Scientific American has Issued its Second (and Consecutive) Presidential Endorsement.
Update in Politicization.
To read the full Disclaimer: Click here | Last Updated: 9/18/24
Summary of Endorsement
On September 16, 2024 Scientific American has published editorial entitled: “Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment. Kamala Harris has plans to improve health, boost the economy and mitigate climate change. Donald Trump has threats and a dangerous record” (Ref).
This article constituted a second (after endorsing Joe Biden in 2020) backing of the presidential candidate by Scientific American during its 179-year long history. The editors explained that they decide to to support Kamala Harris - because she is a candidate who “prioritize science, education, health care, and the environment” while her opponent Donald Trump “does not”.
To prove their points the authors performed a detailed evaluation of past records and current proposals of both presidential candidates. According to the editors’ comparative analysis - current presidential hopefuls have acted differently and made strikingly contrasting impacts on the following domains:
SCIENCE:
Harris: “is relying on science, solid evidence and the willingness to learn from experience. She supports mainstream scientists.”
Trump: “ignores science, dismisses evidence in favor of conspiracy theories and *alternative facts*”. He does not support mainstream scientists and fills positions in federal science agencies with unqualified ideologues.” Interestingly, the editors did not mention the significant role of mainstream infectious diseases scientists that was assigned to them by President Trump during COVID-19 pandemic (Ref).
HEALTH CARE:
Harris: “aims to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid, ensuring more people have access to health insurance. She supports capping drug prices and increasing taxes on high earners to fund Medicare.”
Trump: “during his tenure, he proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which Congress blocked, and pushed for a Medicaid work requirement. He aimed to repeal the ACA without a clear replacement plan. Yet, like Harris has voiced concern about drug prices, signing an executive order in 2020 to lower Medicare drug costs.”
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS:
Harris: “vigorously supports reproductive rights as evidenced by her work as US senator, Vice-President and by her campaigns proposal. During a September debate, she emphasized her commitment to reinstating Roe v. Wade. She has been advocating for improving abortion access. She supports the right to mail-order the abortion pill mifepristone and has co-sponsored bills to reduce maternal mortality rates.”
Trump: “while occasionally ambiguous on access to abortion - Trump appointed conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. He avoided stating whether he would veto a federal abortion ban, instead praising the Supreme Court for returning the decision to the states. This has resulted in a patchwork of laws and regions where abortion access is severely restricted.”
GUN SAFETY:
Harriss: “is an established proponent of policies aimed at assuring gun safety as reflected by her record in Biden-Harris administration”.
Trump: “strongly opposes gun control measures. He has committed himself to repealing all Biden-Harris gun measures. He remained silent on gun safety after his assassination attempt.”
ENVIROMENT:
Harris: “treats the climate change crisis as an emergency, advocating for policies that embrace clean energy and technology to mitigate catastrophic environmental impacts. This is reflected by fact that The U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change under the Biden-Harris administration.”
Trump: “has called climate change a hoax and avoided answering how he would combat it during the September debate. He withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, directed agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency to roll back over 100 environmental policies, and attempted to cut funding for satellite-based climate research.”
To summarize, the editors have contrasted what is in their opinion “science-based approach” of Kamala Harris with “evidence-rejecting and conspiracy fantasies based style ” of Donald Trump. In addition, authors pointed out that Republican Presidential candidate has a dismal personal legal record including being a convicted felon who was also found liable of sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit.
The article ends with the strong appeal to voters asking them to elect Kamala Harris - since she prioritizes “reality and integrity” and therefore her presidency will lead to better prospects for the country and the world.
Relevance of Scientific American
Scientific American is a well known popular science magazine with a long and illustrious history for this type of the publication. It has been founded in 1845 by inventor and publisher Rufus Porter, as a four-page weekly newspaper (Ref). Being in print since its inception makes it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States (Ref). Initially, it has a focus on technological advancements due to its emphasis on reports from the U.S. Patent Office. However, eventually it evolved to cover a very broad range of scientific topics.
Being a popular science magazine Scientific American is not a rigorous academic scientific journal. Like other similar publications, its main goal was to make science accessible by explaining complex, specialized research to a general audience. Yet, due to its long history of publishing papers authored by the acclaimed scientists - it has made a significant impact not only in the realm of science communication but also in general science. This magazine was and is still read not only by interested in science laypeople but also by scientists who want to learn about scientific topics that are outside their scientific specialty. Scientific American still has an impressive global reach - connecting with over 10 million people each month via its website, print, digital editions, newsletters, and social media platforms (Ref).
