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.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill
@ur momisugly David C. and a several others
“I have read SciAm every month since I was nine.”
Yes, same story here. I am not quite SS eligible (but close!) and I started reading Scientific American at about the same age. In the mid 1960s I even ran across a stash of old issues and read all the back issues to about 1950. Brilliant magazine! Or at least it used to be. Somewhere around 2000 they started going seriously downhill, and by 2005 I let my decades long subscription lapse. For the last ten years or so, reading SciAm has become like having a conversation with an old friend who has faded into dementia.
The magazine is no longer either scientific or American.
SciAm went commie a LONG time ago, probably around 1968. They’ve been viciously crusading against every aspect of normal civilization well before the whole AGW thing came up.
“And they wonder why people don’t like the magazine like they used to.”
Dropped my subscription back in the mid 90’s. Personalities liken to Bora are the prevailing wind in the circles of envy stricken rag sheets like (Socialistic) Scientific (Anti) American. Take away their subscriptions and the pass away into the nothingness they begot themselves.
“Prove your assertion of “gaming” led to an undeserved win, or retract it and issue an apology.”
To which I can only add the chant:
Back it up or take it back!
Back it up or take it back!
Back it up or take it back!
Sounds like SOUR GRAPES.
“The Team” figured they could, with Fenton Communications money and expertise put together a very popular “Real Science” blog. Fenton Communications BTW brought us the the Alar scare and countless other bogus health claims
Fenton Communications lists many progressive front groups like Moveon.org, WWF, Sierra Club and the International Forum on Globalization. Their Selected Client List includes The Guardian and Global Green USA
I only got it for the “Mathematical Games” anyway. 🙂
“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”
Speaking of libel, I am surprised at the lack of libel suits when there exists so much publicly written malicious and libelous content. Professional jealousy is never professional; just makes them look as fools they are.
AnonyMoose says:
“He thinks that RealClimate has its origin in Usenet-style discussions? No, its origin is in the Public Relations offices.”
You’re right. Equating RealClimate to Usenet is ridiculous. Usenet filtered spam (after the green card spam spam spam spam), never “moderated” dicussions.
A magazine which at one time published things like Vine and Matthews’ theory of seafloor spreading and introduced to the general public revolutionary ideas in science, has become a tabloid rag sodden with petty bias and folk medicine. So none of this should come as a surprise. I dropped my subscription ages ago.
I like so many commenter above I canceled my subscription to SA about 3 years ago. I also could not handle all the political BS that infiltrated what was once a pleasure to read. All this does make me wonder how much the circulation numbers have dropped.
Mark S says:
July 16, 2012 at 11:08 am
““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”.
Mark,
What is your background/education? A psychoceramist, perhaps? A climatologist? One can only wonder…….
/Sarchasm intended.
MtK
Went thru much the same disappointment with the drift of SA into NaNa Land as previous commenters. Note that along the same time (1990s) National Geographic and Astronomy magazines both went very green. Dropped them also. Cheers-
Sci American pushed the “Nuclear Freeze” during the ’80’s. I had the privilage of going on the local public radio to counter the Sci Am. Editor’s “Opinion Piece” on the 35,000 nuclear warheads (Randell Forrester, completely illegitimate writer.) “we” had, versus those poor, 3rd world Soviets with their mere 15,000 warheads.
I made such MINCEMENT of the Sci American editor that even the STUDIO RECORDING PERSONNEL told me afterwards, “We regret airing the Sci. American” editor’s piece now that we know how factually wrong it is.” (of course, they could never admit that publically.)
Max
Another former Sci Am subscriber…..
I stopped reading ScAm (think about it) in the mid-1980s, when they began to publish heavily biased analyses of the then Strategic Defense Initiative. I was in a position to completely refute their ridiculous analyses…but couldn’t write a word due to my security clearances. Once they tolerate corruption on any topic, there is no way to assure there isn’t corruption of every topic.
Quit being such a hypocritical cry-baby. Scientists, authors, and bloggers are “slandered” quite frequently on this blog. You seem to be able to dish it out, but you can’t take it. Why am I not surprised?
REPLY: You might want to look up the definitions of slander and libel before you use them in a sentence. – Anthony
Anthony, journals like Scientific American dropped the torch a long time ago. It’s blogs like yours who’ve picked it up. As their sales decline, your readership increases. Snide remarks from creatures like Zivkovic belong in the end of the grapeyard reserved for the bitter ones.
Pointman
The reason why some Warmists believe it was gamed is because they refuse to face reality: the lack of a reasonable debate has forced thousands onto sceptical blogs. When was the last time you read a sceptical / balanced piece from the BBC as journalists should do? They had them over a decade ago but today the BBC has parts of its pension scheme invested in carbon schemes. It’s now money they follow and not the science.
Watts also games the number of visitors to the site compared to Real Climate /SARC
@more soylent green!: “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!” Hmmm, then please do us all the favor of not subscribing to any lest that one go bad as well. 🙂
(Feel free to use that as an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. 🙂
SteamboatJack says:
July 16, 2012 at 10:55 am
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.
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AND the National Enquirer is written by entertaining writers not preachy pompous windbags.
TOO bad I really liked SA when I was a kid and read it all the time.
Ditto the above. I’m another former subscriber.
Note to Mr. Zivkovic
I also went to Belgrade university, and lived in the society were you could accuse anyone of anything without a proof, things are different in the more democratic societies.
Only a ‘bird brain’ wouldn’t realize that.
Believing and propagating the AGW nonsense is just about acceptable if it helps you earn living, stepping over the line of honorable behavior isn’t, either produce some evidence, or be a man and apologize.
I’ll simply add my vote to those who once found Sci Am [and it’s translated version] to be a source of scientific inspiration, but lost interest when it became heavily politicized promoting various agendas rather than science.
Mr. Zivkovic: As one of the Blog voters [ for a number of blogs – not just WUWT ], I sincerely ask for your apology and retraction.
Your accusation stands against my integrity.