Support for Helmuth’s hatred and bigotry further exposes science writers’ political bias, meager reporting skills, and distaste for the American public.
Great work exposing this ideogogue charlatan and in so comprehensively laying out the information explosion that followed; where it was absorbed and where it was rejected. Keep at it Paul, real science and real journalism need you!
How on earth did Helmuth get the job? There must have things in her past that portended her performance at S/A. Who selected her for the position - perhaps they need to answer and explain why she stayed in her prominent position for four years.
Excellent work in exposing this political hack. It is disappointing that the groupthink is so prevalent that folks in the scientific community continue to support her.
I find it incredibly amusing that the Laura Helmuth's of the world leave X in a virtue-signaling huff to take refuge in their safe space, Bluesky, where like-minded "progressives" will fawn over their utterances. And then their toxic musings make it right back to X, thanks to folks like you, where they hang out to dry in the light of day! Thank you for this.
Scientific American was one of the first magazines I ever subscribed to once I started earning my own money (a paperboy route about fifty years ago). I kept the subscription for about ten years when I noticed that the percent of articles dealing with hard science (which is what I liked) was dropping, and bit by bit being replaced with soft science, politics, opinion pieces, etc. I noticed this many decades ago. This cultural shift has been going on for quite a while. We finally have a backlash against this movement, which has gone off the deep end, but these people are emboldened and numerous, have grown up in this environment, and will not go quietly.
New subscriber here, a journalist who just retired out of the newsroom.
I was silenced by my executive editor, but I understand the process they've used to control the press. I wrote all about it in my post on my Substack, Doc's Takedown. The piece is called "ON JOURNALISM: I know why the caged birds don't sing". It tells the whole story of how they've done this.
Don't believe for a second these outlets are all morally corrupt. They're not. Most are controlled through a combination of the brainwashing and the ad contract 'bribes' the publisher and business manager signed onto, with glee and gusto. We'll help the pandemic effort! We'll promote these great shots!
But then ....
the brainwashing really set in ... and the strong-arming.
These outlets didnt betray their journalistic standards willingly. They'd LOVE to report on the shot injuries, the theories, the medical discoveries ... but they can't. They're being strongarmed by the Feds.
When was the last time someone from the newsroom was willing to talk to you, face to face, on camera? I'm willing to talk as an authoritative source with experience in the newsroom. When was the last time you talked to someone from the industry?
Think of the numbers of people working in this industry. Runs into the six figures. Some, like me, weren't duped. They were controlled from within by powerful Federal threats and manipulations.
Frustrating, no doubt. The truth will win out. Then we will see and be shocked by the viciousness of this Federal action.
Thanks Paul for being an awesome investigative journalist. That’s why I am a subscriber. As a retired pharmacist and scientist, I am appalled at the depravity that is so pervasive in medical science. Thank goodness my avocation is alternative and herbal medicine, so I knew for decades where the ‘good guys and gals’ were.
Such great work. I think the reason we are seeing more 'scalps' and DEI programs canceled is due to changes in mindset by board members and other top executives. They see for themselves how DEI has done nothing but create chaos in the workplace and produces zero benefits. They see how all these precious lies have been revealed, whether it's the WPATH files or the massive number of detransitioners etc. Fyi, it was board members who screwed these organizations up.
That's definitely the case in Silicon Valley where most tech CEOs have just scrapped it all. Musk gave them license to manage again by firing so many people and thriving after.
Perhaps SA’s revenue and readership was also down during her tenure? This tweet may have been the last piece of scientific evidence to ensure her departure.
Scientific American is a professional tabloid for academics and their administrative class. You want to talk misinformation? This is a major source of 'science' that has been captured and then spun to serve an ideological market rather than actually support science and accurate reporting.
"I want people to start changing the culture of their space. So especially: white people who are around lots of other white people, encourage the people in your space. And then hold them accountable to condemning racism, acknowledging the experience of other people who are not like you."
Did Scientific American ever correct their story about Amy Cooper? Did they acknowledge that Amy Cooper's dog was lured with dog treats, or that most people, regardless of race, walked their dogs off lease in this part of Central Park? Did associate editor Andrea Thompson acknowledge that the reason Amy Cooper said "There’s a man, African-American . . ." is because when she called the police because someone was luring her dog, as per standard protocol, the police specifically asked for the race?
In parting, Laura Helmuth states on her BlueSky account “I'm going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching) . . ." hopefully, while birdwatching, she will keep her politics (and the dog treats) to herself.
I have read the magazine for more than 50 years, and still miss Martin Gardner columns. As GLAAD and different Gay and Lesbian groups have become anti-gay, Scientific American became gradually more anti-Scientific over the last couple of decades, culminating for me in several startling pieces.
