[Updated:] For Virginia Heffernan readers, some context on the Scienceblogs-Pepsi fizz
Virginia Heffernan* takes the ScienceBlogs/Pepsi blowup as the subject of her New York Times Magazine column this week. Before commenting I’ll make three disclosures up top:
I have written and plan on continuing to write for the same magazine, though I think this does not seriously constrain me here;
I’ve enjoyed many of Hefferman Heffernan’s columns, but do not know her;
I appreciate her nice nod to my blog and my writing on PepsiGate.
That said, I found the column problemmatic. I’d love to explain why at at least moderate length — but seeing as I was quite literally fixing to unplug my iMac for my move to London next Tuesday when someone alerted me to her column, I must limit myself for now to a couple brief comments and some context via links. The US Air baggage handlers and UK Border Agency are both quite particular, and I must properly prepare.
Comments
Heffernan makes two main points.
1. She found the science blogosphere, esp as represented by ScienceBlogs is cacaphonous and of uneven quality.
My comment: This is neither novel nor surprising.
2. She was “nonplussed by the high dudgeon of the so-called SciBlings” in their reaction to what has become known, more or less tongue-in-cheek, as PepsiGate.
The bloggers evidently write often enough for ad-free academic journals that they still fume about adjacencies, advertorial and infomercials. Most writers for “legacy” media like newspapers, magazines and TV see brush fires over business-editorial crossings as an occupational hazard. They don’t quit anytime there’s an ad that looks so much like an article it has to be marked “this is an advertisement.”
My comment: Obviously I differ with her on this, as I felt strongly enough about Seed’s blunder to leave immediately, before almost anyone else had, and before it was clear the reaction would be both broad and deep. You can read both my quick initial post announcing my departure — A food blog I can’t digest — and a more considered explanation at Why I’m Staying Gone from ScienceBlogs. And as you can read below, I’m not the only one, even among “legacy media,” types (I write for the same sorts of outfits Heffernan does, including the New York Times Magazine), who thought the transgression was serious enough to warrant leaving.
Context
The best single source of context on the ScienceBlogs-Pepsi fracas is probably BoraZ’s A Blog Around the Clock, both because he comments well and because he has amassed a mess of links to commentary about the whole mess.
See esp:
His exit post: A Farewell to Scienceblogs: the Changing Science Blogging Ecosystem
His PepsiGate linkfest, which appears to be the most exhaustive.
His website, well worth tracking, is http://blog.coturnix.org/
Meanwhile, if you want my own short list, see the particularly sharp commentaries or roundups on the meltdown that came from Martin Robbins, Paul Raeburn at Knight Science Journalism Tracker, the Guardian, and two “legacy media” heavyweights — Carl Zimmer, he of well-deserved NY Times fame, and former Scientific American editor John Rennie — neither of whom seem to share Heffernan casual reaction to ad-ed wall violations.
__
PS: I hope readers understand that just because the science blogosphere is uneven and chaotic and cacophonous, it does not mean that it lacks high-quality material. The MSM is also uneven and cacophonous, but the best of it is good indeed. So it is outside legacy media. This should be obvious … but sometimes the obvious is worth pointing out.
PPS I truly won’t have much time to monitor this thread, much less respond to it. So if you’ve a perspective to bring to bear in the comments, please do.
PPPS. Two things:
1. As I note below in a comment, Heffernan has some legit points.
2. But as I also note, I think she tosses out too much and overgeneralizes etc. In that sense I share some of the complaints that NeuroDojo just posted at his blog:
Dear Virginia Heffernan,
Your recent New York Times column, “Unnatural Science,” is mostly wrong. You’re going to catch a lot of flak for sentences like this:
(S)cience blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.
If I might mix metaphors, you paint a distorted picture using a broad brush that’s loaded with tar and feathers. There are bloggers who you disagree with? Fine. There are bloggers that you personally dislike and find distasteful? Okay. But to then accuse every science blogger of being a participant in “bloodsport” and engaging in “bigotry”? That’s not fair, Virginia. Possibly even a bit bigoted.(D)oes everyone take for granted now that science sites are where graduate students, researchers, doctors and the “skeptical community” go not to interpret data or review experiments but to chip off one-liners, promote their books and jeer at smokers, fat people and churchgoers?
There are many examples of science blogs that do lots of interpreting data and reviewing experiments. You only needed to look at atResearchBlogging.org for a steady stream of posts daily that do just that. (And, incidentally, it’s hosted by the same company that runsScience Blogs, the target of so much of your distaste.) I’m vain enough to think that I do a passable job of reviewing experimentshere on my on blog.
That’s more or less the baby/bathwater problem I refer to.
YET LATER: See too Scott Rosenberg’s (of “Say Everything”) sharp take on Heffernan’s post and PepsiFizz.
And later still: I just fixed my earlier misspellings of Heffernan. My apologies to Ms. Heffernan for the error. I’d always read the name that way and so replicated my error. Some lessons in behavioral science right there.
Tags: Bora Zivkovic, Carl Zimmer, John Rennie, Martin Robbins, New York Times Magazine, Paul Raeburn, PepsiGate, Scienceblogs, Scientific American, Virginia Hefferman, Zner
July 30th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Nicely said. You are more temperate person than I am.
t
July 30th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Virginia is half right. Or, maybe one third right. Unfortunately, it is not easy to identify which third.
Your analysis is spot on.
Now, I must get back to posting claptrap on my scienceblogs site. I’m way behind for the week.
July 30th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
As I tweeted to Ian Leslie a few mins ago, I think Hefferman had some legit gripes.. But in minimizing ad-ed wall breaches she tosses out baby w bathwater.
July 30th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I feel like maybe she was expecting a casual version of Nature, when what she got, in fact, is the same for all blogging: some very well-researched posts, some great resources and info, and some mindless or pointless drivel.
I think it’s perfectly appropriate to be put off by some of the posts that people make in the blogosphere–as well as in the sciblogs too.
