A Plea to Save New Scientist
Posted by John Baez
The SF writer Greg Egan has issued the following public plea to save the magazine New Scientist. Please take a look, and consider sending them an email.
Greg Egan writes:
New Scientist is a British-based publication where many thousands of
lay people get their information on scientific matters, and (IMHO) it
does an excellent job about 70% of the time. But the combination of a
sensationalist bent and a lack of basic knowledge by its writers (most
obviously in physics) is rendering it unreliable often enough to
constitute a real threat to the public understanding of science.
There are many areas in cosmology, fundamental physics and so on where
there are controversies over issues that are hotly contested by
various competent, highly educated and respected scientists, and I
have no quarrel with New Scientist publishing views on various sides
of these debates, even when those from the opposing camp would
consider the claims to be nonsense.
However, I really was gobsmacked by the level of scientific illiteracy
in the article “Fly by Light” in the 9 September 2006 issue,
concerning the supposed “electromagnetic drive” of Roger Shawyer. If
Shawyer’s claims have been accurately reported, they violate
conservation of momentum. This is not a contested matter; in its
modern, relativistic form it is accepted by every educated physicist
on the planet. The writer of this article, Justin Mullins, seems
aware that conservation of momentum is violated, but then churns out a
lot of meaningless double-talk about “reference frames” which he seems
to think demonstrates that relativity somehow comes to the rescue:
Hang on a minute, though. If the cavity is to move, it must be pushed by
something. A rocket engine, for example, is propelled by hot exhaust
gases pushing on the rear of the rocket. How can photons confined inside
a cavity make the cavity move? This is where relativity and the strange
nature of light come in. Since the microwave photons in the waveguide are
travelling close to the speed of light, any attempt to resolve the forces
they generate must take account of Einstein’s special theory of
relativity. This says that the microwaves move in their own frame of
reference. In other words they move independently of the cavity - as if
they are outside it. As a result, the microwaves themselves exert a push
on the cavity.
Each photon that a magnetron fires into the cavity creates an equal and
opposite reaction - like the recoil force on a gun as it fires a bullet.
With Shawyer’s design, however, this force is minuscule compared with the
forces generated in the resonant cavity, because the photons reflect back
and forth up to 50,000 times. With each reflection, a reaction occurs
between the cavity and the photon, each operating in its own frame of
reference. This generates a tiny force, which for a powerful microwave
beam confined in the cavity adds up to produce a perceptible thrust on
the cavity itself.
Mullins quotes one engineer who says Shawyer’s claims are “a load of
bloody rubbish”, but that’s really not good enough, when the rest of
the article is full of apparent endorsements from various authorities.
If Mullins had tried, I’m sure he could have found someone to explain
to him exactly why, however clever Shawyer’s design might be, the
only possible source of net thrust for this device would be the
release of the microwaves in a unidirectional beam, and that the
ceiling on the thrust imposed by relativity is P/c (where P is power),
or 3.33 microNewtons per kilowatt. As the article stands, it leaves
readers with the impression that while one engineer has raised some
unspecified quibbles, it’s quite likely that Shawyer is correct.
I wrote a letter to the magazine politely pointing out the relevant
physics, but even in the event that this letter, or similar comments
from other physics-literate readers are published, the underlying
problem seems to be the editorial culture at the magazine that allows
this kind of article to appear in the first place. Maybe it’s
unrealistic to demand that every science writer who covers a physics
story have a physics degree, but surely there’s some level of quality
control that can be introduced, to ensure that claims that flatly
contradict established and uncontroversial physical principles are
either clearly flagged to the magazine’s readers as such, or (in cases
of perpetual motion machines, magic anti-gravity devices, etc.) just
not published at all.
So, this message is a plea to everyone who cares about the public
understanding of science. New Scientist has a very large readership,
and its reports are often quoted in the mainstream press as if they
carried the same authority as a peer-reviewed journal. I know that
some people think New Scientist is just a tabloid joke that should be
written off as beyond redemption, but I don’t share that view; I don’t
believe its mistakes come from bad faith or cynicism, but the editor
and publisher really need to get the message, both from the
physics-literate portion of their readership and the academic physics
community, that they need to raise their standards or risk squandering
the opportunity that the magazine’s circulation and prestige provides.
