Talk:New Scientist

Editorial staff

This section is baffling. Over the years, hundreds of people have worked on New Scientist. Beyond a recently added passing reference to Jeremy Webb, the only one mentioned here is Roger Highfield, a recent recruit who is the latest in a line of six or seven, maybe more, editors, several of whom ran the magazine for a decade or more. Even there the entry is all about the books Highfield has written, not about his work at New Scientist. Shouldn't there be a biographical entry elsewhere linked from here?

Many people working in the media came out of the New Scientist stable: Lawrence McGinty (ITN), Tom Wilkie (The Independent for a time), Steve Connor (The Independent), Susan Watts (BBC) and many more.

Other notables include Fred Pearce, who has covered the environment in great detail over many years, and David Dickson, who went on to set up an important science development website, SciDevNet.

There is no historical context. The section on Australia ignores the founding editor, the late Ian Anderson. MK (talk) 16:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Have deleted the Editorial staff section, replaced with a mention of Highfield as editor. If he's notable, a linked article about him should be added. Maybe the section should be reinstated, but with mention of others (e.g., from above), and far less detail about Highfield. For reference, deleted text:

Editorial staff;

Roger Highfield, who joined the magazine as editor in 2009, read chemistry at Pembroke College, Oxford and holds a doctorate in physical chemistry. Highfield's thesis concerned the interaction of neutrons on soap bubbles. He was appointed to his current role in 2008, having previously been science editor of The Daily Telegraph. In the latter role, he won many awards for his science journalism, and authored or co-authored eight books, including the best-selling The Arrow of Time (1992) with Professor Peter Coveney, and The Private Lives of Albert Einstein with Paul Carter (1995), which prompted considerable controversy through its focus on the emerging documentary evidence of Einstein's private life, affairs and the fate of his first child, Liserl. Highfield was chairperson at Pestival Symposium in September 2009. The editor of the Sydney-based Australian edition is E. L. Young, herself the author of several books. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering

Pol098 (talk) 15:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Past editors

Can someone compile a list of past Editors? There are some great names there, such as Tom Margerison, Nigel Calder, Donald Gould, Bernard Dixon... Skeptic2 (talk) 18:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Following my own suggestion I have now added a list of past editors and their dates. Anyone who wants to check it can do so from back issues. I have removed mentions of individual past editors, no longer necessary.Skeptic2 (talk) 22:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Staff This section continues to baffle. It makes sense to bill the Editor in Chief and Editor, but what are we to make of the sentence "Simon Ings is an editor." Editor of what? And how about the other 30 or 40 people who are writers and/or editors?

Simon Ings is mentioned because there is a WP article on him. Tony Holkham (Talk) 15:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It needs context for that reference to make sense. Otherwise he appears to be someone special, rather than (probably) an occasional contributor. (It does not help that the "editor" tag is unexplained.) That other people on the staff do not have WP entries is a reflection on WP, not the staff of New Scientist. It is therefore not a criterion for giving someone a billing in this section. MK (talk) 16:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree the whole article is a bit of a mess (as is this talk page!) but I guess we can build on what we have and what we can reference. Reading New Scientist it seems to me that most writers are contributors rather than staff (they all have by-lines). Some are more well-known than others and most seem to be professionals in their own fields. Tony Holkham (Talk) 16:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

History of New Scientist

It is wrong to state "The original idea for New Scientist came from nuclear physicists..."

I need to read the original editorial again. MK (talk) 21:58, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know why New Scientist is so titled? I was wondering if it was ever titled, simply, Scientist and then changed after a revamp/relaunch. To what does the New refer? Rob 10:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Ironically, it's always been called New Scientist. 124.179.228.179 (talk) 09:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

That's not correct. After the 1971 merger with Science Journal, the journal was renamed to New Scientist and Science Journal, before reverting to New Scientist at the end of 1971. Paradoctor (talk) 12:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not ironical, British tradition. New Statesman, New Electronics, New Humanist, New Civil Engineer... Pol098 (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget its stablemate New Society. Skeptic2 (talk) 18:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Australian and American editions.

Are the Australian and US editions significantly different in contents (other than advertisements)? The main advantage of these two editions is that they are printed locally and and not affected by the time delay and cost of shipping. When there was no Australian edition, Australia got its NS several weeks late.

Tabletop 07:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The answer is not usually, but sometimes. There is sometimes different cover art to reflect different priorities in the US, for instance this one from 13 September 2008, during the US election: http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/covers/20080913.jpg vs http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/covers/20080913US.jpg The content is usually the same.

