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September 18, 2024 - 3:00pm
For the second time in its 179-year history, Scientific American magazine has decided to endorse a candidate for the US presidency. The first instance was four years ago, when the publication backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump. That the editors are endorsing Kamala Harris this time round is perhaps unsurprising, but it brings into question their judgement and integrity.
In this week’s op-ed, the Scientific American justifies its endorsement by saying that, unlike Trump, Harris’s record and platform is based on science and evidence. The editors go on to reference Covid-19, guns, abortion, climate change and technology; even when it comes to science, their analysis is partisan and one-sided.
Take Covid, for example. The publication argues that Trump resisted “basic public health measures” and contrasts his record with that of his Democratic opponent. Yet there is no mention that it was Harris who argued for mask mandates, despite the lack of scientific evidence that masks have a significant impact in restricting the spread of the virus. Indeed, it was under the Biden-Harris administration that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) became the only public health authority in the world to encourage masks for children as young as two.
Similarly, it was Biden and Harris who enforced and encouraged vaccine mandates for healthcare workers and young people, going against evidence that such policies were not only ineffective but undermined trust in vaccinations and public health in general. While there is certainly much to criticise about Trump’s character and record, when it comes to promoting scientific misinformation it is Harris who sets the standard.
The problem with the publication’s endorsement goes deeper than disagreements over science. A large part of the editors’ case has nothing to do with science at all. Consider their reference to abortion. The magazine praises Harris for her strong stance in favour of legal abortion and, in particular, her desire to reinstate Roe v. Wade so that decisions about abortion law are again made by judges rather than state legislators.
Whether or not abortion should be legalised is not, at heart, a matter of science but one of ethics and human rights. The question depends crucially on a judgement about the moral status of unborn human beings. Put simply, there are scientists who are pro-abortion and scientists who are anti-abortion: there is no scientific consensus on what the law should be. There will also be pro-abortion scientists who believe these decisions are better made by democratically elected representatives rather than judges in Washington. That is a political question about the best process for making policy and not an issue on which scientists have any particular expertise or authority.
Anyone trying to suggest “science” implies support for such a broad range of highly contentious policy proposals risks losing credibility, and brings into question their scientific integrity.
Perhaps the most bizarre argument made by the editors in favour of voting for Harris is that she supports higher “tax deductions for new small businesses”. No doubt there are arguments for and against using public money for particular tax deductions rather than, say, health or education spending. Even economists would struggle to come to a consensus on the issue, but what does it have to do with science?
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SubscribeAs someone who works in science myself, this stuff really annoys me. Politics and ethics aren’t scientific questions; it’s not our job to even have a consensus on these issues, much less try to convince outsiders to respect our consensus.
Indeed the situation is so bad that I don’t even recommend that people blindly trust scientists even on what I would call “science-adjacent” political and moral questions. For instance the question of “can gain of function research improve, to some degree, our knowledge of how viruses work” is pretty clearly a yes. But to go from there to “gain of function research is good and should be funded by the government” is probably what caused the covid pandemic in the first place.
I have a pair of articles at my own Substack about the temptation for scientific experts to exagerate the usefuleness of their own knowledge, and assume that, since they know how to manipulate nature in a certain way, there can’t be any good political or ethical reasons not to do so.
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/more-bat-research-or-when-not-to
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-can-we-and-the-should-we-of-science
Nice articles.
Agree…
And two dislikes for stating that….
Still, better than the Guardian “comment is free” I guess.
Scientific American has gone the same route as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. They don’t even try to cloak their opinions in science anymore. Their politics is pure..
I seem to recall reading that the woman who was the head of Scientific American for 16 years said that any time scientific truth and morality conflicted that she always chose on the side of morality — and was proud of that.
She failed to follow either.
I was a subscriber to Sci Am from 1966-1975. It was always left wing, increasingly advocating for nuclear disarmament and extreme environmental causes. That’s why I stopped subscribing. More recently it has gone much, much further left to where it is no longer Scientific in any sense of the word. It’s propaganda.
This does not impact my trust in science, since Sci Am ain’t it.
(I am a PhD chemist with 45 years industrial experience)
Every single institution has been corrupted by this pernicious politicisation and mission creep beyond their remits.
My UK engineering institution is obsessed with all the latest causes.
When will they wake up and realise that they just lose credibility and respect by doing this ? And that we just stop listening to them. It takes a long time to build a reputation. But very little to lose it.