If any of these issues matter to you, please read the article and –
if it worries you even half as much as it worried me – please write
to the magazine and let them know. Unfortunately, only the
beginning of the article is freely available online.
Greg Egan
Posted at September 19, 2006 2:51 AM UTC
TrackBack URL for this Entry: http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/dxy-tb.fcgi/938
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
The sad decline of New Scientist is part of the growing problem: commercial publishers neglect the needs of the communities (including academic communities) they purportedly serve.
New Scientist appears to be published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc, a FTSE 100-listed company.
Recently the entire editorial staff of the journal Topology has resigned to protest the high prices imposed by the publisher, Elsevier, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier. Read their resignation letter here. See an online article by John Baez, “What We Can Do About Science Journals” here.
It is worth mentioning that Reed Elsevier is allegedly involved in organising international arms fairs. More information and a petition here.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
This comes at an oddly opportune time, since I have just seen several debates “behind the scenes” at the good ol’ Wikipedia about whether or not coverage in New Scientist makes a topic “notable”. (See, e.g., the EmDrive debate here.) I’m glad that people have noticed the problem.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I’ve written exactly one article for NEW SCIENTIST (on computer models for arches, not even remotely controversial or fringe-y), with another pending, so my experience with them is limited. But I also subscribe to the magazine, and have admittedly felt the odd twinge of discomfort with how certain topics were presented, played up, or in Egan’s words, “sensationalized.” So I understand why physicists (and no doubt other scientists) are concerned.
However, I’m disturbed by Egan’s comment about wishing one could require every science writer who writes about physics to have a degree in physics. This is absurd – does his publisher require all their novelists to have degrees in English or creative writing? Trust me, there are plenty of respected science writers, covering physics, without bona fide degrees in the subject, who understand quite well the problems with the “electromagnetic drive,” and would have treated the topic quite differently than the piece that was eventually published. (And yes, I am one of them.) Having a physics degree is not a guarantee against foolishness or gullibility.
I think Egan misunderstands the nature of the problem. The sensationalism he talks about arises from a broad editorial policy, not from any single writer, which is ultimately the responsibility of the publisher. It’s not just NEW SCIENTIST that is feeling the pressure to pump up the volume, so to speak, to grab their readers’ attention. Many popular science magazines have also been struggling to find a workable balance between the two.
The editors at the magazine, to the best of my knowledge, DO have degrees in the fields for which they are responsible… usually advanced degrees. So I think the letter-writing campaign is an excellent idea, in that editors are the gatekeepers, the ones who carry out editorial policies. I’d warrant they care about the concerns of the physics community. Hopefully they will take Egan’s suggestions to heart and take steps at better “quality control.”
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
New Scientist is a threat as much for its support of nonsense as for what it rejects.
Specifically, it makes the claim that by publishing wacky material it is not pro-orthodoxy, but that is untrue.
Heinz Lipshult was the subject of a New Scientist article about his concrete submarine invention - see http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/deep-sea/mg1732 - only a year after he died.
He had spent about 20 years sending submissions to New Scientist, and being rejected by the magazine. See for example the articles in newspapers and journals like http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/11124.htm
.
So they waited until he was safely dead and buried a year, then published his invention! The article they published also claimed that because concrete has little tensile strength when stretched by decompression as the submarine rises, it will explode like an egg in a vacuum. In fact, Lipshult had overcome the problems with suitable innovations.
If they had published it while he was alive, it would have brought a refutation from him. So they waited until he was dead. Diabolical.
Electronics eccentric Catt, who worked out computer crosstalk in 1967 and had one New Scientist article published in 1969, found himself censored out later and writes sarcastically:
“Old Scientist has always been careful to be a decade too late to influence events.” - http://www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/x6kncool.htm.
