You’re right about the descent of Scientific American from once-Olympian status: it was a scientifically meticulous and editorially super-competent voice of science for serious (but not necessarily professional) readers. That was a long time ago. It was the voice of scientists doing the best work, pushed editorially into a stylistic excellence not always their own but always the magazine’s. Here such uniformity was a rare plus: the writing was sound, but it was also fully intelligible and aloof from trendiness and politics (this even in the editorial or review pieces). Au revoir! The irresistible lure of socio-political righteousness that captured the culture as a whole did not fail to work on this journal. Excellent pieces of the original kind still appear in almost every issue; but now self-righteous sophomores get the same editorial respect as in the media generally.