I used to read Scientific American with interest and wonder. My favorite column was The Amateur Scientist because it had so many neat experiments and projects. Now, it is mostly with sadness and incredulity that I occasionally glance at it on the newsstand. I don’t bother subscribing or even buying it for an interesting article TAS article anymore. They’ve lost their way.
Grist magazine wrote on July 24th:
What would the world look like without people?
This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).
In honor of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which we recently profiled, here are two videos showing what would happen if we humans suddenly up and disappeared.
I’m shaking my head as I watch this SciAm video, they have an animated musclebound synthetic person as the spokesman wearing a SciAm t-shirt. Yes, it’s that bad. They seem to forget where they came from and who they cater to.
Of course there’s the obligatory “global warming” mention, still going strong after 1000 years, turning NYC’s central park into an African jungle, complete with elephants.
And it’s not just Scientific American pushing this stuff. Nat Geo (another magazine I used to enjoy) also has a video out on the topic that looks like…like…oh heck just watch it, I can’t even describe it.
In both SciAm and the NatGeo videos they destroy the statue of liberty. I guess either they dislike what it represents, or they have so little creative talent that they have to borrow from the famous scene with Charlton Heston from Planet of the Apes, the original human decline disaster movie.
It’s fine by me if the people at Voluntary Human Extinction Movement want to recuse themselves from Earth, and I’d be totally OK if SciAm, and NatGeo met with extinction, but please, leave the rest of the human race out of your plans. I notice that the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is still around, so much for leadership.
Me? I’m going to celebrate life.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I’ve been looking for the cover photo for “The Recognition of Faces” (from the late 1960’s or early 1970’s). It’s Gilbert Stewart’s painting of George Washington, reduced to only 10×15 pixel resolution — yet still recognizable.
I’d greatly appreciate any link or other way to get it. I’ve spent hours in libraries looking for it.
Time is rapidly passing for AGW. The stalwarts of the cause are panicking as they try one last time to get their programs set in law.
While I hope that they will fail, I don’t underestimate their power. The hundreds of billions already spent have greased a lot of wheels and they continue to turn.
Having lobbied my local library for Scientific American and New Scientist, I feel obliged to read them and occasionally, very occasionally, there is an article with merit. One of my children has Coeliac disease and is Gluten intolerant and they did run a good summary if its aetiology, how to avoid the symptoms and current research ( including some amazing Australian work using hookworms) with those great illustrations that SA can do.
When they concentrate on research, it is worth reading, the opinions are just that, opinions, space fillers, designed to give the publication an air of authority and achieve the opposite.
Like the above, I read Scientific American for years then in the late 1980’s I noticed a distinct shift in policy and the articles became political propaganda pieces instead of well written science for the layman. At that point I quit buying every issue as it came out (never was much for subscriptions), and started “pre-viewing” the magazine on the news stand before I would purchase it. I found that I was only buying one or two issues a year, and at that point quit even looking at it. I have opened the cover of Scientific American on the news stand about 3 times in the last 10 years and have yet to buy one.
It is a sad commentary on what was at one time a great magazine. I used to have stacks of them that I kept for reference but over time they have all gotten damaged and dog eared and been thrown out during moves. They were the last magazine I discarded as I began to cull through my library but I eventually could find no redeeming value in keeping them.
The good news is thanks to those 1960’s and 1970’s vintage copies I know what a good scientific article should look like, and it helps to filter the fluff out of things I now find on the internet.
To be honest, my current replacement for Scientific American is right here at WUWT. I learn something new every time I read a set of comments, as the readers here are constantly drawing my attention to articles and concepts I would never find on my own. Hopefully I have given as much as I have received.
Larry
Ric Werme says:
July 25, 2010 at 8:52 pm
I like your comment and your web link. Keep up the good work. (especially the WUWT archive page).
The projections are kind of realistic – and what is the main message for the big picture, in my opinion, is that the Earth doesn’t care about us. If we’re gone, then the planet recovers within a blink of geological time. That’s a reason why we shouldn’t worry what happens with the “Earth” because we’re way too small rulers as soon as we start to reduce our impact. We have to try hard to become stronger.
If the message was to suggest that it’s a good idea to ignite the suicidal holocaust, well, then I have to end my comment in a speechless way.
Steve Mucci says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH is the German owned publisher of “Scientific American” as well as “Nature”. The founder of the company was a member of the NAZI party and served it well through various favorable publications. A grandson, Stefan von Holtzbrinck, is the present chairman of the company and apparently has a marxist- socialist agenda. At an Erich Fromme Society event, Stefan von Holtzbrinck presented an award to Noam Chomsky. That’s a whole lot of folks well to the left of Ted Williams’ when he played for the Bo’socks.