All that New Scientist does is to publish speculative claptrap which is easy to write about and reject stuff which is EXPERIMENTALLY TESTED (Lipshultz fuly tested his model submarine and Catt tested his crosstalk theory by making a 20 million wafer scale chip in 1988 which won two major awards).
New Scientist also has Rob Edwards as a consultant who writes stuff endlessly claiming that radioactive waste with low specific activity is likely to exterminate everyone. They haven’t heard that protein P53 repairs most damage from low level radiation and that the reason there is little evidence of low level radiation risks in humans is that, unlike mice which have less sophisticated DNA repair mechanisms - people are less vulnerable. When the statistical correlation is weak, the danger if any is minimal. Rob Edwards and his editors at New Scientist simply can’t grow up from 1960s low level radiation hysteria.
Finally, the editor of New Scientist - Jeremy Webb (an electronics graduate and former BBC sound engineer) - gave an interview with The Hindu where he got his photo published and claimed:
“Scientists have a duty to tell the public what they are doing… ” - http://www.hindu.com/seta/2004/12/16/stories/2004121600111500.htm.
However, when I emailed him from University of Gloucestershire in 2002 about an article on computer crosstalk, he replied by asking “out of personal interest” what my association with one of the people in the article was. When I replied “scientific” he just didn’t respond. So much for the value of science.
Another time, the previous editor (who is now a consultant or similar to the magazine), Dr Alun M. Anderson, claimed he would consider an article if the material had been published in peer-reviewed journals. It had! He then went pleaded the Fifth Amendment, the right to silence.
If they made more effort to research and check proper articles, I’m sure A-level physics would not have plummeted so much in the UK:
“Physics has declined in popularity among pupils at school and students at university, research suggests.
“A-level entries have fallen from 55,728 in 1982 to 28,119 in 2005, according to researchers at Buckingham University.” - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4782969.stm.
“New Scientist” is killing Wikipedia with this crap
As one commenter above mentions, New Scientist is greatly inconveniencing the physics editors at Wikipedia. Anything that they publish is automatically verifiable, but if they don’t put in reasonable criticism then even a basically sensible analysis (like “conservation of momentum holds in all modern physics—quantum or not, relativistic or not—so these claims are nonsensical”) runs the risk of being branded original research (in the Wikipedia policy sense). So far, the article on EmDrive is being kept under control, but New Scientist is making our lives hard.
The problem is that Wikipedia policy assumes that reliable sources are, well, reliable. New Scientist, lately, is not.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
This comes as no surprise. New Scientist’s penchant for sensationalism causes it to publish the results of climate models (and the scarier the scenario the better) as if the results of any of them were equivalent to a scientific fact.
They then censor any reply which points out the ludicrousness of the result.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I don’t know about the “scary climate models” but for some of the other articles…
I have to agree with the jaundiced outlook. Seen positively, the ‘space drive’ article got me thinking about what was wrong with the idea, like won’t the microwaves just reflect off the slanted walls of the tube, resulting in a net 0 force? Doesn’t this need absolute space to work? And don’t forget that the article claims this to be an environmentaly friendly device, too. So how are you going to power it if not with a turbine? And yes, no error bars.
An episode comes to mind where someone claimed that feeding random numbers generated by quantum processes into a computing machine would open up the road to ‘hypercomputation’ (more powerful than a Turing machine). My letter in response to that thing seems to have been discarded mercilessly.
Will ‘New Scientist’ be mentioned in its own ‘Feedback’ section? (For those uninformed, the ‘Feedback’ section may have some sarcastic comments about weirdnesses like ‘blood purification through homeopathic quantum resonance using crystallic forces’)
Let’s get the NS from the 80s baaack!
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
As someone with a background in biology, I have to say, their coverage in this area, at least, is generally excellent. I also know of no other, more-comprehensive source of Science News that is printed as often (50 times / year). I’d always chalked up the wacko physics in the mag to the need to move issues on newsstands (it is even available on newsstands? certainly not here in the U.S…)
So, I dunno, fire the physics editors or whatever, but the rest of the mag is great. As an editor at a competing publication (Seed) I have to say that in general I admire their work. Of course, we occasionally get things wrong as well… hopefully not *this* wrong, though.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Hi, I keep getting fooled into buying New Scientist, thinking there is a great article to read (probably because of the glossy pictures, and the great first few words); only to be disappointed by what is in there.
