Rating: - Sadly, once good, now a pawn of the liberal elite
I once loved this magazine - my subscription has run out - I will not renew. Pay close attention to the reviews here that note that SA now uses its power as a Science Authority to support a political ideology and now ignores the value of open debate on scientific issues. Truly a sad development - I hope SA wakes up and returns to its egalitarian roots - big interests and money is not the answer.
Rating: - Used to love it, now I've become disappointed with it.
I've subscribed to this magazine for around 15 years now, and I have always loved it. There is a great variety of science and technology subjects covered and the articles have always seemed to have the right level of technical detail for me.
Unfortunately this magazine has changed over the past year or two. The past six months have been so bad that I'm finally throwing in the towel and cancelling my subscription and looking for a replacement. Every issue now contains a steady dose of environmentalism that often only vaguely resembles science and could be better described as sensationalism. I've also noticed a recent trend of religion bashing, with the underlying message being that anyone who believes in God must be an ignorant rube.
It is really a shame because before this trend it was an excellent, un-biased magazine that was pretty much a perfect fit for me. Had I written this review a couple years ago I would have certainly given it 5 stars. Maybe in a couple years I'll check and see if they've gotten it back on track and removed much of the bias. This magazine has been around for over 150 years, so I suspect they are adept at change.
Rating: - Superb recap of important happenings
I am not a professional in the sciences which is exactly why this publication is so important. It provides timely articles, written in more or less layman's language, that are relevant to our world. Refreshingly, the reporting does not include so much of the political noise and nonsense that bombard from so many media these days. In addition, this magazine gives the reader access to the current trends in research, academia, and general tenor of scientific-related work itself. Due to the consistently excellent writing, photography, and accompanying footnotes of explanation, I must recommend this magazine to anyone remotely interested in our sciences but does not have a particularly strong scientific background.
Rating: - Good overview, but facts not always accurate.
I enjoy the brief glimpses of relatively new scientific discoveries, but I've noticed when I research more on a topic the articles are not always accurate. The opinions are always slanted liberal, which is diappointing since I'd like both sides of issues. Sachs, in particular, has glaring inaccuracies in the last 3 issues. If the magazine is liberal biased, fine, I just wish they would be accurate. There has not been a good essay writer since James Burke. I try to skip over those now. Their essayists are not only inaccurate, but lousy writers and boring as well. I realize Burke is impossible to replace, but they could try a little harder! Scientific American is worth getting for overviews of science today, but keep in mind that the fact check level is about the same as tv news. Think of Scientific American as a stretched out tv news science section!
Rating: - Keeping abreast with our life on earth
For anyone who wishes to be more involved with our life on earth whether it be our planet and how it was formed or the health of our body Scientific American walks you down the paths of your interest with fascinating articles to captivate each of us.
- Sadly, once good, now a pawn of the liberal elite
- Used to love it, now I've become disappointed with it.
- Superb recap of important happenings
- Good overview, but facts not always accurate.