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ScienceBlogs.com Deals With Community Backlash Over PepsiCo Column

Posted by Soulskill on from the ray-charles-would-be-disappointed dept.

History's Coming To writes "Several writers for the ScienceBlogs.com collective have publicly resigned from the site, and many more have voiced concerns over parent company Seed's decision to include a paid blog under the nutrition category from PepsiCo. The blog was to be written by PepsiCo food scientists, detailing their work. The UK's Guardian newspaper has picked up on the story, and includes a letter from Seed editor Adam Bly which covers the company's rationale." The ScienceBlogs Team later canceled the PepsiCo blog and apologized, instead leaving their users with a few tough questions: "How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? ... How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"

60 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Translation by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? ... How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"

    Translation: "Damn, how do we get away with this next time? Do you know how much money Pepsi was giving us for selling out your reputations? This 'wall between editorial and advertising' concept is so outmoded and pre-Web 2.0, you know."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
    1. Re:Translation by spirality · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why aren't government scientists treated with as much skepticism as corporate scientists?

    2. Re:Translation by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's little incentive for government scientists studying nutrition, for instance, to come up with findings that indicate that a certain product is "nutritious" when it may not be.

      Is that why the FDA produced a "food pyramid" which bases the diet on carbohydrates which we know and for centuries have known will cause heart disease and obesity in cases of overconsumption? And why the new revision of it is still overly carb-heavy, though they did reduce the percentage of carb content they recommend for their diet? Is it just simple coincidence that the original food pyramid came out about the same time as the plethora of processed foods hit the shelves? Is it a simple coincidence that Monsanto is one of the biggest government lobbyists, and that the FDA requires any dairy product which states that it does not use rBGH to carry a notice that the FDA has detected no difference between milk from cows with and without rBGH, which is an outright lie?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Translation by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In theory, the government does not have the same profit motive as big corporations, and therefore should have less incentive to produce specific results. In practice, though, "The business of the United States is business."

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    4. Re:Translation by hedwards · · Score: 2, Informative

      It never got off the ground because there was a bad reaction to it. It's not that the blog was necessarily going to be biased, it's that there was a very clear conflict of interest going on. It would've been very different had Pepsi not paid for the space and it was clearly disclosed who was writing it. That's how journalists have handled such things in the past, it would still have to be as unbiased as possible, but disclosure goes a long way.

    5. Re:Translation by Jawnn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why aren't government scientists treated with as much skepticism as corporate scientists?

      Man, it must be so nice to live in a world like yours, where the greed and corruption of corporate influence is completely invisible. You know, that world built on the bullshit meme about how "government scientists" have some agenda other than science. You know, all those snooty "intellectual elite" government scientists taking tax-payer money to come up with "theories" that debunk the "scientific" advances produced by hard-working American business scientists.

      That said, if the Pepsico "scientists" have anything to add to the exchange of information and ideas at ScienceBlogs, they should be welcome there. But if their aim was to use that platform as another tool to advance their corporate agenda, as was quite clearly the case, then they and the idiots who allowed it deserve all the ridicule and rejection that can be heaped upon them.

    6. Re:Translation by Jawnn · · Score: 3, Informative

      Your mistake is in assuming that the FDA represents science. That's just silly. It is a political body, ostensibly charged with regulating the food and drug industries so that those products are "safe and effective". Politics, not science, drives the actions of that body. If science, defined as that body of research which is beholden only to the pursuit of knowledge (believe it or not that still exists, largely in academia), were allowed to make the rules that the FDA supposedly enforces, those rules would look very different.

    7. Re:Translation by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is that why the FDA produced a "food pyramid" which bases the diet on carbohydrates which we know and for centuries have known will cause heart disease and obesity in cases of overconsumption?

      Which for centuries were also what built civilizations before our age of abundance. Societies around the globe were built on carbs, whether wheat, or rice, or maize, or sorghum, or potatoes, or cassava, or ensete, or amaranth, or quinoa, or sago, or breadfruit, or plantain, or teff, or millet, or whatever. High carb foods are what sustained humanity throughout most of its existence. This is because we've known for centuries that those foods provide the large amounts of energy that the body needs to keep going, and in the case of the food pyramid, it is assumed that you're using that energy. You can't retcon a conspiracy because lifestyles changed.

      that the FDA requires any dairy product which states that it does not use rBGH to carry a notice that the FDA has detected no difference between milk from cows with and without rBGH

      There's an xkcd for everything.

      which is an outright lie?

      Got a strong source for that? And no, sites like this are not valid citations.

    8. Re:Translation by Parafilmus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is that why the FDA produced a "food pyramid" which bases the diet on carbohydrates...?

      The "Food Pyramid" is not published by the FDA. It's published by the USDA, whose mission is to promote American agriculture. Their pyramid is basically an ad campaign masquerading as a public service.

    9. Re:Translation by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stick it to the man bro ! Down with capitalist pig science and invention ! Let the state do it !

      Say, who turned out the lights ? Hmmm, the phone's not working ... where's my cell phone ?.