Am no scientist and have absolutely no idea what you lot talk about on this blog, but I do know one thing for certain, New Scientist would be better of called “The Black Hole” because they only contain half a story as well!
Qubit
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I bought that issue of New Scientist looking for something quick to read, and after I had glanced at the article on Shawyer and thought I just didn’t understand what it was saying. After reading the article over lunch, I was just appalled, got a copy of the emdrive paper, and it’s such a sloppy, crazy mess! (I’m a bored, barely employed former physics student, and relished getting to play with some of physics:/) It shouldn’t take a physics degree to realize how fishy Shawyer’s claims are, and then perhaps ask someone with the credentials to review his work. And that anyone with some experience could think Shawyer is on to something, and even offer him money, …hmm, maybe I should try to defraud the British Gov’t with some physicsy mumbo-jumbo?
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
If I may add a little perspective here:
New Scientist has been publishing occasional crackpot articles as long as I have been reading it (20 years and counting). It has always been thus, and it has nothing to do with declining science literacy or rising demands for sensationalism. The editors there consider publishing such tripe part of their mandate–both to entertain their readers with news of the weird, and to tweak the stuffy, mainstream science boffins.
So let’s be clear about the problem here. It is not a matter of a magazine losing its way; it is a matter of a magazine *finding* its way into more mainstream acceptance because of the connectivity of the Web and the information-aggregation powers of the Wiki world. Consider this an annoying downside of what is, overall, a very good thing.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Since when has NS ever been about anything other than the purely bogus?
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Okay,
If Mullins had tried, I’m sure he could have found someone to explain to him exactly why, however clever Shawyer’s design might be, the only possible source of net thrust for this device would be the release of the microwaves in a unidirectional beam, and that the ceiling on the thrust imposed by relativity is P/c (where P is power), or 3.33 microNewtons per kilowatt.
One thing that throws me off on this entire ‘conservation of momentum’ angle is that Shaywer states that if the ‘engine’ actually moves, the thrust drops off rapidly.
To me this seems rather akin to a magnetic field, except that ferrous material and magnetic forces aren’t directly involved.
You can place the matching poles of two magnets on top of each other, and if properly constrained, they will stay a certain distance apart. If you pull the top one further away, it will drop back down into it’s previous position because the force became insufficient as it moved away.
So what if that’s the case with Shawyer’s device? It creates a repulsive force that dissappears if the engine is moved , akin to magnets.
If the device is actually used as accellerator, it may well conform to the 3.33 microNewtons per kilowatt Egan listed as a limit.
Try to be kind, please, as I hold merely a BS in Mechanical Engineering, not physics.
(This thread was linked to from Slashdot)
Read the post
Save New Scientist!
Weblog: Ambient Irony
Excerpt: Back in the 80s, through to the mid-90s, I bought New Scientist every single week, and read it from cover to cover. And then... Well, let's just say that I didn't leave New Scientist, New Scientist left me. The economic...
Tracked: September 23, 2006 1:58 AM
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
In the end, the article that outlines the EMDrive is nothing but a hope for the optimistic outlook on how perceived ideas on the nature of mechanics and physics that have sat around collecting dust are now being used for a perceived benefit. A lot of people here seem to miss the context and the perspective by which this article was written. While the author of this plea, Mr. Baez, is factually correct about the Conservation of Momentum, even he makes the admitted notion that New Scientist is of a benefit of explaining the abstractions of science into laymans or near laymans terms.
Now, I would postulate to a lot of you here that, this really should be the goal of New Scientist overall. Okay, so one article seems to not have the staying power that would be rooted in scientific fact and might be crossing the line into science fiction, but another thing that is neglected here, is that this article was written by someone who is presenting a rather complicated piece of physics to the average person who is trying to understand the nature of what is really happening in this device. Taking the abstract and congealing it into a savory story of something that many people would think that is fantastic in nature.
