The Death of the Science Journal
To continue the theme of the ideological subversion of science, as coveredhere,here, andhere, I thought it would be worthwhile to focus upon the role played by those science journals that have traditionally. . .
To continue the theme of the ideological subversion of science, as coveredhere,here, andhere, I thought it would be worthwhile to focus upon the role played by those science journals that have traditionally showcased the finest that science has to offer. In particular, I shall be highlighting the disturbing ideological capture that has caused publications such asNature,Scientific AmericanandSciencemagazine to turn their backs upon the imperatives of objective factuality in favour of the pursuit of notions of social justice. This is a matter of grave importance, since these periodicals are gate keepers ensuring that scientific standards are maintained. In addition, they provide the means by which scientists may publicise their work, thereby furthering their careers. Ideological subversion of such publications not only reflects poorly upon the collective integrity of the scientific community but also provides a framework for the deepening of the malaise. It produces a science that is less interested in the pursuit of the truth so much as the entrenchment of approved narratives. So let us take a moment to see how these once respected and trustworthy publications have fallen from grace. NatureDecline is, by definition, a process rather than an event. However, if a single event can be identified as the defining watershed for the decline of theNatureportfolio of journals, it has to be the publication in 2022 of its “ethics guidance” for proposed submissions. The guidancewas intended to prevent the publication of articles that do “harm”, whilst simultaneously boosting the cause of scientific excellence. For these purposes, the guidance states:Regardless of content type (research, review or opinion) and, for research, regardless of whether a research project was reviewed and approved by an appropriate institutional ethics committee, editors reserve the right to request modifications (or correct or otherwise amend post-publication) , and in severe cases refuse publication of (or retract post-publication):…content that undermines – or could reasonably be perceived to undermine – the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of socially constructed or socially relevant human groupings. Thus, under such vagary, the editors established for themselves the right to censor or refuse the publication of any scientific findings that they felt undermined the cause of social justice. It is a guidance that cutsNaturefree from the obligation to always respect scientific facts, and substitutes instead the prerogative to manufacture alternative truths based upon ideologies favoured by the editorial board. The implications of these new guidelines did not go unnoticed. Professor Anna Krylov is a distinguished chemist at the University of Southern California who grew up in the Soviet Union. Recognising the obvious parallels with Soviet era hegemony, she responded by publishing a widely circulatedopen letterin which she declared that she would no longer peer-review or engage with the Nature Publishing Group, citing that the direction the editorial board had taken meant that “papers published in Nature journals can no longer be regarded as rigorous science”. The letter quickly drew the attention of prominent scientists, in particular Professor Richard Dawkins, who publicly supported Krylov on social media. Of particular concern was the Nature Portfolio’s professed intention to introduce so-called “citation justice”. On 26 October 2025he postedthat:Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journal. Now it’s one of many accused of favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science. I am unaware of any bibliometric studies that provide hard evidence for such a trend having developed, nor is there definitive evidence available to confirm whether the guidelines have resulted in a shift in focus of theNatureportfolio. But that doesn’t mean that observers have not discerned such a shift. Critics havepointed outthat main editorials, comment sections, and opinion pieces have increasingly focused on themes like citation justice, anti-racism in STEM, and inclusion monitoring. The editors do not dispute such allegations, but rather state that this is actually a good thing. The hard sciences are not being usurped, they maintain. Instead, the range of scientific interest is being expanded, which is a good thing for science, isn’t it? Well, maybe, but only when the expansion is not marshalled along ideological lines, as it most certainly seems to be. A major problem that accompanies editorial indulgence is the extent to which it encourages self-censorship amongst those wishing to be published. Astark exposéof the problem of a curated narrative and the self-censorship problem that ensues was offered recently by the climate scientist Patrick Brown when he related his own experience in submitting papers on wildfire research:I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell…When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula I outlined here, my papers were promptly rejected out of hand by the editors of high-profile journals without even going to peer review. The backlash was