Australia edition used to have its own editorial team, and occasionally had different news, to cover more Australasia-centric issues, but I don't believe that happens at present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ns webmaster (talk • contribs) 11:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Bm gub

Bm gub is a sock puppet for editor Jeremy Webb who has deleted an article on Ivor Catt and replaced it with lies and insults. Jeremy Webb has also conducted a hate campaign which has been documented against Electronics World authors, inclusing abusive emails which have resulted in complains to hism publishers (although they have never issued any reply or apology). See [[1]]. Bm gub's claim that there are only "3 comments" of controversy is a falsehood: if you follow the links, there are numerous articles and comments. The deletion of numerous links to controversy by sock puppets is in contravention of Wikipedia rules and precedes the claim by Bm gub sock puppet. SEE ALSO THE IVOR CATT DISCUSSION PAGE FOR VANDALISM AND ABUSIVENESS BY BM GUB! Photocopier 13:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Well that's just your opinion if you've no evidence for it. In my opinion New Scientist changed radically at the beginning of the 1990s, for the worse. Coincidentally many women took over key jobs. The magazine dumbed down big-time. Sensationalism took over. 95.150.224.172 (talk) 18:05, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Your opinion on the 1990s changes are the same as mine. Until then it was sort of passable. I too noticed the ingress of women came at the same time as the dumbing down. The mag is just a kind of sensationalist rag, and has been for about 30 years. Wythy (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

New Scientist has been bad from the very start. One of the very first issues included an article about how one of their writers had gone to watch film of a supposed UFO. He came back convinced of its veracity. Later issues often carried articles about investigations of the paranormal. In the 70s and 80s, the magazine organised sloppy investigations of Uri Geller and Rupert Sheldrake. There are always a few gullible scientists who believe in crackpot theories but, to be of scientific value, the magazine should reflect the view of science; not that of individual scientists. Science, as a gestalt, rejects all loony theories: not out of closed-mindedness, but simply because there is no reproducible evidence.

Jeremy Webb breaking Wikipedia rules?

Some edits claiming to be made by Jeremy Webb are in contradiction of the Wikipedia rules and have removed cited references. Photocopier 13:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Photocopier, your accusation of sockpuppetry is utterly unfounded (see WP:ICA) You have no evidence other than the fact that you disagree with two of my edits, which commonly occurs for reasons other than sockpuppetry. Bm gub 17:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

How do you get away with your nonsense?Wythy (talk) 15:06, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

proposed merge

Proposing that article Jeremy Webb, editor, be merged here. Article is otherwise sub-sub-stub whose content was one or two bloggers writing about their disagreements with him. Bm gub 20:14, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Jeremy Webb completed, per one agreement and no objections on old page. I have left out the NN, POV "controversies" which used to make up that page; they consisted of links to one or two bloggers criticising NS editorial policy. This was totally inappropriate on a biography article; WP:BLP is explicit and firm on this point. I don't think they were notable enough or WP:RS enough for inclusion here either (per WP:UNDUE, WP:SPS) but I'll let other editors deal with it here. Bm gub 17:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

EMDRIVE?

The Emdrive part is fairly out of place. It is a particular critisism of the magazine. If the exact disagreement is allowed, then the page becomes a disinterested page. Meaning I would get to alter it legally. Public defamation must be factually placed in context and the place was out of place here. No factual account was written making it technical defamation.

To correct technical defamation the technical reason must be stated for the failed magazine coverage. --207.69.140.32 (talk) 23:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What's your name?Wythy (talk) 16:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Advertising content, irrelevant material

Large portions of this article read like advertising/promotional copy for NewScientist. Should {{advert}} be added to the whole thing? Much of the material in the article reads like self-promotion for the magazine and website, or even simply attempts to add keywords to affect search engine rankings for the terms. --Sylvank (talk) 03:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

About removing some external links

My opinion is that Space and Tech external links should be removed, because are pointing to the main magazine website, but different section of it. What others mean?
--User:Vanished user 8ij3r8jwefi 17:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Is it New Sci or old one....by looking at the following....???

• http://www.newscientist.com/contact/us

--222.64.212.180 (talk) 00:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=contact+address+site%3Awww.newscientist.com&btnG=Search&aq=o&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

• http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=office+location+contact+site%3Awww.newscientist.com&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

--222.64.212.180 (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

• http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=en&newwindow=1&q=headquarter+site%3Awww.newscientist.com&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

--222.64.212.180 (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Controvery response

Did the editors ever respond to people such as Meyers and Dawkins, who obviously didn't read the article on Darwin (or took the title too seriously)? Just curious because it might be a good add to the article. 64.234.0.101 (talk) 20:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The article alluded to above ("Darwin was wrong") in the magazine demonstrates its sensation-seeking, circulation-seeking, money grubbing attitude. 95.150.224.172 (talk) 18:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a good WP:Reliable source for that? If so, your information would make a fine addition to the article. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:22, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Whether he can find good sources or not, he's correct about the sensation-seeking. And the cover price of the rag is ludicrous (while shopping I photograph some of the articles to read later). Wythy (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

May I...

change Australian to Australasian? As a New Zealander I'm used to frequently having our countries lumped together as referring to the Western territories in the area, but here Australasian is commonly used to designate both countries as many international agencies don't have a set designation for New Zealand - but how common is the word "Australasia" in the rest of the world? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.90.239.163 (talk) 06:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It is actually an Australian edition, produced in Australia by the team in Sydney. Sorry. The International edition is distributed in most of Asia, although I think NZ do get the Aus version, I think they're the only others in Australasia that do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ns webmaster (talk • contribs) 11:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Criticism in history?