It is up to the writer, not the interviewee to present, question, and compile this article to us the readers. It is up to us to discuss whether this article based on the science of channeled microwave energy is viable or not. However if the writer has a hard time conveying the message to us the readers, then is it the fault of the person he interviewed?
I have been told that I would see a flying car by the year 2000, that my work day would be reduced to single digit hours due to new technology, that our lifespans would exceed 100 years through new discoveries of medicines. All futuristically optimistic, but woefully underrealized. I still don’t have my flying car and even if I did, it would cost me a fortune and scar the general populace for fear of a regular ‘driver’ like we are now would forget to put gas in it and have it crash in someones neighborhood. I still work 40 hours or more in a week and thanks to new technology, my work day is crammed with more do because of it rather then being eliminated because of it. With more computing power means that I can now do more within an 8 hour day than ever before, leveraging my manangements position to keep me at my desk or on my assignment for longer periods of time.
How about medicine? The average american lifespan for a male is 76 - 78 years old and the average american women has a lifespan of 80 or so, last I recall. Cancer still isn’t cured, most diseases have better treatments, but no cure. I’m inundated with drug commercials for erectile dysfunction, irritable bowel syndrome, restless leg syndrome, dry eye syndrome. So far the only thing I know that has a cure is vaginal yeast infections and athlete’s foot fungus. Yeah, that’s progress.
So please stop worrying about one guys possible crack-pot idea of generating thrust via the EM spectrum. If he succeeds, then buy him a beer for making your life better, if he fails, he most likely will be laughed out of town as a mad magician of photonic fraudulency.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I have reviewed around ten papers for Science and Nature and I have to say that those supposedly reputable journals have issues as well.
On several occasions I have recommended rejection as the manuscripts were simply superficial sensationalism with paper-thin scientific support.
Unfortunately the editors chose to ignore my recommendation. Why? I have puzzled over this and believe it is because
1) The authors have a large reputation based on earlier (much better) papers.
2) The topic of the papers was “saleable” to the broad science community.
Due to this I will never submit to these journals as I no longer regard them as serious or properly peer reviewed.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I considered “New Scientist” long dead, even before I was an undergrad (more than 20 years ago). I cancelled my subscription when I realised that the articles in the fields I understood something about were complete rubbish, then I postulated that I should consider almost all the other articles similarly. I am not surprised to see my opinion re-enforced. Stick to “Scientific American” and “Nature” - I don’t read them often, but when I do, they seem to maintain good standards.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
New Scientist has always seemed part sci-fi… if everything they’ve asserted over the years had turned out to be true, it’d be a very funny world.
My respect for the magazine dropped considerably when I read a rare article that fell into my area of expertise: computer software. The author seemed to think that Java and Javascript were the same language… a mistake roughly equivalent in the “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about” stakes as to brushing aside conservation of momentum.
Since then I’ve been aware that the articles I’m not in a position to judge may be of the same standard. Ho hum. Still, it was on the whole great reading material for a kid interested in science.
I sent this complaint to the editor
Hi,
I’ve had the same concern at the falling standards of NS. I objected via their website to their editor, see below:
Sir,
I’m concerned about the quality of reporting in your magazine. I’m an MSc physics graduate and have worked as a computer programmer for 20 years.
My expertise is such that, with the exception of articles written by genuine experts, such as Ian Stewart, and Lee Smolin, whenever I encounter an article on subjects of physics or computing, I cringe at the errors and low quality of the reporting.
This is quite exasperating, as it misinforms the public, and, worse, it probably misinforms me on subjects I’m too ignorant about to recognise your errors and bias, such as genetics. I am considering cancelling my subscription after many years. Please hire people to write for you that know what they’re talking about.
Scientific American has much more reliable reporting, imho.
With regards to the above letter, I should remark I have no connection with Scientific American.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Hi Mr. Greg Egan,
while I in general agree with your movement I don’t understand in this case why you think: (quote) “If Shawyer’s claims have been accurately reported, they violate conservation of momentum.”
