they need is Alfred E. Neuman on the front cover holding up a beaker.
This recent article cements the fact that Scientific American stopped being about actual science and aligned itself with a science-based left-wing agenda.
In honor of Pride month, Scientific American spotlighted a pioneering transgender doctor who saved “countless lives”.
.@sciam profiles Alan L. Hart, a transgender doctor who earned a master’s in radiology at Penn in 1928. https://t.co/nBnlsvA5FP
— Penn (@Penn) June 13, 2021
What does that have to do with science? It would make sense in a publication called, “Cultural American” because it’s a culture issue—not a scientific one. It’s about as ridiculous as the security company Pinkerton, who my colleague Joe Cunningham rightly skewered, throwing up a tweet honoring Pride month. I could not care less about the company’s stance on sexuality—are they still good at spying? Can they keep my assets safe?
The same applies with a publication that used to be about America and science. Talk to me about actual scientific innovations and breakthroughs, not about a transgender hero who happened to be a person of science. But Scientific American has gone far off the path of science and deep into the path of agenda politics.
Speaking of agenda politics, the demise of Scientific American should have been a preview for us. Their agenda was allowed to roll off their pages, into the minds of bureaucrats, and helped create mad scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who now says that any attack on him is an attack on science.
Oookay.
Almost a year ago, Fauci appeared on a Harvard Medical School panel, and decried the country’s “anti-science” sentiments.
Now, we are watching in real time a so-called trusted scientific authority being confirmed as not only anti-science, but a hack and a fraud. Fauci’s emails confirm (among other things), the mask flip-flops, giving time and access for a documentary about his life and work in the middle of a global pandemic, and breaking his own COVID restrictions.
As one op-ed writer so cogently put it:
The best thing you can say about Fauci is that his thinking about the virus appears to have evolved, from his take on masks to the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab.
He also dithered on whether the United States would face a fourth wave of the virus.
I understand that COVID-19 was a new coronavirus. But coronaviruses themselves aren’t new. And viruses are Fauci‘s expertise. It’s not wrong for us to demand better of him, particularly since Democrats and the media held him up as an almost Yoda-like figure of calm and wisdom.
And maybe the fact that COVID-19 burned through the world’s population to a degree unlike other coronaviruses should have been a hint that this was no ordinary virus.
Hindsight is 20-20 for non-professionals like me, but the experts should have had a clue.
The best we can say is that there appear to be no experts. And that’s OK. Just don’t shout at us to “follow the science” and “trust the experts” (looking at you, Gov. Andrew Cuomo).
And Gov. Gavin Newsom… but, I digress.
Instead of Fauci admitting that his 50-year career is built on a throne of lies, he doubled down with the help of the execrable Chuck Todd on MSNBC.
“It’s very dangerous, Chuck, because a lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science. Because all of the things that I have spoken about consistently from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science. Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people, and there was pushback against me.”
There has never been a greater lionization of a supposed scientific leader as we have seen with the Cult of Fauci. So I guess it was inevitable that Fauci would interpret any attack on him as an attack on SCIENCE. After all, he is science personified.
This man has done more to corrupt science than “Mad Scientific American” magazine ever could. Sadly, thanks to Dr. Fauci, when a real medical crisis occurs, Americans will be immediately suspicious of the experts and scientists and search out their own solutions.
Our institutions are no longer credible or trustworthy.
Sign up for our VIP program to get access to premium content for members only! Use code OCONNELL for a discount!