31 ms·
The Demise of Scientific American
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zzt123 5y agoSeems so in my reading. I assume I must be incorrect though, since that interpretation seems absurd. Yet, not sure how else to interpret it… but I guess this isn’t much different from the master/slave stuff in code, or the removal of the master branch default in git.
- ogogmad 5y agoCan we not say cool-sounding words anymore like "colony", "supremacy" and "master"? I'll admit that "master vs slave" might perhaps be in bad taste (but not "master" on its own). But cancelling "blacklist", "colony" and "supremacy" is pretty incredible.
- 8note 5y agoI'm very favourable to getting rid of blacklist. It's random whether it's an allow list or a deny list, and there are domain specific words you can use instead to make it really clear what the list does
- ogogmad 5y agoPlease explain to me what you find wrong with blacklist. I'm dying to know.
- HumanReadable 5y agoit's less clear to non-native English speakers what the hell a blacklist is than what a deny-list is. EDIT: the replies I received to this comment are pretty shocking to me. I'm not arguing for the removal of anything, I am only listing one issue with blacklist that deny-list doesn't have. Anything you're reading into my comment beyond that is your tribal identity projecting its insecurity.
- ogogmad 5y ago1. By this logic, we should abandon most words in the English language, because non-native speakers might otherwise need to learn them. Somehow though, you've applied this logic only to the word "blacklist". And why should a language with its own literature and history abandon its own vocabulary? 2. The usual reason given for not saying "blacklist" is because of supposed racism. Your argument is a new one, and seems to have been produced post-facto. Your comment is sophistry. [edit] Removed some scathing remarks.
- rbanffy 5y agoEven if the readability argument was created after the fact, it still stands. It’s immediately clear what an “allow-list” means.
- ogogmad 5y agoBy that logic, we'll have to give up most words in English. This is entitled to the extreme. You have been arguing with me for the sake of arguing.
- rbanffy 5y agoNot really. English remains the most spoken language in our circles and it's immensely helpful because of that. What we can all do is to look for better names. Master/slave can be replaced by primary/replica, publisher/subscriber and a lot of others that offer narrower meanings and, therefore, are better names.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- major--neither 5y agodo you seriously not understand what you're doing?
- 5y ago
- maximus-decimus 5y agowhitelist = good allowed things blacklist = bad, forbidden things => white = good black = bad Associating something being black with it being bad/lesser/evil is problematic if you're trying to get rid of racism toward black people.
- ogogmad 5y agoWhite is good because it's the colour of natural light. Black is bad because it's the colour of darkness, which is dangerous because you can't see. Children are afraid of the dark. The fact that people's skin colour is sometimes described as white or black is a coincidence that doesn't relate to the origin of the word blacklist. If people are offended by coincidences like this, it means that we won't be able to speak Spanish, Russian or Chinese. The Russian word for black (as in a black person) is negr; but note that this is not considered offensive in Russian.
- rbanffy 5y ago> White is good because it's the colour of natural light. In a post about a world flag someone mentioned that, for the Chinese, white is associated with death.
- ogogmad 5y agoYou've fixated on a minor detail. The origin of the word "blacklist" is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_te... It has never had anything to do with race. If we can't say certain words because of linguistic coincidences, then we won't be able to speak Spanish. In all your responses to me, you have been arguing for the sake of arguing.
- rbanffy 5y agoThe origin is irrelevant if it's found offensive. If you tell me what I'm doing offends you, I'll try to change my behavior.
- Invictus0 5y agoIn what context does blacklist indicate an allow list? I've never heard of that. And is your issue with the word on the basis of race or on ambiguity?
- dcanelhas 5y agoAs in "Master of science"?
- ogogmad 5y agoI said "master", when it's not in opposition to "slave", should not be deemed offensive. Your example helps make my point. To clarify my view on master/slave terminology, I do understand how an overt analogy to slavery could be offensive. But the word "master" doesn't usually imply that there's a slave.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoNo way to blame the patriarchy on that one though. Maybe worker exploitation is a possible angle.
- bschne 5y agoWith the GIT thing my usual stance is that there's no need to make this a hill to die on. Some people feel better about it, it's next to zero effort, so it's no big deal wether I personally think it's absolutely necessary or not. I don't think it's a high priority or high leverage thing to do against racism or for inclusion, but I don't mind when GitHub goes "you know what, main is nicer for some people, let's switch". But the ant colony thing in the SA piece sounds a bit like saying software engineering is a "problematic" field that should be critiqued because it often uses a VCS that at some point in the past opted for a very common set of terms that some may now consider offensive. I could try to rack my brain for all the more or less charitable interpretations of what she is actually trying to get at with that sentence, but viewing it in the context of the whole piece, I think there's not much of a there, there.
- janto 5y ago"no need to make this a hill to die on" is what you say to someone to take away their ability to say "no". Don't make it your usual stance.
- tomp 5y agoThe problem with git master->main is, that if you don’t say “no”, there’s always gonna be the next thing. Like “ant colony”. Ironically Scott Aarson has himself written about this, after having realised he was, like you, wrong for not saying “no”. (Too late.) You have to say “no”.