In my eyes it’s no difference whether you:
a) use a solar sail
b) beam a laser beam at the end of a rocket
c) attach a laser beam as thruster at the end of a rocket
d) simply attach a flash light at the end of a rocket
e) use an annihilation reaction to drive a rocket by a “photon drive”
f) use micro waves
All those drives would work, and also would the microwave drive of Roger Shawyer. Only the article is complete crap, like “microwaves moving close to the speed of light”.
I fail to see any violation of a conservation law here.
Regards,
Angelo
3.33 microNewtons per kilowatt?
“the only possible source of net thrust for this device would be the release of the microwaves in a unidirectional beam, and that the ceiling on the thrust imposed by relativity is P/c (where P is power), or 3.33 microNewtons per kilowatt. “
I recommend against saying things like this. If they produce an experimental apparatus that shows a greater thrust, you’ve just admitted you don’t understand the drive and undermined your position.
There are many possible sources of thrust from a device such as this. There may be a magnetic interaction with nearby objects or the Earth’s field from the electical system. A cooling fan might blow exhaust. Leaked microwaves may resonate between the drive and an exterior object, pushing them apart with a force much greater than the simply emitting the photons once. By conduction or microwave heating, the drive might cause thermal expansion of air resulting in a directional thrust, or part of the container may be vaporized so that the drive becomes a rocket.
Complete microwave leak is only one of the many possible accidental sources of thrust, and doesn’t really deserve special mention.
I think we can all agree that any thrust this drive generates will be from a cause other than that specified by its designer, and will be impractically small and inefficient. But for the sake of anyone who can’t come to that conclusion on their own, I think we should focus on the many possible sources of experimental error, and be careful not to accidentally imply that there is only one.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Hello there! I find it interesting that Elsevier owns New Scientist. I have been thinking that a free market model doesn’t work in science because in a free market, PR, networking and existing cash can get you a deal. Whereas in science, one might have good PR, networking and cash but no skills or understanding of fundamental principles.
Despite the prettiness of the package, it is our responsibility as scientists to stop these nasty trends. For that reason, I applaud you for writing this article.
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
I was going to send this to Greg but I cannot find an email address at his site, so I will post it here. I am yet to read through the comments, so sorry if there is overlap.
——————————–
I thought the whole basis of this electromagnetic drive was the transfer of energy from one form in the photon to another form in the cavity. As such, most of what you have said is not really to do with this. Firing microwaves out the back just misses the point, microwaves do not need to be released, but it is about shedding their energy and transferring it to force on the chambers wall.
I agree that, in the last 5 years, in particular, New Scientist has been slipping from the standard some of us prefer, and that articles need to be more objective and clearly show credible positions for and against. I think this is important because it reveals flaws and anomalies in logic that come out. This may reveal who is wrong at least, but to prove somebody right might be subject to much experimentation. I even prefer the less sensationalist structure New Scientist had in the late 80’s.
I also agree that writers should be well versed in the subject they write about, i.e, even accredited like you suggest. It needs to be much more than that though, because I have come across so many scientist displaying errant logic, that it is incredible. So, such reporters need to be, very logical, objective, fair, even handed, truthful and talented, not just think they are.
About your objection to the types of articles they publish. It is not about protecting a preferred belief in a certain structure of science, it is about establishing new science, and finding the real boundaries of science. When we come up with a true unified theory, then we can start pretending we might know exactly where the boundary is. I have found far to much politics in science (and everybody being required to conform to a view that has not been entirely proved, is a prime example) to take science, or it laws, credibly on face value because somebody believes in them.
Politicised scientists (speaking in relation to people that treat the support of proffered ideas, in science, like politics) while they may claim to be the most objective, are the bane of objectivity. Though they stagnant science, they are true crackpots, with the pot being science itself. The conduct of science itself needs to be restructured.
This plea can do more harm than good, it might be best to rewrite, or withdraw, it.