However, there are some fantastic writers and scientists who blog. To paint all science bloggers with one brush is akin to painting all bodies of water blue. There is an almost infinite range of shades of blue that the ocean comes in. Likewise, PZ is very different from ScienceGoddess who is very different than BoraZ.
If all bloggers with a background or interest in science were the same, everyone would only read PZ and miss other huge names like Ed Yong and Bad Astronomer.
As for PepsiGate, even if it was about “real” writers having to put up with advertising, the bloggers don’t do this as a full time job and so they might have different levels of tolerance when it comes to integrity.
July 30th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
What I found most disturbing about her piece is that after berating the “poor quality” of science blogging over at Scienceblogs, she recommends the AGW denialist blog Watts Up With That as “science that’s accessible but credible”.
I too have enjoyed her columns in the past, but her credibility just took a big hit there as far as I’m concerned.
July 30th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Re: “his/her blog”.
I know that my hair is long, my picture in the corner of my blog is small, and my name is perhaps a little androgynous. So, for the record, the author of NeuroDojo, which is to say me, is a “he.”
July 30th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Typo in the first P.S.: should read “PS: I hope readers understand that just because the science blogosphere is uneven and chaotic and cacophonous, [doesn't mean that] it lacks high-quality material.”
[DD here: Thanks, Jenea. Fixed.]
July 30th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
“For science that’s accessible but credible, steer clear of polarizing hatefests like atheist or eco-apocalypse blogs. Instead, check out scientificamerican.com, discovermagazine.com and Anthony Watts’s blog, Watts Up With That?”
The first two blogs are science oriented. Watts is a climate warming denialist who is not adverse to twisting the facts, giving opinions as facts, and (how can I put this nicely?), being creative with the truth. If Hefferman is promoting Watts Up With That? then I have to seriously doubt her commitment to either science or the real world in general.
July 30th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Am I reading this right, or is there word dropped out that changes the meaning? “I hope readers understand that just because the science blogosphere is uneven and chaotic and cacophonous, it {*does not?*} lacks high-quality material.”
July 30th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Somewhere in the future, a historian is in love with Bora.
He summarized nearly every pivotal event of the Sb community – and did so with depth, detail, and context. (Hopefully he’ll continue to do this sort of thing for the wider world of science blogs outside of Sb.)
July 31st, 2010 at 12:00 am
I’m grateful for all the replies. Nice to meet you here, David.
I get the sense that Pepsigate was the last straw – or not the first, anyway – for at least some of the dissenters from ScienceBlogs. Out of curiosity: Did no one quietly resign over PZ Myers’s Mohammad cartoons? Or question whether they wanted to be part of a network to which he’s the main draw?
In my experience, legacy media types, who do kick up furors over stuff like Mohammad cartoons, nonetheless see *debate* over ad-ed breaches as common, especially now because of the confusion what old-media road rules mean in digital times.
With notable exceptions, blogging, as a form, seems to me to have calcified. Many bloggers who started strong 3-5 years ago have gotten stuck in grudge matches. This is even more evident on political blogs than on science blogs. In fact, after being surprised to find the same cycles of invective on ScienceBlogs that appear on political blogs (where they’re well documented), I started to think the problem might be with the form itself. Like many literary and art forms before it (New Yorker poetry, jazz, manifestos) blogs may have had a heyday – when huge numbers of people were inspired to make original contributions – before, seemingly all at once, the moment is gone. Some people keep doing it, and doing it well, but the wave of innovation passes, and the form itself needs new life. (Twitter? Tumblr?)
I have no training in science. My surprise at ScienceBlogs was akin to the surprise a scientist who might feel if he audited a PhD seminar on Wallace Stevens. Why aren’t they talking about “Anecdote of the Jar”?! Why are they talking about how “misogyny intrinsic to the modernist project”? I saw political axe-grinding bring the humanities almost to a standstill in the 1990s. I thought science was supposed to be above that!
One regret: the Watts blog. Virtually everyone who emailed me pointed out that it’s as axe-grinding as anything out there. I linked to it because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before. I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism. I’m don’t endorse the views on the Watts blog, and I’m extremely sorry the recommendation seemed ideological.
All best,
Virginia Heffernan
heffernan@nytimes.com
July 31st, 2010 at 4:22 am
Stop digging. Admit you just didn’t know that Watts was a nutcase and you weren’t familiar enough with the science to distinguish that, rather than using even more senseless “worldview” nonsense arguments.
That’s what anti-scince nuts (like creationists) do. That you would resort to such an infantile argument is appalling in its chutzpah and its stupidity.
July 31st, 2010 at 4:44 am
PZ does some top-notch science-writing. I skip the political and atheist rants and the preening for his commenters and read him for the insightful posts on evo-devo and so forth. Same thing with Iris, Greg, and many of the others at ScienceBlogs. Sometimes they’re amusing, much of the time they’re ignorable, and occasionally nearly all of them produce informative and thought-provoking posts.
Such is the nature of blogs. They can be the starting point for gaining knowledge, but never the end point.
July 31st, 2010 at 7:25 am
Why aren’t they talking about “Anecdote of the Jar”?! Why are they talking about how “misogyny intrinsic to the modernist project”? I saw political axe-grinding bring the humanities almost to a standstill in the 1990s. I thought science was supposed to be above that!
I think this just shows how much she misunderstands Sb (from my perspective anyway). For me, and I had this discussion with them, it’s a place for scientists to engage the public. Obviously, a disproportionate amount of the writing will be science-related, and some of it will also be data analysis, even if it’s not about science per se. But I don’t understand why scientists should only be able to engage the public about science. If English and polysci majors are allowed to blather about whatever they wish–even when they don’t know what they’re talking about (seriously, linking to Watts because his site looks nice, and he writes ‘pretty’? Sweet Baby Intelligent Designer….)–then why can’t scientists do this too?
Given that many professional lack the analytical chops to find their way out of a paper bag (writing hundreds of cogent, interesting sentences on deadline *is* a difficult skill, but so is wrapping your head around numerical/statistical analysis), scientists have a lot to contribute in areas other than science.