- gspr 5y agoI don't buy that logic. I have absolutely no problem with the word "master" for e.g. a main branch, or for something that controls something else for that matter, but why wouldn't it be OK to let someone do all the work of changing a fine word into an equally fine one? How does that force you to do non-neutral, negative, changes in the future?
- tomp 5y agoIn your mind, it’s “fine work” but in their minds, it’s winning a political battle, and they’re just empowered for the next battle. Bad politics (exclusionary, racist, destructive, forcefully equalising, speech controlling, bullying, anti-meritocratic - i.e. wokeism) need to be opposed. If the change was proposed & made on technical merit, I wouldn’t oppose it. But it wasn’t - it was based on ideological bullying
- paganel 5y agoWhich is absurd because the Romans had used this term first [1] (I mean, compared to the Europeans that set up colonies in the 1500s-1700s), with pretty tame connotations, for crying out loud, there's an entire German city which got its name from it, Köln. > however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(Roman) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_(Roman)
- marcan_42 5y agoThe master/slave stuff is just terrible terminology. Seriously, it means about a dozen different things depending on context. Sometimes the "slave" is a clone of the master, sometimes it's an alternative of the master, sometimes it merely has the role of a responder in a protocol, and rarely is it actually under the full control of the master (funny enough, the technology closest to "total and absolute control" I can think of - JTAG - calls that the "target", not the "slave"... :-) ). That particular set of terms has been so thoroughly abused and overused so as to lose all nuanced meaning, and we'd do much better to drop it just out of sheer uselessness and switch to more accurate, varied terms that properly fit the context (like primary/secondary, primary/replica, initiator/responder, host/device, leader/follower, etc.). This isn't out of wokeness; quoting the previous version of the I²C specification: "Some devices are masters – they generate bus clock and initiate communication on the bus, other devices are slaves and respond to the commands on the bus." ... if you're going to have to define what your terms mean in other terms because your original terms are unclear, why not just use the other terms directly? Initiator/responder would've been perfectly appropriate here (that terminology is used by IPSec, FWIW). Initiator/target would've also worked (iSCSI calls them that). Interestingly, just a couple months ago the spec was updated to replace the terms with "controller/target" instead, which is actually worse; "controller" is already a widely used term to mean the hardware that implements I²C inside any given chip, and which can work in either "controller" or "target" mode, which is very confusing. So yeah, I'm all for replacing master/slave since it's terribly ambiguous, just please pick something that doesn't make things worse. As for git master vs main, that has less of a technical argument to it... but it doesn't hurt anyone, it's easy to change the default branch name, "main" is just as descriptive as "master", and "main" is shorter anyway, so "main" it is. There's absolutely no reason to die on that hill even if you reject the (tenuous) argument of a master -> master/slave -> slavery association (in my mind "master" here is in the sense of "master record" or "master bus" and there is no "slave" counterpart, so I never had a problem with this one, but I still find "main" perfectly fine and it saves typing). This thing about ant colonies... yeah, that's pretty different and clearly utterly illogical.
- mongol 5y agoMaster in git I assumed is the same as tape master, master copy etc. I never heard about slave in git context. Which makes it even more absurd.
- dang 5y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29778461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29778461.
- mikaeluman 5y agoThe true power of markets is that these sorts of editorial mismanagement only mean one thing: people stop purchasing an increasingly subpar print. I used to read SciAm regularly. But this type of Wokeism into everything and calling great people horrible things after they die is so disgraceful. How can anyone take the magazine with an ounce of seriousness anymore?
- raspasov 5y agoAs much as I love markets in a libertarian sort of way, they are not perfect. Markets can be slow, and there are many different types of customers. Fox News and CNN still "sell" decently well. CNN used to be the "real news" some years ago. Not any more. The product has changed. They still try to claim to be the "real news". They are really not. They are, for the most part, an opinion outlet with narrow agenda. Fox News is, more or less, exactly the same but pointed almost perfectly in the opposite direction. It's not unthinkable for Scientific American to "transform" itself in a similar way and find customers while claiming to be about "science" while it can be mostly about "agenda".
- causi 5y agoGenuine racists, sexists, and their sort have no greater allies than the ever-present purity inquisition among people purporting to oppose bigotry. What may have begun as efforts to reform thinking in a progressive and egalitarian manner has become the mirror image of the hate-mongering of their opponents. The difference is that the racists attack people who were never inclined to be their allies, and that's why they win elections.
- chroem- 5y agoHot take: the current state of anti-racism is increasingly indistinguishable from regular racism.
- user-the-name 5y agoGarbage. As someone else already pointed out, this is the exact argument made by the far right. It is entirely dishonest and only serves to suppress efforts to improve the situation of oppressed groups. You can do better than this kind of intellectual laziness. Go learn what actual anti-racism is. Don't just blindly accept contrarianism by those who wish to harm.