Thank you
Wayne Morellini
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Is it too late to support the criticism of NS about the Shawyer article? I have been reading NS for a long time, but this was the whackiest article I can remember. It does suggest a worrying slide in editiorial standards (if not a total absence of these).
Nobody seems to have commented on this, but in that same issue there was even yet another dodgy item, which in its way I suggest is more damaging.
It was an article by a political scientist about how we should stop worrying about the extinction of species, because the “weed” species would expand and fill the gaps.
He had the nerve to refer to species endangered by human recklessness as “relics” and “ghosts”, for all the world like some gauleiter of the new Aryan biological order determining which races are worth saving.
The article was in its way, more damaging than Shawyer’s, because some people will now accept that a “scientist” has shown that saving the Red List is pointless.
And what dozy editor accepted an article by a political “scientist” without checking with a real one whether or not it was nonsense?
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
The current issue of New Scientist (cover date 7 October, but now online) has a few letters on the Shawyer “emdrive” (including one from me which is a bit too charitable, because I had not yet read his “theory paper”), along with a response from Shawyer, who asserts that his work has been subject to
a long and detailed review process by industry and government experts
and does obey all conservation laws … among other reasons, because:
The equations used to calculate the guide wavelengths in the static thrust equation are very non-linear.
As responses to controversy go, this all seems reasonably fair; having opened up the can of worms in the first place, they could hardly deny Shawyer a right to reply. But I remain of the view that the magazine has still been irresponsible in elevating obvious nonsense to a level where it seems like a genuine dispute among scientists.
It’s unrealistic, of course, to expect them to make a public admission to that effect, but it’s never too late to let them know your views (via email or their website).
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
New Scientist now have a blog thread on the Shawyer article, which begins with a statement by the editor defending the article:
Editor’s note
It is a fair criticism that New Scientist did not make clear enough how controversial Roger Shawyer’s engine is. We should have made more explicit where it apparently contravenes the laws of nature and reported that several physicists declined to comment on the device because they thought it too contentious.
But should New Scientist should have covered this story at all? The answer is a resounding yes: it is, after all, an ideas magazine. That means writing about hypotheses as well as theories.
And let’s not forget that Shawyer has experimental data that has convinced peer reviewers that he is onto something. He believes he can explain his machine’s behaviour in terms of existing physical laws, which is what the theorists contest.
The great thing is that Shawyer’s ideas are testable. If he succeeds in getting his machine flown in space, we will know soon enough if it is ground-breaking device or a mere flight of fancy.
Jeremy Webb, Editor, New Scientist
Read the post
New Scientist Reacts!
Weblog: The n-Category Café
Excerpt: New Scientist now has a blog entry defending their article on Shawyer's electromagnetic drive.
Tracked: October 5, 2006 4:40 PM
Read the post
Topos Theory in the New Scientist
Weblog: The n-Category Café
Excerpt: Robert Matthews on Chris Isham's work on topos theory and physics.
Tracked: April 14, 2007 3:13 AM
Read the post
The Virtues of American Scientist
Weblog: The n-Category Café
Excerpt: While some science magazines have declined, the American Scientist is still great.
Tracked: September 24, 2007 8:22 PM
Read the post
When the first three things you read are wrong...
Weblog: Technogypsy
Excerpt: it's not a good thing. It's like reading "New Scientist"* except someone is trying to save them.Anyway, I read " The Golden Compass" when it first came out, and it is decent adventure story. I haven't seen the movie although I want to for the fighting...
Tracked: December 23, 2007 5:18 PM
Re: A Plea to Save “New Scientist”
The sad decline of New Scientist is part of the growing problem: commercial publishers neglect the needs of the communities (including academic communities) they purportedly serve.
New Scientist appears to be published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc, a FTSE 100-listed company.
Recently the entire editorial staff of the journal Topology has resigned to protest the high prices imposed by the publisher, Elsevier, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier. Read their resignation letter here. See an online article by John Baez, “What We Can Do About Science Journals” here.
It is worth mentioning that Reed Elsevier is allegedly involved in organising international arms fairs. More information and a petition here.