Magazine

Militarily speaking, a magazine is a place for the storage of gunpowder, guns, bombs or other ordnance, but in the literary world it refers to printed material, a periodical, complete with pictures, stories and advertisements.

A book-like magazine is aimed at getting the attention of as many readers as possible in order to give them information. The more information publishers can put into a magazine, and the more people who like the information they see and read, the more money the magazine can make.  The more money they can make, the more information can be dispersed, because then even more magazines can be published.  Some magazines have a very large following of readers.  Nowadays we have the internet to keep us unformed, making information more readily available at everyone's fingertips.

Over the years there have been a couple of popular science magazines that keep people informed about new technologies emerging in the scientific world and in the minds of humanity. Some of the more famous ones have been Popular Science, and Omni.

Popular Science, founded in 1872, began as a scientific journal and was originally read mostly by people who wanted to know the latest and greatest scientific discoveries, most of whom thought of themselves as educated scientist.  In the agrarian communities of the 1900, many people learned to read and write at home if at all.  Even with the Education Act of 1872, it is estimated that 5 % of youth in America graduated from high school and only 1% then went on to learn and research in colleges.  Over the years, Popular Science has remained popular and even today it has  broad spectrum of readers and articles.

The company boasts that it currently, (as of this writing) has 1.45 million subscribers whom read it to learn the “latest news in science.” This does not reflect the people who do not subscribe who read their resources on the Internet, or the magazine bought and newstands in the airport by passersby.   They say that the hard copy magazine currently earns about 42 billion dollars a year for Time / Warner, it’s publisher, and the majority of it’s readers are people who have attended college. However, because people from all walks of life are interested in scientific things like computer technology and information, evolution, medical research, aerospace, etc.…the science magazine industry has been a lucrative one.

Over the years, Popular Science magazine has documented many noteworthy inventions. Famous names such as Herbert Spencer, (the first Evolutionist, a predecessor to Darwin) Charles Darwin, Alexander Graham Bell, (of telegraph and telephone fame) Thomas Edison, (inventor of the lightbulb) Henry Ford (of automobile fame,) T.H. Huxley, (an avid Darwin Supporter) and Louis Pasteur, (researcher noted for study of rabies) all contributed articles to be published.  Todys magazine are filled with articles about personal space travel, houses that clean themselves, the newest airplanes for warfare.  Then as now, a lot of money can be made selling magazines that perk a person’s curiosity and often what is published for the masses to absorb has huge financial backing or a particular political agenda.

For example, Popular Science in 2005 ran an article containing a list of the “Top 10 Worst Jobs in Science.” According to their research, it is worse to be a biology teacher in Kansas than to be a manure inspector at the University in Georgia. Why? Because, if you are a biology teacher in Kansas “Parents will say their child can't be in class during any discussion of evolution, making your life miserable, and students will argue with you and say things like 'My grandfather wasn't a monkey!'”

Because of the evolution/creation debate long held in Kansas, the topic of science teachers teaching Intelligent Design (ID) came up in the article as well. A man named Brad Wilson commented on how , “The problem for teachers is that ID can't be tested using the scientific method, the system of making, testing and re-testing hypotheses that is the bedrock of science.” Wilson neglects however to acknowledge that the theory of evolution, has not been tested using the scientific method either.Readers of Popular Science, all 1.45 million of them are digesting this information.


Another science magazine that has had popular appeal was called Omni. Omni means “all” or “all-powerful.” (One who believes in God, might think of God as omni-present, or omni-potent or omni-scient.) Omni, the all powerful science magazine, went out of business in 1998.

Omni magazine was all about offering readers news, interviews and information of the “scientific” speculation going ons in the world, particularly scientific thoughts on science fiction. The magazine was owned by Kathy Keeton Guccione, wife of magazine publisher Bob Guccione who published the pornographic magazine, Penthouse.  Penthouse magazine and Omni magazine had a shared interest, like their owners, Bob and Kathy... an interest in UFO’s.

In the 90’s both magazines often ran articles about “aliens,” and in particular they promoted a lot of what has become known and publicized as the Roswell incident, where a supposed UFO crash landed and was retrieved by the US military who called the object a “top secret’ research balloon. The so-named incident cause a lot of controversy and suspicion, people wrote a lot of books on the subject too. Omni even published something called the Roswell Declaration, an international “petition to end government secrecy on UFO’s.”

It was in September 1996, that Penthouse magazine, known for it’s fascination with the flesh, decided to get “scientific” like Omni. They published, along with the usual fare of naked bodies, what they called “actual photos of an alien autopsy.” (This was supposedly some kind of “evidence” of alien life forms and the photos had been taken here on earth!)

“I am convinced that these are 100 percent genuine photos of an alien,” said Guccione, authoritatively to his readers, “but the government (aka, American government, ) will never admit it because to do so would acknowledge a cover-up of the existence of life beyond our solar system." Somehow, though ironic, it seems appropriate that a pornographic magazine proprietor would be upset about a government “cover-up. ” But Bob Guccione  “is convinced.” “These are 100% genuine photos of an alien,” he said.

Magazines, books and movies feed our minds and we let them. We pay good hard-earned cash in exchange for what they offer us, seldom considering the impact of their scientific or theological ideas, rarely thinking that bullet statement by bullet statement, like a round of ammunition, they take ground in our unguarded thinking.