Clive Page wrote:
In message , Clot
writes

I've subscribed to NS for 40 years and consider myself to be a
scientist. NS is not what it was, though never considered as a "peer
reviewed" type of magazine.

I agree. I've also read New Scientist on and off for nearly as long,
and indeed have been a subscriber for a good many years. In the
earlier years most of the articles were written by scientists
themselves, and tended to be accurate and authoritative. No doubt
some editorial action was needed to remove jargon and improve the
explanation, but most good scientists (and even quite a lot of bad
ones) are only too happy to try to explain their work at the level
that an intelligent layman can understand. Scientific American gets
on fine using mostly scientists as writers.

It is such a pity that NS editors in recent years seem to have decided
that it is only journalists who can be trusted to explain things. As
a result articles are dumbed down, and by no means as good as they
could be.

You make an interesting point. Is it that recent editors have chosen to use
journalists or that scientists are not prepared to provide the text?

The owners of NS are lucky that so far there isn't a competing weekly
in the UK with the editorial standards of Scientific American.

I agree.