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Old 29 Apr 2005, 05:13 AM   #2
registered_user
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 164
I don't really read science specific magazines anymore. I've found that the "old guard" of science publications still tend to be mired in outdated ideas about technocratic social advancement. They still tend to believe that the future with a capital "F" will be determined by men in labcoats looking for the cure for cancer and not by kids in Shinjuku who find a way to use a bluetooth phone to steal candy from vending machines. Most science publications are still edited by people with this arrogantly technocratic philosophy. It just annoys me after a while (plus you can only read so many stories about the Mars probe before your eyes start to collapse into the back of your head).

I find myself reading more and more magazines that are only tangentially scientific. Things like Wired (not really that good anymore, but it's dirt cheap at $10 a year and there's at least one article a month worth reading) and Make (if you don't have this, go to a newstand RIGHT NOW and get the first issue before they're all gone).

I'm far more interested in the political aspects of scientific discovery these days than I am in the technical aspects. Architecture is politics. That was first really made obvious in the information sciences, but it's true in all fields of scientific study. There are philosophical and political beliefs at the heart of all scientific inquiry and that's really more what I'm interested in now so the traditional science mags just don't do it for me anymore.

That and magazines are too slow most of the time now. If I really want up to date cutting edge science news, that's what the web is for.

<edit>grammar

Last edited by registered_user : 29 Apr 2005 at 05:45 AM.
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