Then again, I’m just a science blogger, so what do I know?
July 31st, 2010 at 7:44 am
Virginia Heffernan wrote:
“Did no one quietly resign over PZ Myers’s Mohammad cartoons? Or question whether they wanted to be part of a network to which he’s the main draw?”
I don’t know, but it’s possible. There certainly have been spats between the writers at Science Blogs.
There’s a difference between one what individual blogger does, and the people in charge of the community / platform / service do.
You sign up to a network with a certain understanding about what the rules are. I bet that one of those expectations was that each blogger was going to be independent, which means that you will be sharing space with people saying things you disagree with. It doesn’t distort what you do.
But when those in charge start changing the rules, or violate the established expectations of the community, or appear to act in bad faith, you worry about whether that WILL distort what you do.
“I thought science was supposed to be above (political axe-grinding)!”
Don’t confuse blogging about science, even when done by scientists, with science. Blogs are not scientific literature. They are essays, conversations, and diaries. The rough and tumble of a blog usually doesn’t carry over into the actual scientific research publications.
I appreciate you saying on Twitter you had a bit of regret about the article; that can be tough to admit. I invite you to stick around the larger science blogosphere (i.e., more than ScienceBlogs.com) for a while. I think you’ll find some good stuff.
July 31st, 2010 at 7:53 am
Virginia, while I appreciate your effort to explain your attempt to write on the ScienceBlogs fiasco, I actually find your comment as much or more disappointing than the original article itself. With your acknowledgment that you did not know that “Watt’s up with that” was a denialist blog, you showed that you in fact knew so little about science blogging and the current state of science in general that I question whether you should ever have attempted to write about the goings-on at SEED Media. In addition, I found your original article completely failed to do more than scratch the surface of science blogging. There are many of us who put large amounts of time and effort into producing careful blog posts on the latest research, as well as time and effort into producing posts on basic and more complicated science for a lay audience. Many of these posts are not hard to find. Your articles has tarred us all with a brush that many of us did not deserve.
July 31st, 2010 at 8:25 am
My post is is here. I do not appreciate the way that Heffernan quote mined my colleagues at scienceblogs to smear as all bigots.
July 31st, 2010 at 8:26 am
Virginia, you said the Watts blog was”credible.” You had no basis for that opinion and it is not scientifically credible. I suggest you print a retraction.
July 31st, 2010 at 8:43 am
Thank you for your reply clarifying your lack of training in science, however that was immediately betrayed when you supposed that those involved in science could be above politics and axe-grinding. Political maneuvering, back-stabbing and feuds are as old as science itself, with the historical record littered with examples of hatred and battles between groups supporting opposing views. Blogs are a brilliant way to explore these differences and debates since such discussions used to mostly take place at conferences. Now, many more can participate when it is online, especially younger scientists, who are typically shunned from such conversations. Admittedly, participation in blogs by research faculty is still very limited, but the younger generation of graduate students and postdocs seem to be enthusiastically embracing this format that will likely continue to play a role in the future of science communication (its heyday is already over?? Amazing!)
This scientific media form is evolving and to pronounce it dead without fully understanding the community participating is not only irresponsible, but laughable. A few emails to any of the bloggers discussed in your piece, or even a quick conversation with any of your careful, well-read NYT colleagues could have spared you this embarrassment. Maybe next time.
Best, Noah Gray
July 31st, 2010 at 8:47 am
Ms. Heffernan paints all science boggers as “class war” “bigots”. One would think that she would have some pretty good evidence for such damaging claims. She doesn’t. For there to be class war she must assume that science bloggers are all in high socio-economic strata. This demonstrably false. She further must assume that the religious are all in lower socio-economic strata. This is also demonstrably false. She then assumes that criticism of religious belief and religion is the same thing as bigotry. No, bigotry is an unfounded worldview. Criticism of religious ideas and institutions is amply supported with facts. So, not bigotry. Add to this her recommending an AGW denialist site and you have a massive failure of basic journalism standards and logic.
July 31st, 2010 at 8:55 am
Let me defend PZ Myers blog:
I haven’t seen his Mohammed cartons, but I have no doubt they are fair (in the largest sense) and balanced.
I have seen most of what he’s posted and written to him off his blog, he’s been most convivial to me, and that’s something.
If you don’t want to see what PZ writes, don’t GO there.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:19 am
Even if we overlook the appalling endorsement (however belatedly withdrawn; I’m sure we can all look forward to a prominent correction in the next edition of the NYT…) of Watts’ drivel, there still remains the blatant dishonesty of the quote-mining.
GrrlScientist wrote:
Virginia characterised this as “gratuitous contempt” and claimed that GrrlScientist was “expressing her disgust” at “fat people”.
I don’t agree with this interpretation of GrrlScientist’s writing, and I don’t think that any other reasonable reader would either. Contempt, yes, but directed at Pepsico (not “fat people”), and certainly not gratuitous.
Even PZ’s infamous cow-pig comes into a somewhat different light when presented in context.
Virginia’s article was a deliberately misleading beat-up that is being treated with exactly the disrespect it deserves.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:24 am
Virginia writes: “I didn’t even know about denialism”
Well, then I recommend you read this exposition by Mark Hoofnagle. You might be familiar with it, since you quote mined it to smear Hoofnagle as a bigot.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:28 am
Virginia: ” I’m [sic] don’t endorse the views on the Watts blog, and I’m extremely sorry the recommendation seemed ideological.”
Actually, it seemed entirely clueless. Watts Up With That is a standing joke in the scientific community, something you might’ve known if only you’d done a little, you know, research.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:50 am
Scientists like those at Seed are not only practitioners and educators but advocates of science education and scientific thinking. If no one goes after the powerful anti-science forces of religion and conservative politics, there won’t be anything to read at Scientific American, because science will not survive in a society driven by dogma. I can’t think of a more appropriate group of people to take this on than the Scienceblog folks.