Perhaps a visit to the new Matt Walsh film is in order for them ?
ICE or CIWEM? I gave up on the CIWEM publications years ago.
The answer to your question about whether this partisan editorialising has any effect is: Yes.
The effect is on the credibility and reputation of the journal.
Scientific American damaged their reputation years ago, and finished the job with climate and wokeism.
At best, the Scientific American editors are here practicing sociology which, when it is called a “science” is merely being accorded a courtesy title, as happens when celebrities are given honorary university degrees to which, from a scholarly perspective, they are not remotely entitled. Because their opinions are, at best, an exercise in social science (which has a reproducibility problem, to say the least), their opinions can be safely ignored, particularly in view of their straying into economics, often called “the dismal science” because of its predictive failures.
I made the mistake of subscribing to SA for one year about 10 years ago. I tried reading a couple issues and then the rest were thrown in the trash without breaking the cover.
I confess my trust in science has been somewhat shaken by the events of the last few years. Having done my bit for 40 years in medical microbiology I do not say this lightly but we have entered the era of activism in science even science as a religion. Next we may well have a Scientific Catechism which every budding scientist will have to affirm. Harris also declared 3 years ago, as fact, that it was the unvaccinated that were clogging up hospitals and accounting by far for most deaths. Whatever this was it sure wasn’t science but more like propaganda.
“more pragmatic question is whether such endorsements actually have any effect.”
Yes, fewer people read that publication or take it seriously.
p.s. beat me to it, Brendan!
Harris endorses gender ideology which has no scientific basis at all.
Well American science has lost the trust of the world not just within USA. The hold that pharmaceutical companies have over the whole economy and therefore politicians is obscene and terrifying, as is the defense industry.
I used to read Scientific American until the early 2000s. I now regard it as worthless. I assume all the articles are infected with wokeness, and can’t be bothered to check any more. It’s their problem, not mine. And endorsing a radical left politician like Harris will further erode their credibility on any other issues. It’s very sad.
Don’t bat an eyelid about it, their HR has a direct line to the front page of that bigoted magazine, I’ve seen it for years. Don’t buy, don’t read it, it’s trash.
It does sound like this as mostly political rather than scientific arguments, which is not what Sc ientific American should be doing.
Funny enough, there is actually a good argument why
unlike Trump, Harris’s [approach] is based on science and evidence
It is just not the argument they are making. Scientists might disagree quite as much as other people, but they share an approach, at least: If you disagree about some point of fact – like whether you won the election or whether your inauguration day crowds were the biggest ever seen – the way to decide it is to look at the evidence and see what it says. Harris seems to agree with that (as did Donald Rumsfeld or d**k Cheney). Trump simply consults his feelings and selects (or invents) whatever evidence is required to prove his feelings right.
What evidence has Kamala Harris produced that shows a) President Joe Biden is 100% fit, healthy, mentally aware and capable of being President and also shows b) President Biden is incapable of being President in the next four years?
Although of course, the Democrat’s decision to cancel their own voters choice of candidate (to save democracy, don’t you know) was based on evidence – the polls showing that Trump might win.
All of my mail from her is styled “Kamala”, so Kamala it is. Kamala enabled the invasion of America. She supports anti-scientific energy & climate crap. SA is an empty can with a bean making noise. Kamala is an anti-scientific, anti-American catastrophe.
To support your argument, you cite Cheney and Rumsfeld, who invented a fictitious narrative about WMD to justify the Iraq Invasion of 2003, one of the worst US foreign policy decisions ever. To back Harris, who has run a vacuous campaign based on ‘vibes’ and ‘joy’. Who do you think you’re kidding with this specious tripe?
@Carr, Reader, Largo
You are missing the point here. It is not that Harris (or Cheney or Rumsfeld) do not lie or distort the truth – of course they do. It is also not that people who believe in science do not have enormous disagreements (like on climate) even if their facts ought to be the same. Of course they do. It is that they believe that decisions ought to be taken on evidence, so that if the evidence is against them they feel a need to at least explain it away, or lie about it. Which puts at least some limit on what they can get away with. Trump is different. It is no problem for him if all available evidence shows that his crowds are smaller, or tha the election was fair and he lost. The truth is what he feels it should be, and evidence does not matter. Which means that if he ever decided to believe in Pizzagate, it would make no differencer to him that it never actually happened.
Did you ever hear the phrase ‘Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue‘? Trump cannot even be bothered to pretend that what he says has anything to do with the real world.