- Barrin92 5y agopretty hot if you've ever been the target of actual racism, which includes getting beaten up for wearing a headscarf, not getting an apartment rented out because your last name sounds weird or being rejected by your parents in law, or fucked over by the police. I know HN doesn't like heated language and so on but if you think a bunch of intellectuals getting their book tours cancelled and online commentators getting their twitter blocked compares to the lived racism of minorities you have to have your head up your own ass.
- zo1 5y agoI really don't think we talk enough about how much plain old racism, not "reverse-racism", is actually happening to non-traditional races (I.e. White and Asian people). It's seeped so much into the culture that we don't even notice it, and on top of it, we dismiss it because it's detracting and detrimental to social reform for "real" racism.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jpeg_hero 5y agoWhen I read Scientific American when I was in High School in the 90’s it was a very challenging read. I don’t think any publication outside of a scientific journal is that rigorous anymore.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI read a good article some time ago that explained the different 'levels' of scientific writing. Level 1 was the actual papers. Level 2 is the press releases of the university or research institute in question. And level 3 and beyond are the pop sci websites, magazines, social media channels etc picking up on it - and it becomes muddled after that, because they will often pick up and rewrite from each other instead of referencing the source. The most grieving of that one, I find, is about things like exoplanets. The publications will mention some numbers showing evidence of an exoplanet that may be at a certain distance from its star to have reasonable temperatures or traces of oxygen and water. The pop sci drivel sites and some newspapers even will publish screaming headlines with great-but-completely-fantastical artists' renderings of verdant planets, basically claiming that life has been found and we'll be shaking tentacles with our new overlords soon.
- schnitzelstoat 5y agoEven the press releases from the universities can often be really low-quality - written for easy regurgitation by the press to ensure maximum virality. Actual decent articles that put the research into context for the layman and are honest about the findings and consequences of those findings is increasingly rate. Scientific American used to be very good for it but has declined. New Scientist declined even before SciAm did. Then there's all the pop-sci websites that are a rung below even those.
- rbanffy 5y agoI still like the IEEE and ACM magazines. It’s sad IBM ceased publication of their journals, which were themselves wonderful.
- heikkilevanto 5y agoWhen growing up, my dad had a subscription to Scientific American. I learnt a lot from it, even English language. First the easy parts (50 years ago, letters to the editor), and then more advanced columns (Metamathematical Themes, Amateur Scientist), and finally some of the articles. When I moved on my own in the late 80's, I naturally got my own subscription too. But I was already feeling that the level was dropping. They introduced Science in Pictures, and stuff like that. The day when I felt I could read and understand every article, I decided not to renew my subscription. Must have been early 90's.
- bschne 5y agoFrom the op-ed in question: > And the descriptions and importance of ant societies existing as colonies is a component of Wilson’s work that should have been critiqued Is she... drawing a connection between the term "ant colony" and human colonialism?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- reed1234 5y agoThis post feels too much like an unsubstantiated rant to belong on this site. It doesn’t give much textual evidence and feels highly emotionally charged. That said, I do agree that SA has gone downhill in the last 5 years. I canceled my subscription last year because the science was becoming too pop-sci-ish. Here’s the offending article the author was referring to: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-complicated-legacy-of-e-o-wilson/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-complicated-l...
- DalasNoin 5y agoScott Aaronson is featured quite frequently on Hackernews. I feel like many will trust him even if he speaks in an emotionally charged way. But that being said, the article contains one concrete example in the foreword by Scott and another Post by someone who was fired from SA.
- metabagel 5y agoAgreed. This seems to be a better reasoned critique: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/12/30/scientific-american-does-an-asinine-hit-job-on-e-o-wilson-calling-him-a-racist/ https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2021/12/30/scientific-america...
- rajup 5y agoYes very eloquently put thanks for sharing!
- irrational 5y agoThis seems so on the nose for a magazine called Scientific American based on the anti-science sentiments in America we have been seeing for the last 5 years or so.
- wrp 5y agoWhen did SA change? In the 1970s-80s, its articles were quite technical, for scientifically literate readers to understand something outside their field. When I looked at SA again after a long absence, around 20 years ago, it had already been dumbed down to about what Popular Science was many years ago. SA had another era, in my dad's day, when its aim was less academic and more for the home enthusiast and hobbyist. I wonder when it became more of a forum for academic researchers to popularize their work.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoWhen they switched to the glue binding.
- wrp 5y agoInteresting correlation. I guess that is indicative of new management.
- duskwuff 5y ago> When did SA change? Around 2000, when the cover design changed, and they stopped running classic columns like "Mathematical Games" and "Amateur Scientist".
- pwdisswordfish9 5y agoScott Aaronson has always been like that.
- PotatoPancakes 5y agoI think the "SA" in this context referred to Scientific American, not Scott Aaronson.
- jessaustin 5y agoAs Nelson Muntz once observed, "I can think of at least two things wrong with that name."