July 31st, 2010 at 10:16 am
No. Why on earth should I have? Note that these days I’m considered “soft on religion” around Sb. I had my brief flirtation with Dawkins/Myers-style religion bashing and ultimately got tired of it. I’m interested in science, particularly the infiltration of quackery into medical science, and critical thinking far more than religion.
In any case, I was particularly annoyed by some of the true ignorance you had in your article, which demonstrates that you have only superficially perused a few of the more prominent blogs on there. Particularly annoying were your citation of Anthony Watts, whose blog can best be described as pseudoscientific climate change denialism, as an example of good science writing (to climate scientists everywhere trying and failing to stifle either a laugh or out and out vomiting) and Mark Hoofnagle, whom you grossly mischaracterized and apparently didn’t bother to notice that he hasn’t been very active for a year now because he started his general surgery internship last July.
I don’t mind criticism, but could you at least make it informed criticism? I thought about writing about your article, but the nonsense there was so rife that it would be less of a challenge than the typical article by a homeopath to take on. Not that I don’t slum from time to time and take on articles like that, but I have to be in the mood.
Not “seemed ideological.” Was ideological. Either that, or clueless. Seriously, your blind spot with regard to Watts shows me more than anything else that you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
July 31st, 2010 at 10:19 am
Precisely. It wouldn’t take much effort to figure that out, but apparently Hefferman couldn’t be bothered. That howler pretty much doomed her article, although her article would still have been pretty bad even without it.
Oh, one other thing. Why didn’t Hefferman actually link to the blog posts she was criticizing, at least in the online edition of her article? That’s pure laziness. Hyperlinks are your friend. They can help you make your point by making it easy for the reader to go to the source that you are criticizing. Or they can show the reader how clueless you are when they go to the source you are criticizing. Either way, the failure to include them is so…old school. No wonder Hefferman doesn’t understand.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:23 am
Heffernan is also an abysmal writer, and whatever editor allowed that original piece to be published in that form should be ashamed. Her repetitive turgid sentence structure is nearly unreadable.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:49 am
Virginia, the problem is not that a recommendation of Watts blog seems ideological, but rather that by recommeind it, you have shown that you are, at best, completely ignorant of science and unable to evaluate the quality of science writing, and at worst actively anti-science.
So why should we trust anything you write about science blogging?
July 31st, 2010 at 12:13 pm
“I linked to [Watts Up With That] because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before.”
So you got distracted by the shiny objects, and never even bothered to check the substance? That’s great analysis.
July 31st, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Is anyone actually going to attempt to answer Virginia’s original statement? WHY IS IT that a new visitor to ScienceBlogs is so much more likely to see “jeer[s] at smokers, fat people and churchgoers” than posts about science? I’ve tried to dive into SB multiple times over the last couple years and the sneering hatreds of so many of its bloggers has repulsed me every time. It’s simply an unpleasant place to be; The Pepsi debacle is a mere side issue in comparison.
Even many of the responses above (though, thankfully, not all) are indicative of the general SB atmosphere.
July 31st, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Adrian +1
As an outsider, I’ve tried to read the comments thread with an open mind. It’s amazing the bile and vitriol in response to a courteous reply.
No wonder you guys don’t like to admit when you’re wrong. When you do, everyone else gangs up on you like a pack of wolves.
Good thing you’re all perfect, eh??!?
July 31st, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Orac wrote: “I had my brief flirtation with Dawkins/Myers-style religion bashing and ultimately got tired of it. I’m interested in science, particularly the infiltration of quackery into medical science, and critical thinking far more than religion.”
Good for you. There really is nothing more boring in a science blog network than endless bloviation about atheism/religion.
July 31st, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Quite note amidst may endless packing:
1. Please note I misspelled Ms. Heffernan’s last name in my original post. I’ve since corrected it there, but as I see it’s being replicated in some of the comments, I thought I should call attention to it here as well. It’s HEFFERNAN. (not -man). My apologies to Ms. Heffernan.
2. Thanks too to everyone who has commented, with a wee extra credit to Heffernan for entering a room full of loaded guns. So far things (after my admittedly fast review) seem spirited but tolerably civil. I do nix outright insulting or ugly or threatening posts. Glad I’ve not seen any that warranted that here. (I’m behind on my review of posts being held for moderation, hope to review soon. Sorry if anyone has a legit one stuck there meanwhile.)
3. I think the issue of what sort of interchanges and fora and media lead to productive versus static discussions, as raised by Heffernan in her comment above, is a legitimate and rich one and would love to see her explore that in a column (though I could understand why she’d steer clear of it for a while). Some listserves, for instance, including one I’m on, tend to bog down into static, repetitive squabbles — a result partly, I think, because of inherent features of the list-serve technology, such as its closed nature. Is there something about the blogosphere that sometimes leads its discussions and debates into staleness or stagnation? To my eye the blogosphere avoids that much easier than some media or fora — yet still falls prey to those problems more than does Twitter. Part of that, strangely, is Twitter’s brevity makes it painfully and plainly obvious if someone repeats themselves or uses the same attacks again and again.
So that’s an interesting question: What features in different online fora — Twitter v blogging v listserves v non-commented MSM, or blogs w comments v blogs without, etc — lead to productive, generative discussion versus repetitive, static standoffs?
Meta-media types, please discuss. I’ll check in when the kitchen’s packed.
July 31st, 2010 at 1:21 pm
One more thing:
My twitter stream (http://twitter.com/david_dobbs) and trackback records indicate quite a few others have blogged on this. If anyone has time to round those up and post links to them in a comment here I’ll be much obliged.
July 31st, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Adrian asked: “WHY IS IT that a new visitor to ScienceBlogs is so much more likely to see ‘jeer[s] at smokers, fat people and churchgoers’ than posts about science?”
Putting aside that this is a “Are you still beating your wife?” question…
They’re popular.
The two most read blogs on Science Blogs, by most accounts, are Pharyngula and Dispatches from the Culture Wars. People are voting with their clicks that is the kind of stuff that interests them enough to read.