I believe the two criticisms in the article have been given undue prominence (there have surely been others), and shouldn't be in the History section at all, but under a separate heading "Criticism" further on down the page, as is done in many other articles. It's my view that the "Darwin was wrong" cover was more about attracting new readership than winding up the science community and as such was simply a misfire. Tony Holkham (talk) 10:55, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I left this comment a month ago and no one has responded, so I have made the change I suggested without altering the text. Please discuss here if anyone is unhappy about it. Tony Holkham (talk) 23:36, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Past editors

To editor Skeptic2: You ask: "Can someone compile a list of past Editors? There are some great names there, such as Tom Margerison, Nigel Calder, Donald Gould, Bernard Dixon..." Could that someone be you? ;-)) If they have their own Wikipedia articles or some other suitably referenced notability, I don't see why not. Do you have a complete list? Cheers... Tony Holkham (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony – I had the feeling some helpful person would suggest that! I will ask around to see if anyone already knows of such a list. Failing that, it might be possible to compile a list by combing the back issues that are online. As it stands, the New Scientist entry is pretty poor. Such a list would help improve it, in my opinion. I will see what I can do. Skeptic2 (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree the article needs a lot of work. I've done some, but sort of got distracted by other topics (as you do!). Be great if you could make some headway with it. Cheers... Tony Holkham (talk) 00:30, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I've added Highfield and Calder, but not Gould and Dixon as they can't be Wikilinked nor can I find sources for them. They may turn up. Tony Holkham (talk) 00:42, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Alun Anderson was editor in 1998 (and I think had been for some years). Tony Holkham (talk) 01:07, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I have a full list of editors but am just checking the years. Gould and Dixon deserve entries. Redlink for now. Skeptic2 (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, Tom Margerison wasn't the first editor. See Nigel C's article on the early days here http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10574-how-new-scientist-got-started.html. Skeptic2 (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I've now added the list of editors, with dates. If anyone wants to check then they can do so in back issues. I removed mentions of individual editors from the text as they were no longer needed. Thanks, Tony, for encouraging me to do this! Skeptic2 (talk) 22:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Brilliant. Tony Holkham (talk) 23:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

See also

To editor Alexandre Hocquet: Ref your "misleading" tag. It states in the lead that NS is non-peer-reviewed and that it is a magazine. NS is noted in the lead to List of scientific journals as not being on the list. "See also" links are there to be helpful in finding related topics and I don't think this one is misleading. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:28, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there is no mistake in the definitions, still i find it strange to (properly) define New Scientist as a "magazine" and then point out to a list of "journals". But it's also true that there is nothing there that blatantly misleads the distracted reader, so I can remove my banner if you wish. Alexandre Hocquet (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I do understand your concern but, in this case, for me, I'd like to see the banner removed. Best wishes, Tony Holkham (Talk) 19:03, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

References to New Scientist being peer reviewed are misleadings and inappropriate. Journals are peer reviewed, magazines are not. Saying that New Scientist is "not peer reviewed" is nonsensical. I have removed it.MK (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Cover art

Any article about New Scientist really needs to mention the many awards its covers garnered in the days when it stood out from the pack. Some of the UK's best known artists created covers in the 1970s and 1980s. (Today's artwork is run of the mill.) There were also several exhibitions of cover art.

On awards, editors of New Scientist, and the magazine itself, as well as its art editors, have collected many of them over the years, including major awards from the Periodical Publishers Association and the British Society of Magazine Editors.

MK (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree. If there are some independent sources, this would be a good addition. Tony Holkham (Talk) 14:55, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Dreadful

MK, I agree the article is dreadful; it does not help that many of the sources are NS itself. Recently, the format has changed a little, but sourcing that is difficult, too. It's helpful having a former editor taking an interest, but it's hard going trying to find improvements. I have been unable to find any reliable sources for (for example) awards, but perhaps I am looking in the wrong places. Any ideas? Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Talking of dreadful, the latest issue (Nov 21) is driven by accusations to the whole of the scientific community of racism. Effects of medicines being different for different ethnicities are dismissed. Race is dismissed as a "social concept." 81.154.168.149 (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

...An obvious case of ethnic predisposition to disease is sickle cell disease. This magazine continues on its erratic course unabated. GeorgieJanet (talk) 08:05, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Netherlands edition

Shouldn't the Netherlands edition be mentioned as well?

https://newscientist.nl/ says in the "colofon" section https://newscientist.nl/colofon/

"De Nederlandstalige New Scientist is een maandelijkse uitgave van Veen Media onder licentie van Reed Business Information Ltd. De inhoud is gedeeltelijk eerder gepubliceerd in de Engelstalige New Scientist of op newscientist.com"

Translation: The Netherlands New Scientist is a monthly publication of Veen Media under licence from Reed Business Information Ltd. Some of the content was published earlier in the English language New Scientist or on newscientist.com"

Pemboid (talk) 22:03, 19 July 2018 (UTC)