Recently, as science was becoming increasingly politicized, Scientific American has followed a prevailing trend of incorporating elements of Critical Social Justice into its mission (Ref, ). The magazine started to feature articles related to this topic(Ref, Ref). Currently, the “About” Section of Scientific American clearly states that the magazine is committed to advancing social justice (Ref).
This process of embracing concepts of Social Justice in the science communication in general and in Scientific American in particular has been applauded by many - mostly on the Left Wing side as the welcomed sign of the progress in science (Ref, Ref, Ref, Ref). In their paper “Why should we think about social justice in science communication?” a group of science communicators wrote (Ref):
“We argue that bringing critical social justice lenses to science communication can usefully interrogate, rethink and ultimately reshape our field.”
At the same time, it has been bemoaned by others a the subversive and destructive for science development (Ref, Ref, Ref). For example, one (clearly not extreme Right Wing aligned scientist has put it verbatim in the blog post entitled “Scientific American (and math) go full woke” (Ref):
“As we all know, Scientific American is changing from a popular-science magazine into a social-justice-in-science magazine, having hardly anything the science-hungry reader wants to see any more”
Significance of Endorsement
The endorsement of Kamala Harris is only the second one backing of the presidential candidate by Scientific American during its 179-year long history. This magazine has endorsed presidential candidates only twice and only recently:
Joe Biden in the 2020 election - with an editorial published October 1, 2020 entitled: “Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden. We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now” (Ref).
Kamala Harris in the 2024 election - with the above mentioned 2024 editorial (Ref).
It is especially noteworthy that those two endorsements have occurred consecutively. Scientific American has issued its current endorsement after backing the presidential candidate 4 years ago - that is in the last election cycle. Only time will tell if such direct sequence was an anomaly, or if it signaled a beginning of the new endorsement policy for this popular science magazine.
Objectively speaking, Scientific American is a historically relevant science communication magazine. It still has an impressive global reach - despite recent controversies. In the not so remote past it has been beloved by all science enthusiasts independently of their political affiliation. This is no longer a case because this magazine has decided to abandon its long tradition of political neutrality:
First it has incorporating numerous politically charged Social Justice concepts into its goals - adjusting accordingly the contents of its publications.
Thereafter, it has issued two consecutive endorsements of Presidential Candidates in two very emotions-driven election cycles.
In the era of enormous political polarization both those developments will be seen differently from the two opposing partisan perspectives. The Left Wing will keep praising and applauding them. The Right Wing will treat them with dismay and disappointment. There will be plenty articles, podcasts, blog entries, and posts on social media that will reflect those partisan sentiments. Many have already been published. The Left wing commentators have confirmed their full agreement with Scientific American’s critical analysis of presidential candidates’ (Ref). Critics from the Right side absolutely disagreed with it calling the endorsement “problematic” (Ref) . Moreover, they warned - quoting the data presented in the article published in “Nature” - that this endorsement may reduce Trump supporters’ trust in science and therefore dissuade them from reading Scientific American (Ref, Ref). In response, Left Wing pundits implied that Scientific American will not lose much readers since Right Wingers are already ardent science deniers, hence they are unlikely to read that magazine anyway (Ref). Some other Right Wing authors have dismissed the significance of this Presidential endorsement stating that Scientific American is just a “Leftist Rag” (Ref).
The goal of this short commentary is not to duplicate those partisan opinions. Instead, we would like to point out that this relatively minor development (the sudden departure from long editorial tradition by the popular magazine) is one of many signs of the much larger and more consequential process.
The critical issue is not whether the presidential endorsement by some“partisan rag” holds any significance. The truly relevant questions are why and how a once universally respected periodical has become adored by some and despised by others depending on their political affiliations. And what can be done about it?
This minor event - reminds us that our world is changing significantly at the increasing pace. The old time honored paradigms are shifting mercilessly. What used to be taboo now becomes a virtue to showcase. As always in history - those societal transformations are not occurring spontaneously. They are driven by the groups of motivated people who believe that those changes are necessary and who have means to implement them. They experience various setbacks but they adjust their strategy and keep moving. In contrast, the groups viewing these changes as wrong and unacceptable have done very little to stop them. Instead they keep complaining or finding a refuge in denial of reality. Those opponents of shifting paradigms have had few successes but many failures, and yet they continue using the same strategy, expecting different results. This is a harsh but realistic assessment of the current status quo. If things remain as they are - the most probable final outcome is not hard to guess.