July 31st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Virginia,
Understanding science takes time. Most of the science that is posted at WattsUpWithThat can be found in text books. You may want to give it a little more time before drawing conclusions about it.
I do agree with you they have nice images and graphs.
And I do agree that political mudslinging has no place in science blogging.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Heffernan makes two serious errors here. First she engages in “quote-mining” — quoting snippets out of context to give a misleading impression of what the writer intended to communicate. This sort of thing seems to be considered sort of acceptable in “mainstream” journalism, as evinced in the Sherrod affair, but in the science blogosphere, it is considered at best improper, if not actively dishonest, and the hallmark of the crank. Science bloggers tend to be meticulous about context when quoting, and generally provide a link so that the reader can check the context for himself. And then, she goes so far as to recommend that “Watts Up With That,” a crank site that is itself notorious for this kind of behavior, as preferable to blogs that accurately report the science.
July 31st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
“Watts is a climate warming denialist who is not adverse to twisting the facts, giving opinions as facts, and (how can I put this nicely?), being creative with the truth.”
When I first looked into the matter and saw comments like this everywhere, I felt I’d been warned, and shown enough explanation, so I stayed away from WattsUpWithThat… for months. Then one day I hit on it by mistake while looking for something else… and realized that it was not the fact-twister it had been portrayed to be, it was an interesting look at Science that was actually far more courteous, and scientific, than its detractors. I’ve never looked back.
July 31st, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Lucy Skywalker,
Wait til you prominently write something that Watts disagrees with and he starts emailing your boss. No joke, has been reported as happening to several (genuinely) skeptical commentators.
July 31st, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Here’s what I think (not that anyone asked): Heffernan seems to be an almost-neophyte re social media, the nature of online debate and the wild and woolly rules of internet engagement. To assume that one aspect of the blogosphere (ScienceBlog and science blogs) would differ radically from the rest of the blogosophere (political blogs) seems almost wilfully naive, if not downright ignorant. Whoever said above that she should have emailed some bloggers before writing her article is onto something. Of course, a competent and charitable editor would have done something about the disconnect between the snappy first three paragraphs of the article and the middle of the piece, and again about the abrupt segue into, ‘read these first three science-y type web presences instead of wading into the virtually incestuous tempest of Science Blogs.’
So I don’t think the essay holds up as either a piece of writing in and of itself or as any kind of informed commentary. But in the mid section, where she levels specific criticisms, Heffernan does capture a particularly uncharitable ‘if you aren’t for us you’re agin us’ spirit of many – I’m going to broaden this a bit – skeptic blogs (as opposed to science blogs). Too bad that’s got lost in the parts of the piece that can and should be easily dismissed.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:29 pm
“Did no one quietly resign over PZ Myers’s Mohammad cartoons? Or question whether they wanted to be part of a network to which he’s the main draw?”
Why should anyone have resigned over those cartoons? Does Heffernan even recognize the purpose of those cartoons? Apparently not. I’ll try to explain, but considering Heffernan’s cluelessness, I doubt I’ll be successful.
Certain Muslims believe Mohammad should not be depicted pictorially. Okay, that’s no weirder than a lot of religious beliefs, like certain Jews objecting to cotton-polyester blend clothing or Mormons believing three separate groups of Jews emigrated from the Middle East to the Americas thousands of years ago. If Muslims don’t want pictures of Mohammad drawn then they shouldn’t draw pictures of Mohammad. But they should not expect that non-Muslims should be required to abstain from drawing Mohammad. Just as non-Jews can wear cotton-polyester clothes then non-Muslims can draw Mohammad. Myers was pointing this simple fact out. It’s about freedom. We have the right to do or say anything we want as long as it’s legal. There is no right not to be offended.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:47 pm
“I didn’t even know about denialism.”
How is it possible to pay even passing notice of the issues of the day (as I assume an NYT columnist would) and not be aware of it? Have you never heard of Sen. Inhofe? How could you read more than a couple of Watt’s posts and not see that he’s arguing against human caused climate change?
July 31st, 2010 at 9:49 pm
…quoting snippets out of context to give a misleading impression of what the writer intended to communicate. This sort of thing seems to be considered sort of acceptable in “mainstream” journalism, as evinced in the Sherrod affair….
I have no idea what you’re talking about. No journalist of any standing in the “mainstream” media has come out and deemed the behavior in the Sherrod affair “acceptable” anywhere but Fox News. MSM has been of one voice in universally decrying the Sherrod incident.
July 31st, 2010 at 9:51 pm
I notice Poptech, who was banned from Deltoid for continually trolling, just put TIm Lambert’s email and phone details in a comment. Watts should have removed them instantly, but they’re still there.
“I linked to it because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide…”
Great call, Virginia.
August 1st, 2010 at 1:13 am
Poptech wasn’t so much banned, as suspended from posting until he apologized for posting the personal details of another poster. To his credit, Anthony Watts has suspended Poptech from posting until he apologized for posting my personal details.
August 1st, 2010 at 5:52 am
Dave,
regarding your request, the end of my response has a bunch of links. About “the issue of what sort of interchanges and fora and media lead to productive versus static discussions”, I think it has little to do with the technology (except that, in my experience, opponents are less likely to engage in twitter ‘duels’). Whether a conversation is ‘productive’ (and I would argue that sometimes a ‘productive’ conversation is counterproductive, in that you’re not trying to convince the true believers but use them as a foil) has much more to do with the subject matter and the participants, as well as the goals.
Frankly, people do disagree–and irreconcilably so–and this isn’t a bad thing (as long as the idiots don’t win….). I guess what surprised me about Heffernan, who I thought was someone familiar with the internet, is how thin skinned she was (David Broder doesn’t clutch his pearls that tightly).
August 1st, 2010 at 6:58 am
@Virginia
From your first paragraph
“Out of curiosity: Did no one quietly resign over PZ Myers’s Mohammad cartoons?”