- causi 5y agohe had the temerity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, human beings operate with the same mix of genes that other creatures do, the book was met by a disgraceful, below-the-belt, ideological response This is wild to me. Isn't the whole point of philosophy, or even of the concept of introspection, that our instincts are no longer suited to the existence in which we find ourselves? Isn't all of moral learning directed solely at the struggle against the ways in which our instincts fail to correctly guide us in the modern world? Correct instincts don't need commentary. We don't have to teach someone to run when a predator chases them, or not to walk off of cliffs. Human beings can't not have counterproductive instincts and still need the concept of law.
- rshnotsecure 5y agoThis blog post seems like an intel play designed to whip up anger and passion among the populace on all sides. It reminds me very much of "The Stanford Review", founded by Peter Thiel, in tonality and content. That is to say, well written, but with a certain level of anger that doesn't seem necessary.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago> level of anger that doesn't seem necessary SA attacked a respected scientist who passed away and so couldn't defend himself. Seems like a reasonable thing to get angry at? What would you suggest should be a reasonable response?
- reactspa 5y agoBring the dead scientist back from the dead.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoOr maybe the author is just genuinely angry?
- reactspa 5y agoHis entire blog seems like that.
- tasty_freeze 5y agoI can understand their dismay at the hit piece on EO Wilson, and other editorial stances that they disagree with. But the editorial section is about 3% of the magazine. It seems hysterical to say that SciAm is "utterly destroyed" because of their resentment of "woke" editorials. Really, the 100 or so in depth pieces written every year, the "things in the news" sections are now just part of a "zombie clickbait rag"?
- rajup 5y agoI don’t know, I would personally consider an outlet publishing such rubbish as not deserving of my attention and money. Just because it’s an editorial does not absolve the magazine of its mistakes.
- dustintrex 5y agoEditorial stances are one thing, but publishing articles maligning the "so-called normal distribution of statistics" (!) as racist (!!) is another.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- xyzzyz 5y agoFor many decades now, but particularly strongly in past 6 years or so, being perceived as racist against so-called “marginalized groups” equates to career death in the professional world. This is true even if you are perceived to be racist only 3% time. For this reason, false accusation of racism is an abhorrent crime. If 3% racists aren’t given a pass, why should we give a pass 3% garbage dump rags?
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoI don’t think they can be so cleanly separated. If you see a newspaper that publishes just complete nonsense in its editorial section, arguing that up is down and vaccines cause autism and reptilians rule the world, should you trust that their hard news is accurate?
- 5y ago
- wavegeek 5y agoI notice over the years SA has become more and more influenced by fashion. The pressures to appeal to the popular crowd have only intensified over the years. Why would you subscribe to SA when the internet has more good material than you can possibly digest? That is their problem in a nutshell. Another once mightly magazine The Economist, whose founder was praised by Nietzsche as "an objective journalist", has also gone downhill IMHO. I cancelled my subscriptions to both a while back.
- mihaaly 5y agoI stopped my subscription for The Economist when in the electronic format it forced advertisements on me on a more intrusive way than the full page ads in printed edition which was easier to jump over. I did not want paper format (I already had a big pile, also why to waste paper when I have an iPad) and I got no response on requesting a (even) more expensive subscription without the watch and other useless adverts wasted on me anyway. I buy it only occasionally now therefore cannot agree or disagree if it went downhill from before, looking at single issues from time to time look alright. I always liked its balanced but analytic style, helped to learn the events and mechanisms of the world.
- WalterBright 5y agoI used to enjoy the NOVA TV show, but it has steadily gotten dumbed down over the years. An example: "Somewhere there was a first planet that formed in the entire universe. We'll never know about it. We'll never know when it formed or what its fate was. But it formed somewhere!" -- NOVA Universe Revealed: Big Bang
- caconym_ 5y agoI read (not extremely closely, but better than skimming) Aaronson's foreword, the guest post, and the article in question; and I still don't know what about Wilson's work was supposedly "problematic". It's apparently something to do with the "nature vs. nurture" question, but I can hardly remember reading so many words with so little substance. For somebody not involved with the field (e.g. me), this omission of substance makes it very difficult to evaluate the merits of either perspective. It also sets off some alarm bells, since it's difficult for an intellectually honest (edit: and competent) author to write on the order of a thousand words of evasive fluff and deem it suitable for publication. OP's link aside, I don't think the SA article comes anywhere close to justifying its attack on Wilson ("racist ideas"), and the quoted bit regarding normal distributions is beyond the pale.
- ljf 5y agoFor those (like me) who haven't heard of the scientist at the heart of the offending article, have a read of https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/feb/17/books.guardianreview57 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/feb/17/books.guardi... This goes into some of the original accusations of racism he received in the 70s and the background behind them. Quote: They accused Wilson of sending human nature back to the concentration camps. Wilson isn’t a determinist who believes that life is purely mechanistic, and he isn’t right-wing - he remains a Democrat and fears the environmental worst from the George Bush presidency. Although Wilson argued that homosexuality might have a genetic element, he also argued that it was therefore natural and should be tolerated. But Gould was good-humoured and discursive, taking an apparently compassionate view of human nature, and Lewontin, a population geneticist who could show that racial differences are genetically tiny, added credence to charges of racism, even though Wilson hadn’t brought the subject up. Did he think that his opponents were themselves guilty of prejudice? “They were, although they never admitted it,” Wilson says slowly, reaching for the words. “I came from the Old South, I was raised as a racist. I mean, we all were. It was only in my teens that I began to change. But here, if you were called racist - well, in the 70s it was like a death sentence.”