      Frankly even the more "abstract" science largely 0comes from 1 of 2 sources : "scientists" who were really businessmen first and scientist second (or third, or fourth, in most cases), and the church. Massive government sponsorship for science is mostly less than a century old (and already they have a monopoly).

      That's why it'd be a good idea for both private individuals and companies to be involved in science. Of course, you'd have to check something before you start believing it. Somehow we think that no checks are necessare when the state ("university"/"national center for X"/...) comes with science ? That's my second point. Yes individuals lie, and they lie a lot. Companies lie, and they lie a lot. But why does the state get a free pass from everyone here ? Government scientists lie too.

      In actuality the best option, imho, would be to continue as science used to work : that everyone believes whatever they like to believe, and no-one gets shielded from the real world. Of course given our "tolerant" attitudes on things ranging from Darwinism to (A)GW, half of slashdot would break out the pitchforks before they let this happen. And of course, getting it spoon-fed from the government (only the "approved" discoveries, of course) is much easier. No-one really needs to know what history tells us about just how many gene lines survive in a natural selection environment, and how many die out (for every species alive today, there's at least a million species that died out, and probably more than that)

      Scientists used to worship dissent, even stupid dissent.
      Now it just worships government money.

      "It's even worse than we thought", "jewish flesh is toxic to look at" (whoops, wrong state sponsoring)

    10. Re:Translation by spirality · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who said I was not skeptical of the corporate scientists? Clearly they can not be always be trusted.

      I was just pointing out how corporate scientists always get a bad rap and how government scientists tend to get a free pass.

      But in fact government scientists have an interest in promoting ideas that free up more funds for their research. Also, as government employees/contractors, they have an interest in pleasing the source of their monies.

      Basically it comes down to this. When a government scientist reaches conclusions that call for more government you should view such conclusions with some skepticism because of the inherent conflict of interest that exists.

      Just like when Phillip Morris's research department says smoking is actually good for you.

      Just like when businesses promote legislation that benefits them.

      You must always ask "cui bono"?

    11. Re:Translation by Vintermann · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you look at other countries, you will see that they got their food pyramids at around the same time. Were they influence by Monsanto, too? All of them?

      ... carbohydrates which we know and for centuries have known will cause heart disease and obesity in cases of overconsumption?

      Which is different from fat how, exactly? The claim that excessive consumption of fat does not cause heart disease and obesity is a rather modern one. And it's a wrong one. And it's a product of the immensely profitable health fad industry.

      Regarding labeling, that's a case of regulatory capture. Blaming that on the evil of government scientists is a bit far fetched.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    12. Re:Translation by ukyoCE · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This. Carbohydrates are not bad. The obesity epidemic of the past decade or two clearly has nothing to do with carbohydrates (alone).

      Low-fiber foods that don't make you feel full? Sure.

      Overly-refined foods packed with excessive sugar? Sure.

      Beverages (including milk, but namely soda and "diet" soda) with as many calories as a meal? Sure.

      Every time I see someone claim carboyhydrates are bad for you I put my face in my palm and shake my head slowly.

    13. Re:Translation by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 3, Informative

      If by 55% you mean 11%. So does white wheat flour. Quinoa comes in at 15%, although it can be higher, so it's a good source of protein, and it has a lot more essential amino acids than most things, so it's a good crop for sure, but it is still akin to a carbohydrate staple food.

    14. Re:Translation by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I don't get the bad rap carb foods seem to be getting. I'm not a nutritionist, but it is my understanding that the deal with carbs is just that they are high in energy, and if you're burning a lot of energy, no problem. But today, we're not using all that energy, but we still want our carbs, and our fats, and our sugars, and in large quantities. We want our big greasy burger, and that pile of fries, and a nice cold soda to wash it down. And then the laws of physics rear their their ugly head. All those excess kcals have to go somewhere, and the body still thinks a lion could chase us away from our food supply at any second, so it won't poop them out, and they end up around our middles, and with that comes the problems associated with obesity. If you look at China, they've been eating large amounts of carb filled rice for so long, but only now, with the increased demand for the fats and oils and sugars to go with their rice do we see obesity really rising. The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with what carbs do, all they do is provide higher quantities of energy, just so long as you match your energy in with your energy out.

    15. Re:Translation by Hatta · · Score: 2, Informative

      Low-fiber foods that don't make you feel full? Sure.

      Fat and protein make you feel full. What's left? Carbs.

      Overly-refined foods packed with excessive sugar? Sure.

      What do you think sugar is? It's a carbohydrate.

      Beverages (including milk, but namely soda and "diet" soda) with as many calories as a meal? Sure.

      Milk? If you're drinking half and half, sure.

      Soda? It's sweetened with glucose and fructose. Carbohydrates.

      Diet soda? How many calories are in a diet soda? Go ahead, look it up.

      Anyay, carbohydrates aren't bad for you. But too many carbohydrates are. All these factors that you readily admit are contributing to the obesity epidemic are in fact directly related to the abundance of cheap carbs in the American diet.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  2. how to do it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    PepsiCo food scientists are more than welcome to conduct research, and they're more than welcome to detail their findings in papers. However, to be taken seriously, those papers should be submitted to peer-reviewed journals and published via standard procedures. Under no circumstances should they pay blogs to include those postings/papers if they want to be appear impartial.