I get the impression that you are in favor of censorship which I find an unusual position for a member of the fourth estate. Or just maybe you are in favor of laws against blasphemy. Ether way I see your comment as flying in direct opposition of the first amendment of the constitution and the free exchange of ideas.
It’s obvious that you haven’t done your homework and haven’t spent much time researching the subject matter perhaps to meet a deadline. There is A LOT of overlap in the blogging world. You will find all types visit the science blogs many comment to get information, others to argue a point and still others to derail the comments thread. Ether way one should expect to get jumped on when they make a statement in direct opposition of the facts.
Yes it’s the wild west in the blogging world and why should anyone expect the science bloggers to be any different?
Perhaps you would feel more at home in the heavily moderated blogs where dissent is simply censored.
August 1st, 2010 at 10:53 am
Yours is the first (in about 20 sampled so far) that rises above precisely the sort of twaddle that Heffernen is reacting to. This brings to mind the recent publication of “Do Scientists Understand the Public?” by Chris Mooney (http://www.amacad.org/projects/sciUnderstand.aspx). Rather than hearing that the general perception of P.Z. Myers is that he comes across as a man-boy to the rest of the world, and hence is doing more to harm the public discourse than to improve it, the sciblogosphere takes this as another occasion to sneer and indulge in rhetorical moves.
One of the recommendations of Mooney’s report is that scientists need to find opportunities to create trust and dialogue with the public. Rather than shooting the messenger, I’d suggest we start to look at what is dysfunctional and dangerous when we speak as “scientists” in the voice of a adolescent sneers, and maybe its time that we stop congratulating those who are doing the most damage to the conversation
August 1st, 2010 at 11:19 am
I was disappointed in Heffernan’s article, mostly due to the misleading quote snippets which obscure the broad range of good science writing I see on SB, with many pieces being more well-informed and comprehensive and involving far greater effort than what goes into, say, many science columns and news articles published in the N.Y. Times.
Heffernan says “In my experience, legacy media types, who do kick up furors over stuff like Mohammad cartoons, nonetheless see *debate* over ad-ed breaches as common, especially now because of the confusion what old-media road rules mean in digital times.”
While Heffernan apparently thinks it’s no big deal for ad promotions to contradict the message of a publication, it has long bothered me that newspapers will take virtually anyone’s money for ads promoting health quackery or politico-religious conspiracy theories. Examples are papers that run indignant editorials about threats to consumers’ health while featuring full-page ads for “miracle” weight loss or anti-arthritis supplements of no demonstrated value, or (in the case of the Times) enableing the activities of Dr. Matthias Rath, an AIDS denialist who promotes quack cures, and who has frequently gotten his offensive and idiotic conspiratorial rants published in the Times.
“Old media road rules” apparently mean “cash rules”, a formulation a number of SB bloggers have rejected, to their credit.
August 1st, 2010 at 11:39 am
RE the person asking if anyone ever quit ScienceBlogs because of atheist “bigotry”… isn’t that the very reason that Chris Mooney moved to Discover a couple years ago? PZ Myers stabbed a communion wafer with a rusty nail or something…
August 1st, 2010 at 3:25 pm
What standard of ‘not snide’ is used to reach that conclusion after, for example, Watts’ post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/31/americans-fly-your-flag/
Taking a day for honoring people killed in wars to slam the patriotism of people who disagree with him strikes me as at least snide.
Even more peculiar is her defense of recommending Watts as a science blog. Don’t hold her to knowing the science, she’s just recommending it for the science because she likes the writing style and the pictures?
August 1st, 2010 at 6:07 pm
“MSM has been of one voice in universally decrying the Sherrod incident.”
Yeah, right, after spamming the Sherrod quote-mine video all over the airwaves and the print press without bother to check the context. The “mainstream” media for the most part, has the notion that if they credit a statement to somebody else, they are automatically absolved of all responsibility for checking or reporting on its accuracy.
This is the sort of abdication of responsibility for the truth that one does not normally encounter in the respectable science blogs, which generally hold to a much higher standard of journalistic integrity than the “mainstream” media.
August 1st, 2010 at 6:09 pm
“science that’s accessible but credible” – Virginia Heffernan on the denialist blog “Watts Up with That”.
Virginia, When you’ve just conclusively proven your ignorance of science and crass stupidity with a recommendation like that, there’s no easy way back. My recommendation: take a break from journalism and learn some science. About 30 years should suffice.
August 1st, 2010 at 6:47 pm
As reader of some science blogs, I must comment on Virgina Heffernan’s article. After reading the her article and comment I can only conclude that Ms. Heffernan has not comprehend the situation at scienceblog and science blogging in general. She does a quick glance at the posts done in the past 24 hours and use misleading quotes to form her story. She completely miss the point of that pepsigate incident was violation of ethics and trust of bloggers by SEED along with neglect that administrators of scienceblogs shown for the community that form for the past couple of years.
One of the surprising elements of the article no one has mention is the confusion with political blogs with paid bloggers like HotAir.com or Huffington Post with majority of science blogs found in scienceblogs . This sentence from the Ms. Heffernan’s article show this confusion :
—Seed Media Group, which oversees ScienceBlogs, eventually killed off the commercial blog, but the staff bloggers kept leaving.—
Reading posts from blogs like DrugMonkey, Are you scicurious?, and Terra Sigillata, and Neuron Culture indicate that these blogs are side project/ hobby not a full time job. Many individuals who blog are professors, grad students, or writers that blog to masses to educated and invite discussion on science from anyone who can read and understand the material presented. Also soapbox for interests and views of individual bloggers that wish to present that show actual person behind those post on the blog. That makes me come back and read those blogs every time a new post show up on my reader.
August 1st, 2010 at 8:30 pm
You fine people take Ms. Heffernan much too seriously. Don’t worry, no one else does and as such, the science blogs will emerge from this dustup quite unscathed (although perhaps with more readers).
We at Fire Tom Friedman have been tracking Virginia for some time:
http://firetomfriedman.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
August 1st, 2010 at 10:12 pm
I’d like to put forth a mild defense of Ms. Heffernan. More accurately, I guess, a partial defense of her piece.