~~~
Now that’s some good information! Answers what was going on when I dropped my subscription in the early 90’s as I became sick of their non-scientific content, for I too was an avid follower of Scientific American articles leading up to 1990. Always wonder what went wrong with that great magazine.
Makes me want to have another drink.
Actually, I dropped SciAm like a dead slug after the unconscionable way they treated Bjorn Lomborg.
Certainly seems to be a successful Volunteer Magazine Extinction Movement.
I’ve subscribed to SciAm, NatGeo and New Scientist, but I’m down to the last of the three which I’m persevering with. Getting increasingly difficult to avoid the preachy CAGW articles even though there are signs of guerilla activity from the subeds. Lemmings!
Maybe they are wanting to get themselves onto the darwinawards.com list of people who have improved the gene pool by removing themselves from it.
Although they don’t meet the one important criteria of doing it accidentally.
Wayne Richards says:
July 25, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Makes me want to have another drink.
Cheers! Make mine a double.
SA got me interested in science and engineering in the 50s, and I subscribed to it till the early 80s, when it went anti-technology (interesting spin for a publication called Scientific American). I think they were captured by the guilt movement, which is just a modern version of the Catholic Church.
It is sad. There are really no magazines like the old SA around any more.
Shades of Jonestown.
I used to subscribe to SM and to its French edition after I moved to France. They still send me emails refering to their content, but I no longer bother looking.
This human extinction meme is a set of value judgements held by a group of human beings, so the extinction of the human race would entail the loss of this (and all other) set(s) of values. Whether a world teeming with life, or as barren as the moon, might be preferable, would then be moot.
I started reading SA in high school (late 50’s) and all during the 60’s & 70’s depended on it to feed my need for science; while living in some rather remote and back water mining towns. I too am sad and frustrated by what is happening. When my multi- year subscription runs out, I’m out.
the VHEM is the ultimate in Hypcocrisy. The Disposable Heroes would be Proud
I think the VHEMT is just about as funny as bonsaikitten.com (sadly, it is no more) – Irrespective of whether any number of people take it seriously or not. I have their website as my signature for the longest time, even though I don’t take it seriously. In their FAQ they used to say you cannot even “join” – it’s a movement, you are automatically part of it – funny stuff 🙂
Inevitably you’ll find a few people who actually sign up to the thinking behind it in a world with 6 billion people – taking the whole thing serious would mean totally over-rating it.
People to whom I show it immediately are all over it, but not because they genuinely share the view – rather in a way as they would endorse the fine art of manufacturing bonsai kitten or other whacky stuff.
Maybe that guy set it up in all seiousness – but he has no control over what other people are doing with it, and actually it is part of the concept that he does not even want to. There you go.
VHEM is hate – speech and incitement to genocide. It should be the subject of legal action.
Steve Mucci says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH is the German owned publisher of “Scientific American” as well as “Nature”. The founder of the company was a member of the NAZI party and served it well through various favorable publications.
The scientific community being a feudal elite-ocracy with non-accountable leadership, is ripe for silent takeover by political extremism and this has clearly happened.
Incitement to genocide such as this can influence young impressionable scientists potentially have the result illustrated in the film “The Twelve Monkeys”. If you’re a virologist – keep an eye on your colleagues.
I don’t see any of the buggers volunteering to lead by example…
So, another cult has been born. As always, we can be sure the leaders will follow, very belatedly if ever, their members in stepping up to oblivion. Mind you, it may have existed as a secret cult for quite a while – which would certainly explain many of the insane policies being pushed by our equally insane politicians (US and UK)!
What would the world look like without people?
Overgrown.
That SciAm movie is pretty crap by the way, Bryce can do so much better when in capable hands 🙂
Like many other posters, I stayed with SciAm into the eighties ,and then bailed (not to say hurled) over the overtly political content. Papa came here in 1928 from failed Deutschland and took up NatG immediately, so my collection goes back aways.. in 1969 I took over the subscription and have it still. While the current issue still has the apparently mandatory references to GW, there seems to be some movement in the sensible direction recently. I’ve decided to hang around a while longer. BTW, it’s kinda interesting that the NG vid above has it all ending in, not fire, but ice. Is that not a recognition of scientific reality?
My favorite mag, and I’m a charter subscriber, is Smithsonian. It, too, suffers from PC disease, but contains content found nowhere else. Pick up a copy; it can work wonders on many diseases we fragile humans are subject to. Cheers.
After almost 40+ years I dropped both the National Geographic and Scintific American as my personal rebellion against their insufferable bias. The Internet has been my replacement. The NYT went earlier for insulting my intelligence, I do miss the food and wine columns :-).