The E.O. Wilson piece should go down in infamy as one of the worst pieces of writing as writing - simultaneously wildly misinformed, hate driven and peculiarly boring, for a person who rewrote and drastically changed assumptions about complex evolutionary systems - like humans. I wish he had better access to contemporary mathematical treatment of homeostatic systems within thermodynamic treatments.
The Article(s) on “sex spectrum” over the last decade - 2015, 2017, and the most bizarre was an opinion piece in 2023, which states “Why Human Sex is Not Binary” and the proceeds to not discuss the biology of human sex - worms briefly, fish and lizards. The conclusion - “Sex is complicated” - achieves a state of childlike triviality.
[Aside: The Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) helped the world understand similarly childlike ideas when they trans / planted the voiceboxes of Teen Talk Barbie and GI Joe and planted the results in toystores. Children could poke a GI Joe and have him say “math is hard, let’s go shopping” and Barbie would utter “Vengance is Mine”, which, while childlike are at least accurate”. Www.Barbieliberation.org ]
Their February 1950 issue published a relatively direct dry and factual negative critique of a “Nobel-Prize-Winning” psychosurgery, prefrontal lobotomy. It Kaur have been dramatic at the time: it was three years later Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) went on the market in the US for severe psychosis and schizophrenia. It still two decades to acknowledge that that pulverizing the brain was anything but an abomination and halt all lobotomies.
By contrast the publication of baldly false articles on trans delusion and puberty blockers every year she was editor - April 2021, May 2022, May 2023 [I note just in time for Mother’s Day celebration] and February 2024. The articles are literally (not figuratively) the opposite of truth.
From a critique of quack medicine in 1950, the magazine managed to evolve to an embrace of quack medical science in only 70 years.
I’ve been on boards of directors in strange unrelated institutions, music, operations research, GLB advocacy, and other purposes. There are bad boards and good boards, boards have complete strategic and executive staffing control of their respective institutions. HP’s board is an example of poor control and vetting, to the point of hiring a CEO who was in an active lawsuit over uncontested stealing of computer code, calling his hire a way to improve ethics.
Scientific American’s Board positioned the person and are completely responsible for the result. Unless the board alters composition, expect more of the same.
“While Darwin’s scientific contributions remain ever significant, it’s worth remembering he was also a man of his era—privileged, white, affluent, commanding…”
August, 2020 - written by Jessica Heflamd, neither a scientist nor good writer. Trivial childlike writing which became the stock-in-trade.
I basically used the fact That Trump couldn’t tell the difference between talking and lying to simplify listening to him occasionally. The same childlike utterances as SciAm just after Trump were were quite noticeable too in that they were flat out false. You just had to assume that in most of what they said the opposite is true.
It mad the magazine much easier to not buy.
Oh. I do like the thesis that science writers write to support science not go critique it or interpret it. I don’t quite agree, but it’s an interesting direction.
On April 13, 2020, less than six weeks after Helmuth published "Tips for Covering the COVID-19 Pandemic Without Spreading Misinformation", Laura became the ninth overall editor-in-chief of Scientific American. No coincidence there at all.
Some of Laura's tips:
"Look to infectious-disease and public-health experts for solid information, and be on alert for people trying to sell themselves as experts when they aren’t. Lots of misinformation is circulating about coronavirus, and this problem will get worse as the outbreak does. Some politicians are minimizing the danger, some quacks are trying to sell sham treatments or protections, and some anti-vaxxers are weaving coronavirus into their conspiracy theories about vaccines."
Infectious disease and public health experts like Anthony "I am the Science" Fauci, Peter Daszak and Rochelle Walensky? How did that turn out? Oh, and those anti-vaxxers, the ones worrying about the possible side effects of an untested vaccine, surely they must all have been conspiracy theorists. But, you have to hand it to Laura, she did seem to have a game plan . . . and friends in high places.
Then there is this tip from Laura: "When a piece of misinformation does become prominent, debunk it effectively. Research on misinformation has revealed some best practices for this: Replace the false information with something that is true."
Because, of course, in March of 2020, just two months into the pandemic, Laura had absolute knowledge of what was TRUTH, and therefore, could replace all supposed falsehoods with TRUTH.
Great work exposing this ideogogue charlatan and in so comprehensively laying out the information explosion that followed; where it was absorbed and where it was rejected. Keep at it Paul, real science and real journalism need you!
How on earth did Helmuth get the job? There must have things in her past that portended her performance at S/A. Who selected her for the position - perhaps they need to answer and explain why she stayed in her prominent position for four years.
Excellent work in exposing this political hack. It is disappointing that the groupthink is so prevalent that folks in the scientific community continue to support her.
That's the problem. She's a symptom of what is wrong in that entire #scicomm writing group.
