Where can I find no-nonsense, scientific analysis of important issues, practical advice, and forecasts for the future?

February 17, 2008 8:40 AM

Where can I find no-nonsense, scientific analysis of important issues, practical advice, and forecasts for the future?

I love reading analysis of current events, especially in technology, business, economics, and politics. I am especially interested in information that is practical for my life: predictions for the future, advice on what is important to do/learn about, and so on. But I am getting sick of all the hype and uninformed speculation. Even in "intelligent" publications like the New York Times, most analysis articles seem to be for the purpose of entertainment: they reflect the whim of the writer, not the results of years of research. So instead of reading an article written by a top journalist, I would want to read an article written by a top academic/industry expert. (Or an article that summarizes the opinions of the top academic/industry experts.)

Here's a perfect example: Let's say I want to understand the implications of Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. Instead of reading analysis in Wired, the New York Times, or Slashdot, I would want to read the following Gartner article. However, I want this kind of thing for all fields, not just technology. For example, I would want to know:

-What are the most important developments in different areas of science, business, and technology, and what are the projections for the future?
-What do the top 100 academic experts think about issues like global warming, gun control, economic policy, and so on?
-What information do I need to know to be more productive and successful in my day-to-day life? (E.g. as a consumer, technology user, investor, citizen.) How are people or organizations trying to fool/trick me? (cf. "Influence" book linked to below)
-What are the most surprising or counter-intuitive facts I'm probably not aware of? (Freakonomics-type stuff)
-Projections for future political events, like: "Who is more electable: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?" (Justified by poll data, statistical analysis broken down by who is projected to win the swing states, etc.)

I'm looking for information that is presented rigorously and if possible justified quantitatively, yet in a concise and accessible form, it to be accessible for people who aren't specialists in this field.

Now, here are some examples of sources of information that at least partly fit my description:

Economist Intelligence Unit
Edge.org
Lifehacker
Intrade.com
HowStuffWorks.com
Gartner
The Wall Street Journal

Books:
Influence: The Hidden Psychology of Persuasion
Freakonomics

Hive Mind, what sources of information can you think of?

posted by lunchbox to media & arts (15 comments total)

Foreign Affairs is a good one for global political/economic issues.
posted by mpls2 at 8:51 AM on February 17

Try Stratfor as well.
posted by breezeway at 9:11 AM on February 17

Stratfor "provides strategic intelligence on global business, economic, security and geopolitical affairs."

Subscription costs money, is worth it.
posted by edverb at 9:14 AM on February 17

I see breezeway beat me to it.
posted by edverb at 9:15 AM on February 17

Tasty Research is just a blog and s/he writes infrequently but s/he does so insightfully and is usually summarizing an interesting paper or article from an academic publication. S/he covers a variety of different fields. Worth adding to your RSS reader at least.
posted by XMLicious at 9:23 AM on February 17

The always excellent 3 Quarks Daily is (mostly) a politics and science blog with heavy doses of culture. It will mostly clue you into broad philosophical and ideological ideas, which is good grounding for anyone.
posted by wfrgms at 9:46 AM on February 17

Amazing answers so far! All those links are the type of thing I am looking for. I'll point out that XMLicious' link, Tasty Research, is a particularly great find. Although it is just a blog, it concisely presents great scientific concepts, contains practical information and advice, and has decent amount of math, which I like.

Foreign Affairs, Stratfor, and 3 Quarks Daily are also really neat.

Keep them coming!
posted by lunchbox at 10:15 AM on February 17

In case you didn't know, there is a Freakonomics blog at the New York Times site. Also, I've found some pretty interesting things at Slate from time to time.
posted by General Malaise at 11:32 AM on February 17

Science Blogs has a huge assortment of scientists blogging. The main page keeps track of common topics and you can usually find that a large number of them are discussing the big scientific story in the news that day, and frequently debunking it.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:32 AM on February 17

You just described what the World Future Society does. Their "Future Survey" newsletter is particularly useful as is full of abstracts of books on futurism-related topics, so you get a good overview of what people in the field are thinking/writing about and also get an idea of which of those books you might want to read in full.

The Comprehensive Professional Membership, which is the level that includes a subscription to their Future Survey newsletter, is spendy at $245/year. So you might want to seek out some past issues via the library first and make sure that you're really interested before signing up.

Their less expensive regular membership just includes a subscription to their glossy magazine, "The Futurist". It is decent, but is aimed more at the general public, and is not as wide-ranging or intellectual as the Future Survey newsletter.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:14 PM on February 17

Here's an answer to my own question:
CQ Researcher
posted by lunchbox at 7:26 PM on February 17

I just tapped into a rich vein of ore today: MIT Technology Review. And of peripheral interest to this topic are these two threads about high-quality books.
posted by XMLicious at 11:54 PM on February 17

Excellent! The Tech Review is great. Thanks, XMLicious.
posted by lunchbox at 9:05 AM on February 18

I like Science Daily. Many categories, sources always cited.
posted by hulahulagirl at 5:04 PM on February 18

Psychology Today has great content that takes peer=reviewed psychological studies and provides concrete, practical recommendations from experts. It used to have a reputation as being kind of fluffy and pop psych, but for the past few years, they've focused on being scientific and rigorous while still giving advice that's useful to ordinary people. For practical advice, you can't beat it.
posted by incandescentman at 10:18 AM on March 25