Much of what she wrote was either misinformed or just plain wrong. She dismissively elides the differences between the “Pepsi-gate” fracas with all manner of prior commercial involvements in news media content, and adopts an unctuous, world-weary tone of derision toward bloggers as newbies who haven’t seen enough of the the battles she has in the MSM to comprehend just when it is reasonable to get upset over something. Furthermore (as even she concedes above) one of her suggested links is to “Watts Up with That”, a site of questionable scientific merit, not to mention considerable ideological axe-bearing. I admit I am baffled at the fact that this was published in the NYTimes; she writes well enough, but on topics which she herself is quick to confess a dearth of knowledge. Virginia, you can’t have it both ways: you can’t profess that as a veteran MSM journalist, you know which fights and sites are worthy of consideration, and then breathlessly profess a virginal naivety of the issues when your site recommendations are found wanting.
(An aside: I really thought that the contraction of print media would produce the silver-lining effect of improving the quality of the remaining outlets. I figured the decimation of so many print institutions would naturally lead to the concentration of the high quality writers and reporters at the few surviving institutions. Sadly, this does not seem to have occurred. Anyone know why? But I digress….)
However, I actually found her piece spot-on in taking the sci-blogs to task on their uncivil tone and rabid ideological bent. Sure, she paints with far too broad a brush, generalizing sci-blogs based on a few popular examples. But as someone who has read Pharyngula for ten years or so, I share her dismay at its descent into a monotonous screed against religion. When I first started reading it, Pharyngula was a very enjoyable site, filled with biological ephemera that I likely would never have come across otherwise. Gradually, however, PZ became “all atheist, all the time.” His fame as a blogger quickly eclipsed his notoriety as a science educator, and he seems to have been easily seduced by the echo-chamber of the blogosphere into believing his own schtick. Pharyngula has devolved into a self-infatuated vanity site, in which like-minded atheists see who can post the cleverest, snarkiest put-downs of the common rubes that they are forced to share the country with. And PZ is the worst of the lot, with a preening need to name-drop Dawkins and any other VIP with whom he has contact, combined with paper-thin skin and a petty vindictiveness when confronted by people who share his beliefs but take issue with his tactics. I wonder if Heffernan is even aware of the whole “pictures of the Catholic host in the garbage” thread, which IMHO topped the recent Mohammed cartoon flap as a spectacle of immature attention-seeking masquerading as “science-blogging.” Perhaps his failure as a scientist and his lukewarm career as a educator has left Professor Myers desperately needy for the attention he is now getting. Someone needed to call PZ on it; I just wish it had been a writer with a knowledge base of the subject to take him and his ilk to task.
August 2nd, 2010 at 12:52 am
Hello Virginia: Now that you have been snookered somehow into recommending Watts website, perhaps you would like to do some real investigative reporting. On Climate Progress, there is a comment and a link to a site that might be constructing the fallacious information and graphics used by deniers like Anthony Watts. Here is the link to the site:
http://climateinsiders.wordpress.com/
Here is the comment on Climate Progress:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/01/wattsupwiththat-anthony-watts-steven-goddard/#comment-288400
Do you think you can penetrate their clock of secrecy?
August 2nd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Where Heffernan is wrong:
Alluding to Derrida.
Apologizing (see above) for citing Watts up with That as a reliable science blog, since, in its highly politicized context, it is.
Where she’s right:
Saying this, in reference specifically to the people on ScienceBlogs who give blogging in general such a bad name: “… science blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.”
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 am
The interesting question here, is why did Heffernan recommend the Watts website? I posted a comment over on Deltoid on this:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/post-modernism_rides_again_at.php#comment-2697946
It seems that a lot of people can be fooled by pretty pictures.
August 2nd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
This is a tangential point, but one I feel compelled to raise. As a science journalist, my main interest here is in journalistic integrity. I’m surprised by the fact that a columnist for the New York Times magazine–on any topic–does not “know about denialism.” Forget being able to recognize the content of a particular blog. I mean, how much mainstream news coverage has there been on this topic? Climategate, anyone? I don’t cover sports, but I know who won the World Cup and that Lance Armstrong is under investigation for doping. I’m not a war correspondent, but I keep up with the news from Iraq and Afganistan. There are basic facts about current events that anyone writing for a national publication should be aware of. This disturbs me on a more basic level to do with the state of journalism.
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Any science journalist, especially one with an interest in journalistic integrity, would or should know that “denialism” is merely a propagandistic term put out by political partisans in an effort to discredit normal scientific skepticism and shut down debate. You should be disturbed about the state of journalism, especially your own.
August 2nd, 2010 at 10:06 pm
I think there are two issues at play here. I’ll take the less important one first: the tone of the discussion at Scienceblogs. If the attacks on Virginia are any indication, there are at least a few Sciencebloggers who are willing to make arguments nasty and personal, which sort of proves her point. Second and more important is the issue of journalistic integrity that David writes about. As a science journalist, if I’d been blogging at a place where Pepsi was presented as a source of unbiased nutrition expertise, I’d have left, too. It’s like hiring Karl Rove to get fair and balanced political commentary. I was surprised that a journalist would downplay a breakdown of the ad-ed wall. If journalists don’t fight that battle, who will?
August 3rd, 2010 at 9:23 am
Virginia Heffernan has “no training in science” and apparently hasn’t read a blog in five years.
Hey, Virginia should write an article about science blogging! Where can we find a publication clueless enough to publish it?
August 3rd, 2010 at 9:44 am
Hefferman: “I have no training in science. I linked to [WUWT] because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before. I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism.”
Then you are completely unqualified to write on this subject, so why are you (poorly) attempting it? If by your own admission you cannot judge scientific arguments on their merits, how dare you attempt to critique the means by which scientists make those arguments?
The NYT also employs John Tierney, another ignorant dilettante who looks down on real scientists for not being fashionably contrarian enough. Nice work if you can get it.