I find it incredibly amusing that the Laura Helmuth's of the world leave X in a virtue-signaling huff to take refuge in their safe space, Bluesky, where like-minded "progressives" will fawn over their utterances. And then their toxic musings make it right back to X, thanks to folks like you, where they hang out to dry in the light of day! Thank you for this.
Scientific American was one of the first magazines I ever subscribed to once I started earning my own money (a paperboy route about fifty years ago). I kept the subscription for about ten years when I noticed that the percent of articles dealing with hard science (which is what I liked) was dropping, and bit by bit being replaced with soft science, politics, opinion pieces, etc. I noticed this many decades ago. This cultural shift has been going on for quite a while. We finally have a backlash against this movement, which has gone off the deep end, but these people are emboldened and numerous, have grown up in this environment, and will not go quietly.
Paul, hi;
New subscriber here, a journalist who just retired out of the newsroom.
I was silenced by my executive editor, but I understand the process they've used to control the press. I wrote all about it in my post on my Substack, Doc's Takedown. The piece is called "ON JOURNALISM: I know why the caged birds don't sing". It tells the whole story of how they've done this.
Don't believe for a second these outlets are all morally corrupt. They're not. Most are controlled through a combination of the brainwashing and the ad contract 'bribes' the publisher and business manager signed onto, with glee and gusto. We'll help the pandemic effort! We'll promote these great shots!
But then ....
the brainwashing really set in ... and the strong-arming.
These outlets didnt betray their journalistic standards willingly. They'd LOVE to report on the shot injuries, the theories, the medical discoveries ... but they can't. They're being strongarmed by the Feds.
When was the last time someone from the newsroom was willing to talk to you, face to face, on camera? I'm willing to talk as an authoritative source with experience in the newsroom. When was the last time you talked to someone from the industry?
Can you put a link to your piece here?
As I explained in the piece, I have a lot of journalism friends, as it was one of them that tipped me off.
https://docpruyne.substack.com/p/on-journalism-i-know-why-the-caged.
Think of the numbers of people working in this industry. Runs into the six figures. Some, like me, weren't duped. They were controlled from within by powerful Federal threats and manipulations.
Frustrating, no doubt. The truth will win out. Then we will see and be shocked by the viciousness of this Federal action.
Thanks Paul for being an awesome investigative journalist. That’s why I am a subscriber. As a retired pharmacist and scientist, I am appalled at the depravity that is so pervasive in medical science. Thank goodness my avocation is alternative and herbal medicine, so I knew for decades where the ‘good guys and gals’ were.
Such great work. I think the reason we are seeing more 'scalps' and DEI programs canceled is due to changes in mindset by board members and other top executives. They see for themselves how DEI has done nothing but create chaos in the workplace and produces zero benefits. They see how all these precious lies have been revealed, whether it's the WPATH files or the massive number of detransitioners etc. Fyi, it was board members who screwed these organizations up.
That's definitely the case in Silicon Valley where most tech CEOs have just scrapped it all. Musk gave them license to manage again by firing so many people and thriving after.
Dang! A one stroke checkmate takedown. My man!
Good move. Good move.
It's fun, yes!
There is nothing Scientific or American about SA and has not been for decades. Completely co opted by leftist ideology. Ditto National Geographic.
Perhaps SA’s revenue and readership was also down during her tenure? This tweet may have been the last piece of scientific evidence to ensure her departure.
Scientific American is a professional tabloid for academics and their administrative class. You want to talk misinformation? This is a major source of 'science' that has been captured and then spun to serve an ideological market rather than actually support science and accurate reporting.
Great job.
I wish Laura Helmuth’s supporters would stop texting and start doing something helpful like persuading her to be voluntarily committed.
Maybe these people should get a ticket.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/travel/cruise-company-offers-americans-upset-with-trumps-reelection-a-way-out/vi-AA1ufcDo?ocid=msedgntp&t=9#details
Lest we forget this Scientific American article from June 5th, 2020, written by associate editor Andrea Thompson:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/black-birders-call-out-racism-say-nature-should-be-for-everyone/
"I want people to start changing the culture of their space. So especially: white people who are around lots of other white people, encourage the people in your space. And then hold them accountable to condemning racism, acknowledging the experience of other people who are not like you."
What really happened:
https://www.newsweek.com/i-was-branded-central-park-karen-i-still-live-hiding-1839483
Did Scientific American ever correct their story about Amy Cooper? Did they acknowledge that Amy Cooper's dog was lured with dog treats, or that most people, regardless of race, walked their dogs off lease in this part of Central Park? Did associate editor Andrea Thompson acknowledge that the reason Amy Cooper said "There’s a man, African-American . . ." is because when she called the police because someone was luring her dog, as per standard protocol, the police specifically asked for the race?
In parting, Laura Helmuth states on her BlueSky account “I'm going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching) . . ." hopefully, while birdwatching, she will keep her politics (and the dog treats) to herself.
