Any kind of magazines are needed?

I learned with chagrin that the science magazine “Science in Focus” stopped published. Another ray of light went out in our all and more dark space. But a couple of statements from an interview with the former editor -in -chief of the publication Yegor Bykovsky [1] causes a desire to argue.

E. Bykovsky calls “the correct scientpop like“ science and life ”is not very appetizing for the general public and attributes popular science magazines to business business, otherwise the readers cannot be attracted to the topics of science. This is quite in line with the excuses of the leaders of television channels, who, in response to accusations in the dominance on the screen of low -grade products, declare that only this is our audience. But tastes are brought up, intelligence is developing!

The other day, I accidentally saw a piece of transmission on the First channel “Live Great” with Elena Malysheva and was shocked - to adult viewers (in the hall were sitting at a very conscious age) they turn to kindergartens, well, in extreme cases to primary school students. For children, the game, entertaining form of recognition of the new is natural and appropriate, but for adults, education, self -education is the work, the work of the mind, which simply should be in joy (as ideally and every other).

Of course, we need a whole line of magazines focused on different groups of readers, which differ in the level of training, as was the case in the Soviet Union, when such magazines came out of many thousands of copies. If people turn to people all the time as idiots, many will become them. Our classic, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, did not entertain at all entertainment at the forefront, conceiving the first scientific and popular magazine “Naturalist” in Russia and planning that an “educated audience and student youth could receive information about achievements in various fields of science” .

At the end of the 19th century, his idea was not realized due to the refusal of a potential publisher, who was afraid of the spread of materialistic ideas. And when twenty years later, Vladimir Alexandrovich Wagner and Lev Vladimirovich Pisarzhevsky began to release the “nature” [2] created in the wake of the first attempt, they declared “their deep conviction in the great public significance of the spread of scientific truths” .

In the thickening atmosphere of the aggressive ignorance of our time, this is again superior, and the editors of the magazine "Nature", in which I have the honor to work, continues to make my modest contribution to the common cause. And it is impossible to consider the scientific and science article only to “redemption of information” , as Yegor Bykovsky believes, it is impossible (so it is possible to send analytical reviews to the packaging department).

To write such articles, of course, to scientists, thereby, who are engaged in this area, and then the information will become quite copyright. It is natural to create “human materials” - portraits of outstanding scientists, to take interviews to journalists, as humanities. And only a specialist who knows all the underwater stones, which distinguishes the main thing from the secondary one, can write a really meaningful popular text on a scientific theme.

Is any researcher capable of this? It is easy for someone to switch from a professional language to universal, someone is not very good. And here you will need those whom Yegor Bykovsky does not recall (although, judging by him, the magazine, for the most part, was engaged in such activities, at least preparing translated publications), scientific editors (editors with a basic scientific education).

A good editor will always help to adapt interesting results for the general public: it will tell you what terms it needs to be determined where the gap in the logical chain skips (when the author considers something to be granted, and for the reader this may not be so) that you need to add and what to remove. Unfortunately, the number of such journal editions is reduced. Can such publications be profitable? As we know, qualitative publications are more often unprofitable - it means that the load should take on society, the state. Unless, of course, does not consider them as “educational services”. There is something to blame for the scientists themselves, who are more difficult to persuade to write a popular science article. Of course, these are the time of time (usually more than when creating an article by a special one), and they most likely will not affect the citation index, but you just need to treat this as one of the parties to professional activity. The same press services of institutions, which are becoming more and more, could initiate the writing of articles about new interesting results obtained by their colleagues. In principle, it would be possible to provide a separate item “Popular representation of the results” when calculating points, when submitting reports on grants. Although nothing good is done from under the stick, such incentives would give some compensation to the authors.

The main motive should remain the same desire for enlightenment, which always went hand in hand with science. After all, we do not want people around us to turn into machine guns to press the buttons and enjoy? Or do we not care? No wonder Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman 30 years ago spoke about the critical necessity that “the national organism is healthy, that it itself gives rise to culture, to organically give rise to its development, and not be on the transfusion of someone else's blood” ...

On March 16, Alexander Arkhangelsky in the program “Meanwhile” was about the possible sunset of intellectual journalism, which covers cultural issues [3] . Without retelling the performances of the participants, as always, who did not agree with each other in everything, I will only mention the obvious, seemingly statement: “Culture ≠ Entertainment”. Apparently, it will have to prove it again and again.

1. Interview of M. Borisov with E. Bykovsky. Was "Focus?" // TRV-hobby. No. 173 of February 24, 2015.

2. Andreev A.F. The magazine "Nature" is 100 years . // Successes of physical sciences. T. 182. No. January 2012.

3. Http://tvkultura.ru/video/show/brand_id/20905/episode_id/177766/video_id/1149163