- helmholtz 5y agoLovely article and perhaps the first one that people new to Wilson's work, like me, should read. Having read it, I can't say that I came away thinking Wilson was racist, at all. If anything, it inspires me to try to be less emotionally charged when dealing with emotionally charged issues.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI've completely lost faith in Scientific American after they tried to "cancel" James Webb (yes, JWST telescope name) for complicitness against LGBTQ people some 70 fricking years ago, more details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29690749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29690749 I consider Washington Post quite left-leaning and the comments were resoundingly going 'WTF!': https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/13/nasa-james-webb-telescope-name-controversy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/13/nasa-james-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cycomanic 5y agoI always found the New Scientist a much better publication and never understood the obsession with Scientific American. I assume it's because SA is based in the US, so Americans have been exposed to it much more.
- jollybean 5y agoThe editorials are getting problematic, it was hurtful. I grew up reading SA as a kid, never really grasping the material, but it was hugely inspiring to me, the legitimacy and depth of it all. I feel as though this problem represents a form of corruption, and that it's in SA, such an ostensibly 'Scientific' and not 'Populist' institution implies that it's effectively 'existential' and will have corrupted large swaths of people with power. I feel this demonstrated the inability of some leaders to separate their political or personal views from 'Science', or at least to contextualize them and that they've jumped onto the postmodern bandwagon in which their cancelling of others is justified 'in the name of' whatever. That said, I wonder if it has mostly to do with some research in some curious, sensitive corners, and some of the broader and obviously political editorials in which case, maybe once the management team moves on, it'll get back to 'normal'.
- spoonjim 5y agoScientific American became another lame Twitter account quite some time ago: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematics-confronts-its-white-patriarchal-past/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematic... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-term-jedi-is-problematic-for-describing-programs-that-promote-justice-equity-diversity-and-inclusion https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-term-jedi...
- cbsmith 5y agoSo, it's been a while since I've read the opinion section of Scientific American (for reasons that will shortly become obvious), so I'm going to ask the broader audience here this question: Is it really that unusual (certainly not unprecedented) to come across a poor opinion piece in Scientific American? If this was an indicator of the demise of SA, I should think it would have folded decades ago.
- imgabe 5y agoI saw only this quote on Twitter the other day > The so-called normal distribution of statistics assumes that there are default humans who serve as the standard that the rest of us can be accurately measured against. Which was, frankly, shocking to see coming from Scientific American, something I had assumed was a respectable scholarly publication, if not an actual academic journal, per se. It's an absolutely mind-boggling mistake to publish in something that claims itself to be about science. That is not at all what a normal distribution is, and the normal distribution makes no such assumption. Anyone who passed a basic Intro to Statistics course should be able to explain why this is wrong. To open with such a profoundly wrong assertion, and then publish an article built on this flawed assumption just beggars belief. I feel like I've wandered into some kind of Twilight Zone that there are apparently serious people, charged with informing the public about science, who are publishing obvious falsehoods and expecting us to go along with them. I cannot understand how an editor of a scientific publication read that sentence and did not immediately send the piece back to the author with a note reading "No thank you. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about".
- namdnay 5y agoit's like reading something from Derrida.. you have to abandon all assumption that technical terms mean what they're supposed to
- funnay 5y agoWhen you sample a population you infer the type of distribution and try to sample it in a way that respects the distribution properties, because that can have a great impact on the results. I'm afraid most people here criticizing her normal distribution remarks are oversimplifying it much more than her.
- qsort 5y agoVery funny how you are doing more of that Derrida thing yourself. The problem with the claim lies in the attempt to associate a strictly technical concept (the normal distribution) to $GENERIC_BAD_STUFF with nothing more than vague wordplay. Also, just FYI, you have it the other way around. When you sample from a population, you (usually) assume a certain distribution (at most you infer parameters). For example, if you're sampling for opinion polls, you would actually want to oversample minorities and then correct back.
- ageek123 5y agoThis co-opting of previously reputable domain-specific publications by radicals with only an interest in pushing their political agenda and no interest in the supposed topic of the publication, has happened to a lot of publications in the last few years -- Wired, MIT Technology Review, Vanity Fair, and many others.
- systemvoltage 5y agoI think we need to "Make Science boring again". No ideological drama, no cancel culture, no bigotry and no one should feel threatened by anyone for contrarian opinions. Otherwise, Science ceases to be. We need to get back together and discover how nature works, quoting Feynman "For nature cannot be fooled".
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y agoIn this definition was science ever boring? Science has always had ideological drama and cancel culture and feeing threatened by contrarian opinions. Look at germ theory, hand washing, the earth revolving around the sun, Alzheimer’s and plaque theory, and the fight around AIDS discovery.
- finolex1 5y agoI find Quanta Magazine to be a pretty good replacement to SA.
