article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/missing-scientists/686885/
The Atlantic has a long article on the story of missing scientists recently featured here on Slashdot. In short, it is an incoherent conspiracy theory that spreads wide and far, not paying any attention to boundaries of time, space, or area of expertise. “Which is all to say that another piece of flagrant nonsense has ascended to the highest levels of U.S. politics and media,” writes the Atlantic’s Daniel Engber. “To call it a conspiracy theory would be far too kind, because no comprehensive theory has been floated to explain the pattern of events. But then, even the phrase pattern of events is imprecise, because there is no pattern here at all. Given all the people who could have been roped into this narrative but weren’t, any hope of finding meaning falls away. Barring any dramatic new disclosures, the mystery of the missing scientists has the dubious honor of being a sham in every way at once.” - https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/22/1934234/the-missing-scientist-story-is-unbelievably-dumb
(I would post archive link but I’m blocked because of DNS, VPN, or something else…)
The Atlantic still employs an EiC who tried to hire Kevin “we should execute women who receive abortions for murder” Williamson because he thought the magazine needed more right wing voices. If they’re saying something is unbelievably dumb and people need to stop talking about it that just makes me think there’s something going on here and more people need to start talking about it.