Peter Woit has strong opinions but they're often not representative of the physics community as a whole. In my opinion, which I think matters as much as Woit's (i.e. not much), Scientific American is variable in quality, but I wouldn't dismiss the article before reading it.

This article does a pretty good job of summarizing a range of modern ideas about spacetime. I see that it introduces laymen to some of the important names in the field, including van Raamsdonk and Maldacena, and presents their important and influential work.

No paywall version: https://web.archive.org/web/20221124171006/https://www.scien...

There's also nonsense like this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-need-t...

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=6202

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa-needs-to-ren...

Again, their reputation is in the toilet.

Is this what the kids call "cancel culture"?

I'm judging the quality of the OP article, not the sum total of everything that they've ever written...

No, it's not "cancel culture". If you're not an expert in the area, you need to know how trustworthy the publication is. As it stands, there are indicators that it's not trustworthy.

[edit] Sure, the article might have some value. I can accept that. Thank you.

I have a PhD in physics. I gave my assessment of the article in the first reply above. You're welcome to disagree, but since it seems you're mostly interested in rejecting the article on the basis of who published it instead of the content, perhaps this is a dead end.

Edit: appreciate the edit :)

It’s what the kids call click bait of the subspecies known as “trolling for controversy.” It comes in two flavors: “woke” and “anti-woke.” In all cases the goal is to get you to click so someone can sell ads.

At some point in the past SA contradicted some point of dogma. Now their output is forever picked over for evidence supporting a case for, yes, "cancelling them".

That's how they do it these days.

Middle management idiocracy has taken over to “create jobs” everywhere.

Dont they kinda have to, to avoid falling into problems with the DEI crowd?

ad majorem Dei gloriam

Exactly. There’s no law forcing me me to chip into healthcare. Tacit admission in the US I don’t have to care any other meat bag exists; why should I care what they have to say?