- bambax 5y ago> Wilson’s far left colleagues Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould was a great man, a great scientist, a great writer, and my personal hero. He wasn't from the "far left"; he was intellectually honest and consistent. He spent an inordinate amount of time fighting the teaching of Creationism in US schools. He also wrote The Mismeasure of Man which rubbed proponents of IQ measurement the wrong way (the Wikipedia article covers the debate quite well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man) and which I think was and still is an important critique of biological determinism. I don't know much about E. O. Wilson or his life or politics (I will try to learn more), but if you're prepared to dismiss Gould in a side note like this, it probably means you're on a mission and not very honest yourself.
- systemvoltage 5y agoYou left some important details in the quote: > response from Wilson’s far left colleagues Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould who hysterically compared his arguments to thinking that was well on its way down the slippery slope to that dark world where lay the Nazi gas chambers. Anyone comparing their fellow scientists with Nazis is pretty uncharitable and very unscientific, unprofessional and unethical way to criticize someone.
- bambax 5y ago1. Quote required. Gould was the opposite of "hysterical" so if one wants to accuse him of such they need to quote what he said exactly. 2. You yourself are misquoting and misinterpreting. Even the OP, for all its excess, doesn't accuse Gould of "comparing scientists to Nazis"; all it's saying is that Gould may have questioned some theories and pointed that they were on a "slippery slope". Being on a slippery slope means being somewhere on the slope, not (yet) at the bottom of it. Incidentally, in the 40-50 years since the controversy, it has been demonstrated [0] that Nazi racist theories took much of their inspiration from American segregation laws, which were themselves backed up by pseudo-science every step of the way. So saying that there are ways of thinking about man and biology that can lead to gas chambers is not "hysterical", it's an observation of reality and history. [0] See for instance https://aeon.co/ideas/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-laws-for-inspiration https://aeon.co/ideas/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-la...
- noobermin 5y agoYeesh. The tone of the blogpost is quite extreme honestly. I read the SA article and the tone felt like it was dealing with what they saw as a complicated topic while the blogpost's language seemed to paint it as more extreme than it actually was. That said, the tone aside, I agree with the blogpost that I can't really gather what the issue is with the late Wilson specifically. I do agree with the SA author that people like Charles Murray exist and various people misunderstand genetics and psychometrics (and honestly, psychometrics has its issues) and use statistics misleadingly to demagogue or spread racist propaganda, such things were rife on 4chan et al. a few years back. I don't see how that fact squares with Wilson though, at least from the article.
- darawk 5y ago> Yeesh. The tone of the blogpost is quite extreme honestly. I read the SA article and the tone felt like it was dealing with what they saw as a complicated topic while the blogpost's language seemed to paint it as more extreme than it actually was. I mean, regardless of the politics of it, the quote about the normal distribution was completely inexcusable for a supposedly scientific publication. The fact that that got by their editors, and afaik they have not corrected it or changed it, is a pretty harsh indictment. And I think that's true even if you agree with their take on EO Wilson and his legacy (which I don't, for the record).
- gspr 5y ago> I read the SA article and the tone felt like it was dealing with what they saw as a complicated topic I read the criticism as saying that this shouldn't be a "complicated topic" for a publication like SA. I agree with that assessment.
- sebow 5y agoIt's a disgrace really.A top-down command (not even trend, because that would assume this thing is organic and authors are not pressured or influenced) for accepting certain political ideology without any room for discussion,debate, and aim towards the truth. If one wants some other good reads from another ex-SA person i recommend Michael Shermer.And people who scream homophobes/racists/sexists should take a good look in the mirror at the start of the day and ask themselves if they're afraid or they like what they see.Most often than not, the people who accuse others of something are the ones doing that thing themselves, it's a tale as old as time.
- thedonkeycometh 5y ago
- reactspa 5y ago> the so-called normal distribution I absolutely agree with SciAm here. Words matter. They may not break my bones, but they matter. The word "normal" is loaded. The distribution was named "normal" in a different era when "scientists" believed that the distance from the tip of the one's nose to one's forehead was a measure of intelligence. It's called "normal distribution" for a reason. With hindsight and progress we can now discount the nomenclature, and clarify it. It's okay.
- adhesive_wombat 5y agoApparently not: "Gauss himself apparently coined the term with reference to the "normal equations" involved in its applications, with normal having its technical meaning of orthogonal rather than "usual"." (Wikipedia) The interpretation of "normal" to mean "common" came later, and even then refers to the distribution itself being "the norm" rather than the distribution being about comparisons to a hypothetical "normal" object.
- buntsai 5y agoHave you actually looked up whether Gauss called this distribution "normal" because the other (parts?) of the distribution were "abnormal"? Surely it is worth at least have a quick read of wikipedia or doing a Google search before saying something that may sound preposterous...
- oxfordmale 5y agoThe term normal was actually coined by Karl E. Pearson, as there there was international disagreement about the naming of the Laplace-Gaussian (or Gaussian-Laplace) distribution. "Normal" also doesn't mean "usual", and is a mathematically construct. The problem with the default person is actually that there are minor genetic differences between different ethnicities. This means that certain medical conditions are more prevalent in some ethnic groups than others (for example lactose intolerance) and this is not accounted for by assuming a normal distribution, or "a default person".
