2 ms·
1) Knocking every single article in a publication because you have something against the magazine is a huge cognitive bias. You should be ashamed. Learn to eval
by swombat 16y ago
1) Knocking every single article in a publication because you have something against the magazine is a huge cognitive bias. You should be ashamed. Learn to evaluate each article on its own merits rather painting everything with the same prejudiced brush.
2) New Scientist is a long-standing, respectable magazine. Their explicit goal is to popularise science, and they do that rather well. Sure, reading a New Scientist article about quantum physics is no substitute for doing a physics degree, but for those who don't have the ability, desire or opportunity to do so, at least it gives them a glimpse of something fascinating. You may find it's not useful to you, but you can't argue that it's not a great publication for a fair number of above-average intelligence people out there.
3) If you are going to attack an article, do so in an intelligent manner. What you wrote there is the magazine-targeted equivalent of a lame ad-hominem. "Omg, X is such a loser, his articles should never make the front page of HN."
- Jabbles 16y agoI have something against the magazine because it continually distorts the science behind the stories to such an extent that the person reading them is frequently left with the wrong impression. Having noticed this several times, it makes sense (if you trust induction) to treat all such articles from the same magazine with similar suspicion. This article is no exception. You are of course correct when you say that many people enjoy reading it. I just expected most of the readers of HN to have studied science to a high-enough level to be aware that much of what is written in New Scientist is, not wrong, but perhaps immature.