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?

A more pragmatic question is whether such endorsements actually have any effect. Peer-reviewed research published last year in Nature Human Behaviour examined the impact of the endorsement of Joe Biden by Nature in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. Ultimately, the endorsement had little if any impact in changing views of either Biden or Trump supporters about their favoured candidate. It did, however, have one effect: there was a large and significant reduction in trust in the scientific credibility of Nature among Trump supporters.

The views expressed by the Scientific American editors may well reflect those of a majority of their readership. But the endorsement of Harris has little to do with science. The editorial is simply a set of subjective and partisan political opinions. Like the general public, scientists will have a range of views on all those topics. The casualty of such misjudged initiatives is not just the credibility of the Scientific American editors but trust in science itself.

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David Paton is a Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.

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