- tgv 5y agoI don't think it was Pearson who coined the name. Wikipedia dates it back to 1875, when Pearson was 18. Its more likely (to me), that its use grew organically, and is associated with Pearson because of his influence. > this is not accounted for by assuming a normal distribution Often, groups with different averages produce a normal distribution when combined. So it may be the right distribution, but not the proper conclusion.
- jl6 5y agoThere’s a particular Scientific American article which gets trotted out in a certain popular culture war topic (which I will not name here as that’s not the point), ostensibly to prove that “the science is on my side”, but which is a hopeless pile of not-even-wrong which has clearly been constructed by starting with the conclusion and then cherry picking scientific-sounding parts-of-facts to support that conclusion. It is science in reverse. It is literally anti-science.
- okhobb 5y agoI really liked the Powers of Ten article / film / book originated within SA which certainly doesn't justify any current editorial choices, but is I hope a fun video for anyone who hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
- doingtheiroming 5y agoReading Rose and Leowentin's "Not in our Genes" was formative for me. I read it when I was 17 or 18 and very political. Even then, though the book was clearly anti-sociobiology (as it defined it) it had nuance and drew a distinction between genetics and biology that left little doubt that the slate was not entirely blank - but that looking for individual genes to explain complex human behaviour was unlikely to be fruitful. Although when I read it I came away thinking "the sociobiologists are baddies", the discussion of reductionist thinking and distinctions between genetics and biology that ran through the book, ended up priming me to be much more open minded about the subject that perhaps the authors intended. It also gave me a skepticism of psychology that turned out to be well founded as the replication crisis hit. It really set me up to be excited by systems and complexity. It certainly led to me taking classes in the philosophy of science at University and probably caused exhaustion on the part of my sociology teacher as I spent my time poking holes in methodology discussions. I might re-read the book and Wilson's Sociobiology side by side. I remember it being very readable and less doctrinaire than a book whose introduction calls out the authors' Marxism could be expected to be. And there's clearly a lot more to Wilson than the book made out.
- netcan 5y agoWhy workstuff broken? Politics. Sad. :( One definition of politics is the point at which meta takes over. Why doesn't ManagerX just cancel projectY even though everyone knows it will fail? Politics. Reasons unrelated to the task at hand. 60% of an assembly agrees with Law X, but it can't pass. Why? Coalition dynamics, party politics, presumed impacts on the next election, promises, deals, precedents, etc. Politics. When my work often put me in a boardroom, I developed a concept of "boardroom logic." The type of argument, suggestion and such that gets easy groans of approval from various managers on unrelated departments and generalist executive advisors. There are also committee facts, corporate truths and more. It can get recursive. Attempting to bypass, or highroad the politicalnsess is itself political. Standing outside of a courtroom and presenting court-inadmissible evidence to the press. Politics Here we have the word "science," which also comes with rights over "unscientific," "expert" and a bunch of legitimacy stuff. That's politics. We've got literal, current US politics. Both are big money fields, with careers, donations, grants, magazine subscriptions. Social Sciences in general are mixed in with all of this. It'll take decades to settle.
- rbanffy 5y agoLife in a society is political. There’s no way around that.
- netcan 5y agoAye sure. There are different things that we call "political" though. Also there's a subtle but important difference between "politics is everywhere" and "everything is politics." The former leaves room for coexistence with other things.
- tjpnz 5y agoNice to see Dawkins' bite hasn't lost any vigour with age. https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1476850041763426304 https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/147685004176342630...
- taylorius 5y agoPeople trust science, so to take control of a science publication, and twist it's output to advance your agenda seems to be rather effective. Not to sound like Alex Jones, but it makes one wonder what other "trusted news sources" might be compromised.
- zepto 5y agoNYT
- aivisol 5y agoMention of SciAm always brings back memories. It was one of the few western scientific magazines available in former Soviet Union in 80s and was issued in translated and probably censored version, but still. My father figured that it was somehow possible to get a subscription for it and we received our monthly copy for several years. That is where a learned about things like Mandelbrot fractals and Conways Game of Life and wrote my own implementations in BASIC later when I got hold of my first computer. Sad to see things coming down so badly since then.
- bojangleslover 5y agoThe "so-called" normal distribution of "statistics" One of the least scientific things I've ever read
- mihaaly 5y agoI was a subscriber of Scientific American many many years ago while being adolescent and young adult. I liked to read about (to me) new knowledge in an easy to digest form. To me it was The Popular Science Magazine. Some years ago, driven by nostalgia, I bought single issues occasionally but was very disappointed. Its tone did not remind me of the old years. To me it feels like it tries to use tabloid style to approach ever broader part of the public in delivering knowledge and it is just not a combination that works for me. Tabloid is not about comprehensiveness and balanced factual view that I expect from a text in science. To me it seemed like it tries to pick and magnify spectacular details on the expense of important others. True for the selection of topics as well. Using an analogy, my feeling is when someone is making a very tasty cake but uses too much sugar in it, put lots of neon food colouring into and serves it poring huge amount of honey on top on a plate that flashes like a Japanese game hall. Not for me anymore I'm afraid.
