Scientific American turns 166

[mooncliff]

I have been reading SciAm cover to cover for 35 years. Terrific overviews of all kinds of topics. Gravitational lensing, ancient art, sociology, biology, and on and on. Professors were highly irritated by what I learned from SciAm. One said dismissively when she saw a copy on my desk "Oh, Scientific American is for high school students". So I asked her what gravitational lensing was. That shut her right up.

On Friday before Katrina hit, I was looking at the projected track, and I said hmm, that looks familiar...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ane-prediction
Because I had seen it four years earlier.
I began contacting everyone I knew from that area and stuck my neck out and said that New Orleans was about to be destroyed and there would be thousands dead if they did not evacuate immediately.
As usual, most people laughed at me.

SciAm has been an important part of my "homework" over the years. I also listen to dozens of podcasts per day while riding the train to work and doing chores. The point of this is not to memorize everything, but to bring as many things to your attention as possible. The vast majority will turn out to be of little use, but here and there you will find gems. Now that the Internet gives total and complete recall, you need only remember that something exists to be able to retrieve it in full.

There is a special offer at the 1845 price!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...h-anniversary/

[c1ue]

Re: Scientific American turns 166

SciAm used to be interesting; today it is a political tool.

Thank you Jeffrey Sachs.

[stetts]

Re: Scientific American turns 166

Dear Mooncliff,
I can agree with every word you wrote. However, I've stopped reading them since they swallowed the fad of global warming, er, climate change fully. Every mention in any article presents the phenomenon as an accomplished fact, that it is accellerating and it's all our fault. That's religion, not science. Sad, really.
Take care. Stetts

[mooncliff]

Re: Scientific American turns 166

Well, but they always said political things. That is not new.

Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Obviously everything they write about will not turn out to be true. It is the issues that matter. It is more important to know in exactly what way something is wrong than to just know "the right answer".

I mean, it is up to you all, but did you call your friends in New Orleans before Katrina?

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere injected by burning fossil fuels has increased more rapidly than any time in 100 million years. Why is that a good idea? I know someone who drove drunk every weekend and said there is no problem because he never had an accident. Then he was killed in an accident he caused, and he was drunk. I do not know of a single biologist who thinks global warming is just a made up story. It is an evolving understanding. The "causes" of cancer keep changing because our understanding of the mechanisms keep advancing. That is not a problem; it is a cause for celebration.

If you stopped reading stuff like this because of the commentary, then
prgressively chaotic gene expression
and
progressive mosaic aneuploidy
probably don't mean much,
but it is what is happening to us every day.

I know PhDs in physics and with degrees from CalTech who became very angry about what a high school student said about what was happening in contemporary physics. The problem was, what the student said was correct to the finest detail. It was the people with degrees who never read who are 20 years out of date. Basically, these people were unfit to interview college candidates in their own field because they had no idea what they were talking about and said what the student said was ridiculous.

In a rapidly changing world, it is the learners who will inherit the Earth. The rate of change is so high that the slightest pause in learning is now a huge problem.

[c1ue]

Re: Scientific American turns 166

Well, but they always said political things. That is not new.

Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Obviously everything they write about will not turn out to be true. It is the issues that matter. It is more impor

It isn't about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It is about a publication ostensibly about science morphing into a publication advocating a political position.

Once this happens, how can you trust anything said there? How do you know the 'chaotic gene expression' isn't some corporation going for patents, or the 'progressive mosaic aneuploidy' is because some friends of the editor want more grant money?

100 years ago, there weren't many choices and so perhaps you might have to live with advocacy disguised as science reporting.

Today, there are a plethora of avenues to learn about new scientific fields of study, new concepts, and so forth - and many of these avenues offer the benefit of direct feedback and commentary much like iTulip.

In a rapidly changing world, it is the learners who will inherit the Earth. The rate of change is so high that the slightest pause in learning is now a huge problem.

I agree. And being spoonfed 'cool' science is not about learning.

Scientific American today is much closer to Popular Science than it is to actual science.

For example: does Scientific American talk about the near complete lack of empirical breakthroughs in physics since the 1980s? This is a huge and controversial topic which I am 100% certain Scientific American doesn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere injected by burning fossil fuels has increased more rapidly than any time in 100 million years. Why is that a good idea? I know someone who drove drunk every weekend and said there is no problem because he never had an accident. Then he was killed in an accident he caused, and he was drunk. I do not know of a single biologist who thinks global warming is just a made up story.

Wow what a collection of disjointed attempts to impose collective will.

1) CO2 levels have been 10X higher in the past. The earth didn't explode, climactically 'tip' or otherwise become devoid of life then. Why then it is assumed there is dramatic danger now?

2) I agree adding gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere might not be good. Then again, it might. If the choice was free, I'd be happy to agree not to add CO2.

But it isn't. And when we're talking dramatic, painful, and horrendously costly programs to not add CO2 - I for one think the bar for proof should be a lot higher than a bunch of computer models by a bunch of people who get their funding from being right. Or in other words, I am right because I'm paid to be right. Why would they ever admit to being wrong? Yes, there is integrity, but we have proof all around us that integrity in general takes a very back seat to money, pride, stubbornness, etc etc.

3) Drunk driving has plenty of evidence that it is bad. Your friend might not agree, but there is objective evidence that he was wrong.

Climate change has no such objective evidence. Not in the past. Not in the present. So why must we assume it will be correct in the future?

4) What does biology have to do with climate science? Are you going to tell me now that a biologist - who more than likely doesn't even have any physics background at all - would have even the slightest clue on what does or does not constitute credible climate science?

The real scientists - who continue to distinguish themselves by their work as opposed to their political commentary - in general believe man has an effect. However, none of the scientists whose work I personally cannot find flaws with believe that man's effect, specifically via CO2, is the single largest and only relevant factor in climate change.

Of course if the culprit isn't primarily man-made CO2 - we'd have to do things like not farm, not build roads/bridges/dams, not procreate, etc etc and the pain would become immediate and real.

The sad part of this entire business is that climate change is the greatest catastrophe imaginable for the cause of minimizing human impact on the environment.

Rather than actually consume less, all we have to do is spend more for energy rather than stop cutting down rain forests in favor of farms, stop building new subdivisions of McMansions, etc etc.

[aaron]

Re: Scientific American turns 166

I like "Science Daily" -> you can sign up for their daily feed. It is a summary of the most interesting stuff in science. As far as i have noticed, (maybe it is the feed I selected), there is little politics.
www.sciencedaily.com/