A while back I wrote about the politicization of Scientific American and the demise of science writing under its former editor Laura Helmuth (11/15/24 Well, Shuck My Corn and Call Me Doofus). Well, it seems that even after Helmuth’s resignation, the periodical is still wallowing in social engineering, Leftist ideology, and probably, though not demonstrably, TDS. I had not paid attention to the magazine since the Helmuth controversy, so I’m thankful that Cory Franklin * recently reported on the nonsense that has polluted the once fertile soil of science popularization. Franklin excerpts an article that relates feminism to climate, revealing how insidious the intellectual pollution of absurd reasoning based on unwarranted assumptions has demeaned science.
Scientific American’s op-ed piece “How feminism can guide climate change by action” contains the following passage::
“Feminism gives us the analysis, tools and movement to create a better climate future . . . Climate policymaking needs to take into account the expertise that women, including indigenous and rural women, bring to bear on issues like preserving ecosystems and environmentally sustainable agriculture . . . We must redistribute resources away from male-dominated, environmentally harmful economic activities towards those prioritizing women’s employment, regeneration and care for both people and ecosystems.”
How Did We Get Here?
You don’t need me to point out all that is wrong with the excerpt. When I read it, I immediately thought of the expression attributed to Wolfgang Pauli ( "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!” **) in its shortened version, “not even wrong,” it is an expression that is akin to saying about my current running speed on bad knees, “Don would have to speed up just to stop.”
But it’s hard not to vent. What does “feminism gives us the analysis” mean? What kind of “tools” does feminism provide? Protests? What’s meant by “indigenous women"? A Native American growing corn in a semiarid land? An aboriginal in Australia? A white woman whose family has lived in the Americas for several centuries or a European woman whose roots go back to Angles, Saxons, and Jutes? And just what are “male-dominated, environmentally harmful economic activities”? Are those the same activities that provide feminists with all the modern conveniences? Or, YES, maybe that’s what Scientific American’s editors mean: Go back to subsistence farming and hunting. Go back to eating roots, seeds, and berries found in the wild. Go back to darkness at night in a world without tooth brushes and toilet paper.
This is not even nonsense!
That recent op-ed reveals how far away from scientific thinking and writing Scientific American has wandered. Although I’ve never considered the magazine to be a bellwether for the scientific community, I have long considered it to be a mirror of what is happening in science and scientific writing. In years gone by I considered the magazine to be a goto site for up-to-date summaries of current scientific knowledge and cutting-edge hypotheses. No more.
Blame me. No, not me, rather blame my generation and maybe the one before mine for educating the Laura Helmuths in control of science today. Born into a society ripe for the proliferation of academics housed in tenure-ridden institutions that multiplied like rabbits, many of my contemporaries did what I call “research-research,” that is, they focused their efforts on producing “more of the same,” often merely providing neologisms for previous terminology and documented phenomena. Yes, some scientific advances occurred, most of it technology-based. But the pre-Galilean pressure to conform resurfaced as a science driver. How many journals published contrarian articles on climate science?
Climate Science?
Once the “97% myth” spread, it overwhelmed most efforts to revive true inquisitiveness. As science turned into belief, it started an avalanche of articles pinning any phenomena—from disease to anxieties to weather events—on climate change.
Unscience, if I may coin a word, prevails in various intellectual endeavors, but one stands out from my perspective: “Climate “science.” That thousands of “scientists” attend the annual COPs is dismaying to me because I know many go for the party, and many go on some government’s dime. Conference of the Parties’ annuals aren’t Solvay. There’s no argument between a deterministic Einstein and a Copenhagen Bohr. Everyone is deterministic: There is no science save a predetermined future of rising temperatures and seas, increased storm intensities and droughts, and atmospheric rivers and Siberian Expresses.
Never fear. Scientific American has revealed the mechanism that will stop the inexorable warming, and it is feminism.
*https://nypost.com/2025/02/06/opinion/how-scientific-american-sacrificed-science-for-progressive-politics/
**"That is not only not right; it is not even wrong.” Peter Woit used “not even wrong” for his book blasting string theory: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law
Scientific American’s op-ed piece “How feminism can guide climate change by action” contains the following passage::
“Feminism gives us the analysis, tools and movement to create a better climate future . . . Climate policymaking needs to take into account the expertise that women, including indigenous and rural women, bring to bear on issues like preserving ecosystems and environmentally sustainable agriculture . . . We must redistribute resources away from male-dominated, environmentally harmful economic activities towards those prioritizing women’s employment, regeneration and care for both people and ecosystems.”
How Did We Get Here?
You don’t need me to point out all that is wrong with the excerpt. When I read it, I immediately thought of the expression attributed to Wolfgang Pauli ( "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!” **) in its shortened version, “not even wrong,” it is an expression that is akin to saying about my current running speed on bad knees, “Don would have to speed up just to stop.”
But it’s hard not to vent. What does “feminism gives us the analysis” mean? What kind of “tools” does feminism provide? Protests? What’s meant by “indigenous women"? A Native American growing corn in a semiarid land? An aboriginal in Australia? A white woman whose family has lived in the Americas for several centuries or a European woman whose roots go back to Angles, Saxons, and Jutes? And just what are “male-dominated, environmentally harmful economic activities”? Are those the same activities that provide feminists with all the modern conveniences? Or, YES, maybe that’s what Scientific American’s editors mean: Go back to subsistence farming and hunting. Go back to eating roots, seeds, and berries found in the wild. Go back to darkness at night in a world without tooth brushes and toilet paper.
This is not even nonsense!
That recent op-ed reveals how far away from scientific thinking and writing Scientific American has wandered. Although I’ve never considered the magazine to be a bellwether for the scientific community, I have long considered it to be a mirror of what is happening in science and scientific writing. In years gone by I considered the magazine to be a goto site for up-to-date summaries of current scientific knowledge and cutting-edge hypotheses. No more.
Blame me. No, not me, rather blame my generation and maybe the one before mine for educating the Laura Helmuths in control of science today. Born into a society ripe for the proliferation of academics housed in tenure-ridden institutions that multiplied like rabbits, many of my contemporaries did what I call “research-research,” that is, they focused their efforts on producing “more of the same,” often merely providing neologisms for previous terminology and documented phenomena. Yes, some scientific advances occurred, most of it technology-based. But the pre-Galilean pressure to conform resurfaced as a science driver. How many journals published contrarian articles on climate science?
Climate Science?
Once the “97% myth” spread, it overwhelmed most efforts to revive true inquisitiveness. As science turned into belief, it started an avalanche of articles pinning any phenomena—from disease to anxieties to weather events—on climate change.
Unscience, if I may coin a word, prevails in various intellectual endeavors, but one stands out from my perspective: “Climate “science.” That thousands of “scientists” attend the annual COPs is dismaying to me because I know many go for the party, and many go on some government’s dime. Conference of the Parties’ annuals aren’t Solvay. There’s no argument between a deterministic Einstein and a Copenhagen Bohr. Everyone is deterministic: There is no science save a predetermined future of rising temperatures and seas, increased storm intensities and droughts, and atmospheric rivers and Siberian Expresses.
Never fear. Scientific American has revealed the mechanism that will stop the inexorable warming, and it is feminism.
*https://nypost.com/2025/02/06/opinion/how-scientific-american-sacrificed-science-for-progressive-politics/
**"That is not only not right; it is not even wrong.” Peter Woit used “not even wrong” for his book blasting string theory: Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law
RSS Feed