- dav_Oz 5y agoIt is written by design to outrage, the reaction just validates that "latent racist patriarchal structures in science" (arbitrary wokeism speak) are indeed "present". It is a power play game by attacking ("subverting") the legacy of the "father of sociobiology". It is akin to Nixon or McCarthy wielding the axe of the "communist threat" and enjoying the squeals when it hits a vulnerablity in the establishment. SA is just delivering the fodder for the outrage game played on Social Media (esp Twitter). Are you not entertained i.e. engaged? Edit: On one side one could address her concern without using terms like "scienctific racism" as an (ideological?) gap between "sociology" and "biology". On the other side one cannot just simply redefine technical terms like "normal distribution" in statistics. What she probably was trying to articulate is the methodology: in order to find your ancestry "genetically" you can only compare relatively. For example: When a genetic test company claim you are 42% "West Asian" they compare your genetic makeup to a (more or less) arbitrary model of their "West Asian". It is very speculative in its qualitative terms but at the basis quantitatively: how many variations to you have in common with this model? There is a great talk about the methodologies used in paleogenetics for anyone interested in the particularities. [1] At the end you are left with a lot of more questions you never thought about and wonder about the complexities and intricacies involved. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk65TbJRN_A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk65TbJRN_A
- Symmetry 5y agoI haven't really had any respect for SA since their terrible anti-Bjorn Lomborg. Goodness knows he was totally wrong about global warming but he was also totally right about the effectiveness of the EPA and Clean Air act in reducing pollution. That issue had the person criticizing the forward questioning how he could prove that the mainstream media was being too pessimistic and the person criticizing the bibliography complaining that there were a lot of mainstream media citations.
- zpeti 5y agoHow is he wrong about global warming? As far as I know he doesn't say it doesn't exist, just that compared to other issues facing humanity, the data doesn't actually indicate global warming is the biggest threat to our future. Other than going against the current unchallengeable orthodoxy, I think that is a valid hypothesis that is almost impossible to disprove, but is certainly worth debating.
- Symmetry 5y agoHe spent a lot of the chapter pointing out that the IPCC climate models have problems and could potentially be inaccurate. But his takeaway seems to be that global warming might be mild and so we don't have to worry that much while my takeaway is that most of the reason to be afraid of global warming is in the tail risks for things getting much worse than IPCC projections.
- zpeti 5y agoAre you worried about the tail risk of an asteroid hitting the earth, or a super volcano explosion? Or a pandemic for that matter? Does humanity do enough about those? How do you resource allocate between all these tail risks?
- cannabis_sam 5y agoThere is something devastatingly depressing when you realize that widely acclaimed people, who are obviously vastly smarter than you, by literal orders of magnitude, are still absolutely and fundamentally clueless, yet our fucked up society treat these people as something between a demigod and an oracle.. My question in WHY? (The answer is markets..)
- 8bitsrule 5y agoThis man won a Nobel in 1912. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Carrel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Carrel He also founded the 'French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems'. In 1942. It resulted in a requirement for a 'prenuptial certificate' before marriage.
- pmdulaney 5y agoFor me this page is marred by the downvoting. Can't we just be big boys and girls and realize that we won't agree with everyone else, that we don't need to warn others that there's something we don't agree with?
- dqpb 5y agoI also find the up/down voting to provide very little value.
- dqpb 5y agoWhen I saw that editor-in-chief Laura Helmuth is from UC Berkeley, everything made sense. Edit: I'm not trolling. The people I know from UC Berkeley are much more primed to see racism (including where it doesn't exist) than the people I know from other Universities. Certainly, this is anecdotal and I could be wrong, but I would put money on this being a real pattern (if there was such a place to put money it).
- xyzzy21 5y agoScientific American started its decline in the 1990s. It became a "rag" in the 2000s. It's 100% worthless now.
- syngrog66 5y agoin summary: after E.O. Wilson died this December 2021 SciAm published a piece which was a reality-detached "PC/Wokeness scold" hit piece on the man shame on SciAm. I subscribed decades ago -- but never again
- nmca 5y agoThe SA article reminds me of Liu Cixin's depiction of science and the "struggle sessions" of the cultural revolution: > Einstein is a reactionary academic authority. He would serve any master who dangled money in front of him. He even went to the American Imperialists and helped them build the atom bomb! To develop a revolutionary science, we must overthrow the black banner of capitalism represented by the theory of relativity! From the fictional "three body problem", though these sessions were a real phenomena: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
- slips01 5y agoYou might find this interview with E.O. Wilson from 2004 interesting in connection with the discussion here, especially with respect to Gould and Lewontin. https://quillette.com/2021/12/29/speaking-with-e-o-wilson/ https://quillette.com/2021/12/29/speaking-with-e-o-wilson/