Scientific American Which Endorses Biden, Denounces Trump, Bows to China
The magazine Scientific American has made its first ever endorsement in a presidential contest, saying the endorsement is about "science" and "life and death."
The owner of Scientific American, publisher Springer Nature, has met with serious controversy over pro-China editorial policies. This month, a Springer Nature journal, Eye and Vision, rejected an article by a Taiwan doctor for refusing to add the word "China" after "Taiwan" in her paper.
Radio Free Asia reports:
"Top academic publisher Springer Nature has once more sparked concerns over its censorship of topics regarded as politically sensitive by Beijing. A Taiwanese doctor, Wu Jo-hsuan, recently reported via Facebook that she had been asked by the editorial team at Eye and Vision, a medical journal published by the group, to add the word "China" after "Taiwan" in her paper, or have her article rejected for publication."
Springer Nature is the world's largest academic publisher, publishing more than 3,000 journals including Nature and Scientific American. It is a privately held company with revenues of $1.72 billion in 2019.
Eye and Vision is published in "partnership" with China's Wenzhou Medical University, and receives funding from the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
In 2018 book publishers cut ties with Springer Nature over its bowing to Chinese government censorship demands in order to gain access to the lucrative Chinese academic market.
In 2017 Inside Higher Ed reported:
The publisher Springer Nature has blocked access to more than 1,000 journal articles in China to comply with government censors, the Financial Times reported. The newspaper found that more than 1,000 articles had removed from the websites of two Springer journals, the Journal of Chinese Political Science and International Politics. All the blocked articles referred to sensitive subjects in China, including “Taiwan,” “Tibet” and the “Cultural Revolution.” Academics criticized the censorship, which follows a similar case in August in which Cambridge University Press blocked access to more than 300 articles in The China Quarterly journal – a decision it reversed after coming under fire from academics who accused the press of privileging the economic benefit of continued access to the Chinese market over protecting academic freedom.
Springer Nature owns 100% of Scientific American.
On COVID-19, Scientific American takes a stance which mimics the current mainstream of media and academic thought, emphasizing continued "social control" and, ultimately, a vaccine.
In its June 2020 issue feature article "How the COVID-19 Pandemic Could End," a Scientific American "science writer" with no advanced degree writes:
"Projections about how COVID-19 will play out are speculative, but the end game will most likely involve a mix of everything that checked past pandemics: Continued social-control measures to buy time, new antiviral medications to ease symptoms, and a vaccine."
It should be noted that the writer is incorrect that past pandemics have involved "social-control measures to buy time." In the 1957 H2N2 Asian Flu pandemic, in which roughly the same number of Americans died, per capita, as have died of COVID at this time, the pandemic did not even make the news. Life went on as normal, with the largest social gathering in US history taking place that summer, Woodstock.
The CDC has revised its estimate of the survival rate of COVID from a low of 94% in March to a possible 99.8% overall survival rate. The survival rate for common flu is 99.9%.
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