I still buy New Scientist because, although the information is available online, I'd have to spend a great deal of time digging it out. It's worth the few dollars I spend to have the staff of New Scientist to seek out the latest news and compile the magazine for me. I pay them to be editors, really, rather than writers.

Which is why it's particularly galling when their editors run off the rails. They're generally pretty good with science, a little weaker on environmental matters - there's a clear bias there that assumes that bad news is intrinsically more reliable than good news, and pretty much hopeless on politics, being a bunch of unreconstructed lefties.

But I still don't expect them to be pushing the hokey old line from Frankenstein that there are some things Man is not meant to know. And yet, this weeks editorial on choosing the gender of your baby, titled Boy or girl? Best leave it to chance, sums up as follows:

Increasingly, reproductive science is taking us beyond the limits of nature. On the grounds of safetey and the unknown societal impact such novel technologies could have, governments surely have a responsibility to regulate. Needless meddling is never good, but in this case drawing the line as to who can use the technology might be the least intrusive move of all.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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