Scientific American Didn’t Need to Endorse Anybody
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Scientific American has been a mainstay of science and technology journalism in the United States. (It’s been in business 179 years, even longer than The Atlantic.) As an aspiring nerd in my youth—I began college as a chemistry major—I read it regularly. In 2017, I contributed a short article to it about the public’s view of science, drawn from my book The Death of Expertise. But the magazine’s decision to break with tradition and endorse Kamala Harris—only the second such nod in the magazine’s history—is a mistake, as was its 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden, on multiple levels.
I understand the frustration that probably led to this decision. Donald Trump is the most willfully ignorant man ever to hold the presidency. He does not understand even basic concepts of … well, almost anything. (Yesterday, he explained to a woman in Michigan that he would lower food prices by limiting food imports—in other words, by reducing the supply of food. Trump went to the Wharton School, where I assume “supply and demand” was part of the first-year curriculum.) He is insensate to anything that conflicts with his needs or beliefs, and briefing him on any topic is virtually impossible.