Super crisp and great simply-structured expose.
I have read the magazine for more than 50 years, and still miss Martin Gardner columns. As GLAAD and different Gay and Lesbian groups have become anti-gay, Scientific American became gradually more anti-Scientific over the last couple of decades, culminating for me in several startling pieces.
The E.O. Wilson piece should go down in infamy as one of the worst pieces of writing as writing - simultaneously wildly misinformed, hate driven and peculiarly boring, for a person who rewrote and drastically changed assumptions about complex evolutionary systems - like humans. I wish he had better access to contemporary mathematical treatment of homeostatic systems within thermodynamic treatments.
The Article(s) on “sex spectrum” over the last decade - 2015, 2017, and the most bizarre was an opinion piece in 2023, which states “Why Human Sex is Not Binary” and the proceeds to not discuss the biology of human sex - worms briefly, fish and lizards. The conclusion - “Sex is complicated” - achieves a state of childlike triviality.
[Aside: The Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) helped the world understand similarly childlike ideas when they trans / planted the voiceboxes of Teen Talk Barbie and GI Joe and planted the results in toystores. Children could poke a GI Joe and have him say “math is hard, let’s go shopping” and Barbie would utter “Vengance is Mine”, which, while childlike are at least accurate”. Www.Barbieliberation.org ]
Their February 1950 issue published a relatively direct dry and factual negative critique of a “Nobel-Prize-Winning” psychosurgery, prefrontal lobotomy. It Kaur have been dramatic at the time: it was three years later Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) went on the market in the US for severe psychosis and schizophrenia. It still two decades to acknowledge that that pulverizing the brain was anything but an abomination and halt all lobotomies.
By contrast the publication of baldly false articles on trans delusion and puberty blockers every year she was editor - April 2021, May 2022, May 2023 [I note just in time for Mother’s Day celebration] and February 2024. The articles are literally (not figuratively) the opposite of truth.
From a critique of quack medicine in 1950, the magazine managed to evolve to an embrace of quack medical science in only 70 years.
I’ve been on boards of directors in strange unrelated institutions, music, operations research, GLB advocacy, and other purposes. There are bad boards and good boards, boards have complete strategic and executive staffing control of their respective institutions. HP’s board is an example of poor control and vetting, to the point of hiring a CEO who was in an active lawsuit over uncontested stealing of computer code, calling his hire a way to improve ethics.
Scientific American’s Board positioned the person and are completely responsible for the result. Unless the board alters composition, expect more of the same.
“While Darwin’s scientific contributions remain ever significant, it’s worth remembering he was also a man of his era—privileged, white, affluent, commanding…”
August, 2020 - written by Jessica Heflamd, neither a scientist nor good writer. Trivial childlike writing which became the stock-in-trade.
I basically used the fact That Trump couldn’t tell the difference between talking and lying to simplify listening to him occasionally. The same childlike utterances as SciAm just after Trump were were quite noticeable too in that they were flat out false. You just had to assume that in most of what they said the opposite is true.
It mad the magazine much easier to not buy.
Oh. I do like the thesis that science writers write to support science not go critique it or interpret it. I don’t quite agree, but it’s an interesting direction.
Thank you for writing this.
Tips for covering the COVID-19 pandemic without spreading misinformation
by Laura Helmuth
March 2nd, 2020
https://www.nasw.org/article/tips-covering-covid-19-pandemic-without-spreading-misinformation
On April 13, 2020, less than six weeks after Helmuth published "Tips for Covering the COVID-19 Pandemic Without Spreading Misinformation", Laura became the ninth overall editor-in-chief of Scientific American. No coincidence there at all.
Some of Laura's tips:
"Look to infectious-disease and public-health experts for solid information, and be on alert for people trying to sell themselves as experts when they aren’t. Lots of misinformation is circulating about coronavirus, and this problem will get worse as the outbreak does. Some politicians are minimizing the danger, some quacks are trying to sell sham treatments or protections, and some anti-vaxxers are weaving coronavirus into their conspiracy theories about vaccines."
Infectious disease and public health experts like Anthony "I am the Science" Fauci, Peter Daszak and Rochelle Walensky? How did that turn out? Oh, and those anti-vaxxers, the ones worrying about the possible side effects of an untested vaccine, surely they must all have been conspiracy theorists. But, you have to hand it to Laura, she did seem to have a game plan . . . and friends in high places.
Then there is this tip from Laura: "When a piece of misinformation does become prominent, debunk it effectively. Research on misinformation has revealed some best practices for this: Replace the false information with something that is true."
Because, of course, in March of 2020, just two months into the pandemic, Laura had absolute knowledge of what was TRUTH, and therefore, could replace all supposed falsehoods with TRUTH.