extensive and extreme. Suffice to say, Brown’s accusations were rebutted with counter-accusations that he was a scientist of very little brain and even less integrity. In the words of Dr Magdalena Skipper, editor ofNature:The only thing in Patrick Brown’s statements about the editorial processes in scholarly journals that we agree on is that science should not work through the efforts by which he published this[study]. We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions; certainly, they reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal. But the bottom line is this: When it comes to wildfire research, if there is no curating of a narrative that favours studies that quantify climatic impacts against those that quantify instead the non-climatic, why then hasNaturepublished an abundance of the former but I have yet to find a single example of the later? I don’t know what I find the more telling – the demonstrably objective validation of Brown’s accusation, orNature’s desperate attempts to deny it, together with an eagerness to cancel him for his sins. Interestingly, Skipper sought to have the final word:When it comes to science,Naturedoes not have a preferred narrative. Oh, but it does Magdelana, and if you had been taking notice of its ethics guidelines, you would know that. Scientific AmericanFounded in 1845,Scientific Americanis the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U. S. Over 200 Nobel Prize winners have contributed articles, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, and Stephen Hawking; so it isn’t short of historical prestige. Journal Storage (JSTOR)tells youthat it “is the authority on science and technology for a general audience”. However, following a recent shift towards social and political commentary, the gloss has been more than removed from its shiny reputation for scientific objectivity. Although not a peer-reviewed journal,Scientific Americanstill carries considerable clout. This, no doubt, was well-understood by its editors when they decided to formerly endorse Joe Biden’s campaign for presidency in 2020, followed by that of Kamala Harris in 2024. This overt support for the Democratic Party broke with a 175-year tradition of political impartiality. In explaining its motives,Scientific Americanpointed towards Donald Trump’s Covid scepticism, his opposition to climate change advocacy and his proposed cuts to federal scientific agencies. This was an all-out war with a politician who was determined to redress a perceived left-wing liberal woke domination of the scientific community. Whether advocating for the Democratic Party had any effect (other than eroding public trust in the objectivity of scientists) is a moot point. It certainly didn’t do the reputation of the Editor-in-Chief, Laura Helmuth, any good when she posted anexpletive-laden tiradeon social media following Trump’s victory, in which she branded Trump’s followers as ‘fascists’ and ‘bigoted’. And the journal’s reputation certainly hasn’t been enhanced in light of its deliberate pivoting towards the advocacy of critical social justice (CSJ) as a legitimate subject for scientific reporting. In particular, its obituary of E. O. Wilson went down like a lead balloon, as it clearly demonstrated just how much the publication’s understanding of science had become distorted by CSJ framing. Edward O. Wilson was a legendary Harvard biologist and conservationist who’s reputation was beyond reproach – that was untilScientific Americandeclared its views. In anop-edtitled ‘The Complicated Legacy of E. O. Wilson’, written by Dr Monica R. McLemore, Wilson was portrayed as a racist and sexist. Why so? Apparently, it was because of his promotion of sociobiology. In the words of the op-ed:His textSociobiology: The New Synthesiscontributed to the false dichotomy of nature versus nurture and spawned an entire field of behavioral psychology grounded in the notion that differences among humans could be explained by genetics, inheritance and other biological mechanisms. The author labelled these as ‘problematic beliefs’ and professed her profound disappointment. But this was nothing compared to the disappointment of those whocondemnedher facile dismissal of a body of science that is viewed with suspicion only by those who see the world through the CSJ lens. The McLemore op-ed was not just a one-off, although it was singularly ill-informed and ideologically tainted. Rather, it represented the depths to which a once prestigious magazine had sunk. A publication previously well-known for an objective portrayal of the hard sciences is now little more than a vehicle for the espousal of trendy (and quite frankly anti-science) views that disqualify it as an “authority on science and technology for a general audience”. All of this serves to explain whyScientific Americanso often explicitly portrays climate change through the lenses of social justice, racial equity, and environmental fairness. Indeed, it has aspecific sectiondedicated to social justice, in which one finds articles such as ‘Discrimination Has Trapped People of Color in Unhealthy Urban Heat Islands’, ‘The Father of Environmental Justice Reflects on the Movement He Started’, ‘How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action’ and ‘New IPCC Report Looks at Neglected Element of Climate Action: People’. Gone are the days when one could enjoy a good old-fashioned, politics-free