This tiff started because of this story by Tom Nelson yesterday, followed by this today. This post is my first involvement as all this happened without my involvement or comment until now. I don’t even care that I wasn’t mentioned, but I do care when I’m libeled.
I have just one thing to say to you, Mr. Zivkovic:
Prove your assertion of “gaming” led to an undeserved win, or retract it and issue an apology.
Perhaps it doesn’t occur to Mr. Zivkovic that Scientific American’s readership is on decline, just like those opinion polls that show people thinking AGW is a serious problem. People are getting turned off to SciAm partly because of ridiculous and hateful things like this being said on the part of the current crop of of writers and editors running SciAm.
And they wonder why people don’t like the magazine like they used to.
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About Bora Zivkovic
Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Bora was always interested in animals and nature. His studies in veterinary medicine were interrupted by the 1990s war in the Balkans, when he arrived in the USA. He went to graduate school at North Carolina State University where he studied how bird brains measure time of day (circadian rhythms) and time of year (photoperiodism). He started ‘A Blog Around The Clock’ in 2004. He teaches introductory biology to non-traditional students at North Carolina Wesleyan College, organizes the annual ScienceOnline conference, and edits Open Laboratory – the annual anthology of the best writing on science blogs.
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“…forgets to mention award-winning Watts Up With That ”
He didn’t “forget”….
Scientific American, particularly the editorial pages, have gone political. I had a subscription as a gift a few years ago and ended up cancelling it because the nonsense in the magazine. It’s a shame what has happend to that magazine.
To paraphrase Reggie Jackson, they don’t smear nobodies.
Seriously though, I too am disappointed how Sci Am has tumbled from a solid technical/scientific journal to become little more than People magazine with a splash of science-y stuff. (Not meant as a smear of People magazine, of course.)
I haven’t read SciAm since about 2006 or 2007. I started reading in about 2004 after a long hiatus and was shocked at how “pop culture” they had become and were often seeming to push political agendas rather than present science. Here are a couple of clues: Whenever I read an article that says “Scientists say”, that is my tip that I am being fed a line of bull. I want to know exactly WHICH scientists say and on what basis. When I also read things like “could”, “might”, “can”, my eyes also glaze over. A meteor can hit the earth’s atmosphere right this second and it could survive entry through the atmosphere and it might strike me as I type this. But it didn’t, apparently. Scientists say that is a very possible scenario.
Game on!
I have commented in the past. I have read SciAm every month since I was nine. I am SS eligible now. I dropped my subscription three years ago. I wrote the new editor a long letter why but never got a reply. You would think that they would notice a 50 year subscriber…
“he studied… bird brains”
Using a mirror, no doubt.
So he was a pre-Vet and now a biologist and he is getting down on you for being dentistry and meteorology? I work with a lot of biologists and most are not that sharpest tools in the shed.
For many years, I too had a Scientific American subscription, which I have allowed to lapse. Now I refuse on principle to read or even to click on Scientific American articles which may come up on Internet searches, etc. due to the biased/politicized slant to the writing.
I echo. . . It is indeed a shame what has happened to that magazine. Once upon a time, I thoroughly enjoyed reading its pages, virtually from cover to cover. . .
The difference between the Scientific American and the National Enquirer is that you can respect the folks at the National Enquirer. They don’t pretend to be something that they aren’t.
Scientific American helped me learn to read as a pre-schooler in 1952-3. It sparked my lifelong interest (and career) in science. I insisted my father keep up his subscription until I could take it on myself, and I was a subscriber until 2003. That’s over 50 years of reading Sci-Am (including back issues).
I learned to value analytical thinking and skepticism, and to demand empirical demonstration of hypotheses before I called them ‘theories.’
In 2003 the staff of Sci-Am forgot what it taught me over 50 years, so I cancelled.
Evidently they have not recovered from their politically-induced amnesia yet.
I agree whole heartily with what Sean said about Scientific American, so many of the old good science magazines have gone rotten at the core. It no longer is about science. It is about using the platform to push the agendas.
I have respect for warmists who debate on scientific facts. Sad that Zivkovic engages in puerile ad hominem attacks.
[SNIP. You must use a valid email address for the privelege of commenting. ~dbs, mod.]
Fear does strange things to “breadwinners”.
He went to graduate school at North Carolina State University where he studied how bird brains measure time of day (circadian rhythms) and time of year”
How appropriate “bird brain” . With contributors like Bora Zivkovic, is it surprising that Scientific American commands little respect?
For twenty years I looked forward to each Scientific American issue. It focused on hard science, its technical writing and illustrating were outstanding–and it had recreational pieces by the estimable Martin Gardner.
Sometime in the ’90s, though, it changed. Initially it was just a lost of focus: it started including occasional social-“science”-type pieces. But the deterioration accelerated, I canceled my subscription, and I haven’t picked a copy up in over a decade. I can’t bear to look at what used to be a truly fine publication.
No doubt tens of thousands have had almost the exact same experience.
I too had a subscription to SciAmerican but I was forced to let it expire. It broke my heart. The magazine was so full of climate alarmist propaganda I could not rationalize paying for it.
“Gamed” is completely the wrong word. However, I’m also of the opinion that “pseudoscience” is a perfect description of this blog. Why Anthony chose not to contest it, or call for further retraction, one can only wonder :p
REPLY: Based on my training, the way “pseudoscience” is framed is an opinion, but the way “gamed” was framed is presented as a fact. I get called all sorts of opinionated things every day (such as yours), and if I worried about those things, I’d be very busy with just that. Suggesting I rigged or gamed a contest implies dishonesty, malice, and collusion on my part to pull such a thing off with thousands of voters, and that enters the realm of libel. – Anthony
He thinks that RealClimate has its origin in Usenet-style discussions? No, its origin is in the Public Relations offices.
He pooh-poohs WUWT due to its hordes of followers. Well, yes, Alexa.com when compared to scientificamerican.com has only a quarter as many visitors. SA should be worried that a mere blog has one-quarter as many visitors as it does — but should be more worried that the WUWT readers read many more pages and spend much more time on WUWT than SA’s visitors. WUWT does not merely have many visitors, it also has more material which requires reader involvement, and the readers are willing to be involved.
SA’s amateur scientist features used to be a major attraction. People don’t find SA’s amateur politician features to be as interesting.
Bora(k), the student of bird brains…
John Renie was the last Si-Am Editor worthy of the title. The magazine has yet to recover.
As for guessing who “gamed” the awards, if there’s gaming going on, “BoraZ” is a more likely suspect.
I dropped my subscription to Sci Am a decade ago. Too much advocacy and not enough science for my taste. Discover magazine made the same change when they later started published articles by renowned “scientist” Laurie David. Popular Science was late to jump the shark, but has finally caught up with its peers by replacing science reporting with AGW propaganda and smears on skeptics.
I don’t know what science magazine I’m going to subscribe to now. It seems that whenever I subscribe to one, they change their editorial policy!
Sorry, that should read ‘Bora(t)’…
I loved SciAm for decades, until it got agendized. I stopped subscribing, and now I don’t even bother reading it. The endless proselytizing is distracting, and it detracts from the science, which is why I used to read it. On the plus side, it is an immediate warning that the science is likely biased. You’d think they’d know better. That they don’t is further proof that it’s not worth reading.
As for the libel…..
http://www.defamationlawblog.com/