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Why would I even read a science article from 'The Rolling Stone' and presume there is any validity to it? That isn't to say it isn't true, it may well be, but
by mbell 13y ago
Why would I even read a science article from 'The Rolling Stone' and presume there is any validity to it?
That isn't to say it isn't true, it may well be, but seriously, find a better source.
- rdl 13y agoThey're a surprisingly good source for major articles. If you had important information for a mass audience and wanted to reach that audience, it would be a good choice of publication. I mean, they got rid of GEN McChrystal, among other things.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tsotha 13y agoAccidentally.
- rdl 13y agoMichael Hastings and Matt Taibbi between them cover a lot. The 2009 "The Great Vampire Squid" was a good article, although it probably went too far. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american... The Operators was a great book; it grew out of the article in RS, and was excerpted there. http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Terrifying-Americas-Afghanistan-ebook/dp/B006CU9WU6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375059624&sr=8-1&keywords=the+operators http://www.amazon.com/Operators-Terrifying-Americas-Afghanis... I liked their Billy Corgan article, although that's music.
- Amadou 13y agoHastings died in a fiery one-car crash one recent morning in Los Angeles. FWIW, My personal worldview is very much aligned with Taibbi's but I can never get more than a handful of paragraphs into anything he writes because the invective is so overwhelming.
- hoggle 13y ago"National security officials worried by rapid loss of Arctic summer sea ice overlook threat of permanent global food shortages" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/may/02/white-house-arctic-ice-death-spiral http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/may...
- tterrace 13y agoThis is nonsense. You should judge the article on its own merit.
- mbell 13y agoYour statement is ridiculous. I could say anything and argue it should be judged on it's own merit, where are the sources? There were zero citations in this article.
- TillE 13y agoIt directly quotes a number of scientists. What more do you want? It's not an academic paper, of course there are no "citations".
- jasonlotito 13y ago> What more do you want? He wants things handed to him. Rather than follow up via the multiple sources they provided, along with a link to the project itself, he'd prefer we do that work for him. Which is sad, really. That people don't want to take the time to research things on their own, and simply expect things handed to them.
- tterrace 13y agoWhat source are you looking for exactly? The piece was about the Dark Snow Project, and the journalist trekked around Greenland with the guy that founded it.
- mbell 13y agoI want data, and analysis of data, and the initial conditions required to produce said data. If you don't provide that, you are not providing scientific value. Rather, you're writing an opinion piece that can only ever be as accurate as the author's knowledge, and well, The Rolling Stone doesn't produce scientifically educated authors.
- meritt 13y agoThis is the same Rolling Stone that placed the younger Tsarnaev on their front cover like some sort of rock icon. Fuck Rolling Stone and everything associated with it.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bpatrianakos 13y agoIf you're upset about Tsarnev then you either didn't read that article or get the point. The photo they used was a real one, it wasn't doctored, the point of which was to ask the question of how this seemingly intelligent, non-extreme, all-American looking boy could become radicalized and become involved in a terror plot. That article was an example of the kind of real journalism that's lacking in this country. Rolling Stone has for years now been a great source for good journalism. It's not just a music magazine and hasn't been for a long time. They've been doing a lot of good investigative reporting for at least the past ten years that I know of and maybe more. You may not like what you read but the fact that it came from Rolling Stone is totally irrelevant. You want sources? Read the article. They're in there. You want citations? Read an academic journal. What magazine or newspaper that you know of puts citations for every little thing in their articles? None. Because they're not publishing academic papers. If no source is valid without the citations you require then no magazine is a valid source by your logic - logic that's flawed.
- ams6110 13y agoJust wait until Tsarnaev is Time's "person of the year"
- foobarbazqux 13y agoYou wouldn't, but that's because it's not a science article. It's a pop culture magazine article portraying a climate change researcher as a rock star. There's very little discussion of the falsifiable hypotheses he wants to test - some bits about models, reflectivity, and black microbes is all you get. But biographies are okay, they can help to put a face on things. That said, I didn't find it the most compelling read but the picture of the waterslide was worth it.
- jasonlotito 13y ago> But biographies are okay, they can help to put a face on things. Damn right. They do far more for science than people realize. You make science fun and exciting, and it draws people in. Not everyone wants to start with all the technical data. Hell, the best scientists understand this.
- tsotha 13y agoThe problem with rock star scientists is the entire field takes a hit when someone turns out to be a fraud.
- drewblaisdell 13y ago> Why would I even read a science article from 'The Rolling Stone' and presume there is any validity to it? You can read the article (which you clearly haven't done) and answer this question yourself.
- mbell 13y agoYes, I read it. How exactly do you expect me to determine the validity of the words in the article? Please tell me you don't simply believe them to be factual based on their articulate organization. If you do, there is no hope for this conversation.
- dasil003 13y agoI see, so appeal to authority is your primary means of a qualifying truthiness?
- mbell 13y agoI expect an appeal to data to qualify my determination of truthiness, which the article lacks. That is, after all, the way of science.
- woah 13y agoThen how does the authority even come into it? Why didn't you make this your first comment?
- snowwrestler 13y agoAppeal to authority is only a fallacy when the authority is fallacious. Let's ask Linus Torvalds and me a question about the architecture of git. Whose answer would you trust more?
- moocowduckquack 13y agoTo start with, you could look up the scientist mentioned, read their work and then cross reference it against other published research.
- mbell 13y agoThe response to this is a great example of how far Hacker News has fallen. The readership here appears to be in a state of believing what The Rolling Stone says in place of actual scientific research. If you want an example of how intellectual forums die, this thread is it.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoWhat scientific claims does the article make that you think we believe?
- DanBC 13y agoIt seems odd to criticise this article for not being intellectually rigorous enough, when there is so much dross posted every hour. The article gives plenty of caveats. Is there anything factually wrong in the article? Or is it that you disagree with his hypothesis? Or is it simply the lack of cites?
- gruseom 13y agoHN has always featured sciencey articles from the popular press (as well as complaints about the decline of HN, for that matter), so your claim is at first glance untrue. It does seem testable, though. Do you have any data to support it?
- arrrg 13y agoIt’s a magazine article about a science topic, a.k.a. the most normal thing in the world. Only in bizarro-HN-world would that even begin to raise any eyebrows. Yes, journalists are in fact allowed to write about science topics and there is nothing wrong with that in itself. No, not everything that’s written about science has to have been published in a peer-reviewed science journal. Good science journalism is awesome and there should be much more of it. It’s this honestly bizarre cynical and twisted worldview that’s wrong with HN, most certainly not that someone posted this article.
- mbell 13y agoI don't honestly know how I could disagree with you more. Your definition of a 'bizarre' world equates to my version of an ideal world. How dare people question media? How dare people think for themselves instead of accepting what media tells them? How dare they? You have vilified everything that goes wrong with a democratic society. Your mentality is the problem.
- rayiner 13y agoUh, Rolling Stone has some serious journalists. I find him a bit shrill, but Matt Taibbi had some pretty good coverage of the financial coverage in Rolling Stone over the last few years.
- snowwrestler 13y agoMatt Taibi is an excellent writer who rarely lets nuance, detail, or chronological sequence get in the way of a great rant. He's very entertaining to read, but not someone I would hold up as a good example of serious journalism.
- tlb 13y agoYes please: submit a proper scientific article about this research.
- mcgwiz 13y agoSetting aside the defense of RS by sibling comments, part of the reason this article is of interest is its presentation format. Find a peer-reviewed science journal that also provides a rich multimedia experience and you can argue that there is a source that is "better" for the purposes recognized here (content and presentation format).