deep-dive into the science. Scientific Americansupports the Democratic Party partly because it objects to Trump’s cuts to funding of federal scientific agencies. However, Trump is motivated by a perception of a woke, leftwing liberal domination of the structures of science. So, if anything,Scientific American’s woke infection helps make Trump’s case for him. ScienceScienceis published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is generally considered to beNature’s main competitor, completing the triumvirate alongsideScientific American. Fittingly, when it comes to matters of ideological capture, it is a case of anything you can do we can do better. For example, following the 2024 U. S. presidential election,ScienceEditor-in-Chief Holden ThorpaccusedTrump of a “willingness to tap into xenophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, nationalism, and disregard for truth. “. That’s 76. 9 million people denigrated from a platform of leftwing social ideology masquerading as science advocacy. If anything,Scienceis even more blatant thanNaturein its promotion of the idea of the scientific activist. In March 2024,Sciencepublished anarticledefending the right of scientists to issue public statements to “shape society”. Critics who argued that the greater obligation had to be to serve as a neutral arbiter of facts were brushed aside. Instead, arguedScience, journals and scientific organisations had an obligation to step in and issue specific definitions on matters such as racism and gender. In the case of the latter,Sciencewas quite unequivocal. Anarticletitled ‘The variable nature of sex’ endorsed an anthropologist’s concerns regarding the “problematizing definitions of sex”that emphasised its binary nature at the expense of the continuum of sexual expression. One certainly cannot accuseScienceof sitting on the fence when it comes to matters of critical social justice. Indeed, there can be no greater advocate of so-called ‘affirmative action’ thanScience. When in 2023 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled against affirmative recruitment policies in higher education, the editorial board ofSciencecondemned the decision. Furthermore,Sciencehas routinely defended the use of mandatory DEI statements in academic hiring. For example, in a 2024articletitled ‘Strengthen the case for DEI’, Shirley Malcom, director of the STEM Equity Achievement (SEA) Change initiative at the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote:DEI in STEMM is an element of its excellence. It encompasses issues beyond race and ethnicity, including those of gender, disability, and other aspects of identity that have historically been used to constrict opportunities. STEMM should ideally benefit all of society. However, this will not happen until the country creates a STEMM community as diverse as the population it should serve. Having a STEMM community as diverse as the population it serves is a political objective. The scientific objective would be to have a STEMM community that is as scientifically competent as the population allows. As forSciencejournal’s editorial position regarding climate change scepticism, this is exemplified in anarticletitled ‘The challenge of climate-change neoskepticism’, in which the continued existence of sceptcism is dismissed as a pathology resulting from motivated reasoning and a failure to understand how decision-making works under uncertainty. One always has to wonder how partisan a publication has to become in order for it to consider any reluctance to uncritically accept its own position as a ‘challenge’ rather than a cause for reflection. SummaryAlthough I have restricted this discussion to just three prominent scientific publications, the problem of ideological capture is far more extensive. Had I the time and inclination, I could have broadened the critique to include several other publications that have attracted similar criticism. These includeThe Lancet,The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and various flagship journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA). They are all at it, eschewing useful inquiry in preference for critical social justice guff that has no place in a world of objective, politics-free scientific epistemology. This is not only symptomatic of the way that the scientific community has drifted to the left over recent years, it is also providing the wind of change that contributes to such drift. For a climate sceptic, this phenomenon is of interest, not just because it has helped promote anti-scientific ideas regarding sex and race, and not just because it fuels and condones anti-meritocratic policies for recruitment and promotion. The more fundamental significance lies in the fact that none of this would be possible without an underlying assumption that the consensus view must be the correct one and that all possible measures must be taken to suppress alternative narratives. Critical social justice, with its concept of ‘progressive’ science, has taken hold because such capture will always be possible within a consensus-seeking community that enthusiastically condemns any dissent — even a community that purports to operate in accordance with the precepts of the scientific method. If the possibilities and dangers of ideological capture do not resonate with Cliscep’s readership, then I don’t know what I can offer that would.