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:56 am
Heffernan says she did not even know what a climate change denier is, or that such people existed. I guess she does not read the New York Times, which has covered climate change denial quite a few times, for example recently at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=climate%20change%20denialism&st=cse.
I cannot believe that the NYT, to which i subscribe, published her article in the Sunday magazine. Heffernan’s article is certainly not “news fit to print”, it is misinformed gossip and totally superficial analysis.
Regarding the supposed vitriol and sneering on scienceblogs.com, it seems to me that Heffernan, like many non-scientists, is simply not aware that science is an activity that encourages lively debate and critical thinking, as well as criticism of your colleagues. At scientific meetings many scientists debate each other in passionate ways which sometimes include sneering. The peer review system also often involves very harsh criticism of another scientist’s work. This is completely normal in science, and it is healthy. What Heffernan fails to understand is that some groups, for example creationists, deserve nothing less than sneering and contempt, for they are a threat to science education.
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I have a little different perspective on this as a non-scientist– which I posted to my blog. I won’t cut and paste it here, since it is pretty long, but the gist of it is that in addition to protecting scientific integrity, we lay people rely on you smart guys to do your best to protect us from bad science. We have no choice. The public is already bombarded by dubious scientific claims. If the scientific community fails to hold the line between science and commerce, we are ripe for the picking by corporate con artists ( I have a perfect example in my post). The lay person perspective may not seem germane to this debate, but since these blogs–and Ms. Heffernan’s article–are in the public domain I thought I’d throw it out there:
http://priorbadacts.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/yes-virginia-we-do-need-an-ad-ed-wall/
August 3rd, 2010 at 3:48 pm
It’s been a few months since I regularly visited Watts’ blog. While I did so, and having posted a few times to it expressing skepticism, I’ve suffered no negative effects, except perhaps the spit take and need to clean some coffee from my monitor.
Michele, I have a suggestion, since yours seems to be the sanest post here so far*: Science makes no absolute claims. Any lay person can obtain sufficient reassurance from that fact. Scientists, on the other hand, are just like other categories of humans, in that they will use absolutes to further personal agendas or just to get your goat. While it requires more effort than might seem convenient, your best bet is to examine the science behind the absolutes asserted by scientists, and do your best to pare away their self-serving rhetoric to get to what science is actually saying: This is the best explanation we have, today. It could still be the best tomorrow, or it could require modifications either minor or profound. Any scientist who diverges from that allows us to assume the best (just blowing smoke to build up his or her ego) or the worst (straining for that next million in grants but is not pretty enough to sleep his or her way to it).
There’s no such thing as bad science. There are today’s best explanations that become tomorrow’s debunked best explanations. There are plenty of bad scientists, but then that is also true of plumbers and surgeons. We just have to do our best to weed through them.
* I make no assumptions about the sanity of other commentators here. That was a relative judgment, and I like to be honest when I post.
August 4th, 2010 at 4:39 am
It seems to me its less of an issue whether “(S)cience blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.” is unfairly broad to individual science bloggers, but whether what she describes is a significant portion of science blogs.
Or to put it another way, is she accurately describing a noticeable culture within the science blogging community, and is that culture she describes problematic?
August 5th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
To Adriana:
I agree that rigorous debate, which sometimes crosses the line into invective, is a necessary and indeed welcome part of good science. But I think is is disingenuous to suggest that the stuff on Pharyngula that Heffernan seems to find objectionable is somehow part of a peer-review process. Taking pictures of stolen Communion wafers in the garbage and publishing them online has about as much to do with “science” as the “Real Housewives of Whereever” has to do with reality. Self-righteous assholes come in many flavors; Myers just happens to have a thin veneer of scientific respectability (i.e an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, with no peer-reviewed publications of his own since 1998) to hide behind
August 6th, 2010 at 2:26 am
With only 110 million blogs out there it’s clear they must all be similar in some way.
August 15th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I’m a little late to the party; sorry. Perspective here from a fiction person who wandered into biochem and history-of-science and (I’m sorry) science studies.
My experience is that the world of science blogging is (refreshingly, to my mind) different from the world of blogging in general: much more like the old Usenet, much more resilient when it comes to frank argument and attack. And I suspect that’s because scientists are trained in argument in ways people who grow up in other disciplines aren’t usually. The science blogosphere is also, I think, considerably more willing to hear people out. Endlessly scrolling and reasonably well-argued posts are par, and that’s quite unusual elsewhere in the blogosphere, where it’s considered rude to, you know, make people read lots.
The other thing I don’t think Virginia quite gets is that while she’s right about the “eek an advertiser” business being mosquito bites in other media, it isn’t here, and it needn’t be; I’ve written about this here: http://bit.ly/apeUlu (Virginia, there’s also some talk there to do with your cocked-head question about whether blogs have ossified), but I’ll add that despite the political nonsense that’s ordinary in science*, there’s much more at stake for scientists in avoiding commercial taint than there is for most journalists, which is why — and maybe Virginia was unaware of it — there’s been such brouhaha over who funds the research that eventually winds up in JAMA and other high-impact journals and what the contract terms are.
*which Virginia ought to have been aware of. Really, there’s billions of dollars involved, and one-shot career tracks; what kind of higher life form did you think scientists were?
I don’t read Pharyngula, incidentally; am just not interested. There are so many good science bloggers out there, and the level of conversation among them’s so generally high, that it’s quite unnecessary to read the Hitchenses of this sphere unless you’re simply incurious and unwilling to follow a few links to the good stuff.
I don’t think Virginia’s recognized, either, the part the blogs and blog comments have played in the way that scientific institutions have tried to reckon with the uses, liabilities, value of various kinds of social media; also in the sci bloggers’ communication with media/arts/humanities types. I can only repeat that it’s been some of the best conversation I’ve seen since the old academic days of Usenet. Practically Victorian in the expenditure of time and serious effort in the thinking, plus a lot of fun.
In any case I think Bora’s probably got it right when he said the problem is (not blogging but) an unwieldy and poorly-supported hub, which is fragmenting now.