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This magazine is available for purchases at most stores with magazine racks where I live.

IMO it's a whole lot better than PopSci, but can't really stand up to peer-reviewed journals or specialist magazines like Sky & Telescope. I may be missing the whole point of the magazine's existence, though.

Jeremy wrote:This magazine is available for purchases at most stores with magazine racks where I live.

Scientific American is reliable in its reporting. More so than a publication like New Scientist, and significantly more so than rags like Popular Science. It is, however, quite . . . how shall I say this . . . dry in its tone and tends to go into a level of detail that makes it somewhat inaccessible to some laypersons.

I agree with GrandMasterTerwynn. I personally try to get my hands on imported copies of the magazine when I can find them (I'm not too keen on the translated version). It's a good read to increase your general knowledge of different scientific areas, of course it can't compete with specialised publications, but it's a good generalist publication.

I've always found SciAm a lot more interesting than most science magazines because it focuses on the science instead of fixating obsessively on the people doing the science. And the tone doesn't seem dry to me; I suppose your mileage may vary.

What about SciAm v New Scientist?

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:rags like Popular Science.

Popular Science is considered a rag?

Ryan Thunder wrote:

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:rags like Popular Science.

Popular Science is considered a rag?

Compared to Scientific American, or even Discover and New Scientist, yes. Anything you read in it should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, as Popular Science, as stated in another thread, can be summed up as sci-fi for people who don't read sci-fi.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:It is, however, quite . . . how shall I say this . . . dry in its tone and tends to go into a level of detail that makes it somewhat inaccessible to some laypersons.

If I could get into it at the age of nine, then I suspect most of the people here could get into it now.

Count Chocula wrote:IMO it's a whole lot better than PopSci, but can't really stand up to peer-reviewed journals or specialist magazines like Sky & Telescope. I may be missing the whole point of the magazine's existence, though.

Way back when it was first started it was actually about various inventions that were popping up. For a while they even operated a patent office, IIRC. That was well over a hundred years ago*, however. In the time that I've had a subscription it's actually gotten a little less technical, and there hasn't been an article about anything hands-on in a while now. Nowadays it's just a magazine about science, usually newer stuff. It is not, and never has been, a peer-reviewed journal.

*In my favorite monthly feature they show articles from 50, 100, and 150 years ago. It's been around for a while.

RRoan wrote:It is not, and never has been, a peer-reviewed journal.

That being said, the main articles are generally written by the researchers themselves (who are "real" scientists with peer-reviewed work). So it's a "popular science" magazine in the sense that it's not being peer-reviewed, but most of it is dumbed down only to the level of the reasonably-scientifically-literate citizen. Which is leaps and bounds ahead of something like New Scientist or the typical science story on CNN.

Scientific American often features articles written by professors themselves. It is way more credible than any other pop-sci magazine, and it's one step below the more reputable journals.

Just off to OT.

Ryan Thunder wrote:

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:rags like Popular Science.

Popular Science is considered a rag?

Have you seen the advertisments in the last few pages of the magazine?

[R_H] wrote:

Ryan Thunder wrote:

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:rags like Popular Science.

Popular Science is considered a rag?

Have you seen the advertisments in the last few pages of the magazine?

I never actually read them.

*reads*

Holy shit. XD