    1. Re:how to do it by cyp43r · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Equating paying for an entry and being able to comment on it is just not on. A lot of people don't read the comments and the comments are not given nearly the same weight. The Pepsi scientists are given equal weighting with all the other things they're reporting despite clear motivations for fraud.

  3. what's the problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everything was fully disclosed and on the up and up. Are Pepsi scientists to be shunned just because they work for Pepsi? What am I missing here?

    1. Re:what's the problem? by MacDork · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What am I missing here?

      It's a blog posting and not a paper in a peer reviewed journal. And considering how the internet works, many folks would pick up on that blog post and cite it as fact.

      It would be equivalent to a cigarette company scientist posting things on a blog about the health effects of smoking.

      So it's like Wikipedia. I don't see the problem. You talk as if you are trying to protect stupid people from themselves. I'd prefer if we let people read all sources, determine the veracity of those sources themselves, and make up their own damn mind about things. You know, freedom of speech, press, religion...

  4. Asinine by Spazntwich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While these are important questions, it should be obvious from their past behavior that PepsiCo as an organization is not interested in any layman's definition of "nutrition."

    High fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING, food products that boil down to simple carbs, trans fats and salt, and beverages that are little more than sugar water with some caramel coloring. This is a company designed to maximize profit by exploiting the still-ingrained hunter-gatherer instincts in us all, and what of the externalities associated with a lifestyle of chugging soft drinks and pounding Cheetos and Fritos? Fuck it.

    These guys deserve greater scrutiny than the tobacco companies, and to wail about their trials and tribulations attempting to engage a public that is becoming more health conscious after foisting products upon them that encourage obesity, high blood pressure, and compulsive consumption is the highest form of absurdity.

    1. Re:Asinine by TouchAndGo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm very sorry that a can of Pepsi killed your mother and molested your dog, but don't you think that perhaps this much anger directed toward a company that produces junk food is a little unwarranted?

      They provide something that people want, then you rage at THEM for that? If no one was buying their product then they wouldn't be in business, so how about directing a little bit of that ranting in the direction of the general public that supports them, because last time I checked no one is marching into people's homes and forcing cola down people's throats.

      Foisting it upon them? Please

    2. Re:Asinine by Zironic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think the HFCS issue you americans suffer from is Pepsi's fault, in other continents they use different sources of sugar, it's just that your government has decided to make corn so cheap that using other sources of sweetness becomes financially unsound, if consumers were actually willing to pay more for non HFCS soft drinks I'm sure you'd see them on the market as the soft drink companies have no inherent interest in serving you bad sugar, they just want to sell soft drinks.

    3. Re:Asinine by Spazntwich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, you're one of those "free will" types who believes people are rational actors. Quaint.

      While each person certainly bears personal responsibility for his actions, psychology hasn't given us the notion of the enabler for kicks. Social responsibility starts at the top.

      I also take issue with your claims that people "want" corn so processed it retains zero nutritional value, fats so perverted the body can barely process them, and sugar that is heavily biased towards being stored as fat rather than burned that then creates a depressed insulin response and the near-instant desire for more. Their "food" is the equivalent to crack, heavily engineered to maximize appeal and shelf-life at the expense of its resemblance to genuine nutrition. Nobody benefited from the switch away from sucrose and unprocessed oils except their executives.

      Also, while my wording is strong, your speculation on my emotional state says more about yours. What's got you defending the purveyors of food that have had a heavy hand in the worldwide increase in obesity, diabetes, and all sorts of other fun chronic conditions that we all pay for in the end?

      I am not angry that they sell what they do. I am irritated that they sell what they do and pretend there's any nutritional value to it, and I am bitterly amused by you folks with no appreciation for the malleability of the average consumer's mind.

    4. Re:Asinine by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's actually the government's fault, Nixon's fault to be precise.

      You should watch this presentation on fructose if you are interested to find out why exactly the fructose is a poison equivalent to ethanol (alcohol) and how it kills you slowly in the same way and causes obesity and other diseases in humans.

      What is interesting is how this came about, by the Nixon's government deciding that they want to eliminate food prices as an issue for reelection. Nixon - the same guy responsible for getting away from sound money (gold standard), they same guy setting up minimum wage laws, while opening the job market to China, the same guy who destroyed the working health insurance for people by getting government subsidies into it and causing the insurance prices to skyrocket, this guy is also responsible for the deteriorating health of the humans in this world through consumption of fructose.

      By fixing food prices to make them 'stable', he caused the food producers to start searching for new and exciting ways of using the cheapest ingredients available, obviously that would be the most subsidized ingredients - corn, soy, wheat, rice (cotton as well, but that's not food.)

      By getting government into health insurance (CHIP), he created a moral hazard for the medical establishment that allowed it to spike the prices up, which happens only when government guarantees to pay, same problem with government loans for higher education - prices shoot up.

      By creating minimum wage laws the jobs below the minimum wage disappeared, this increases unemployment and kills entire segments of jobs (does anybody check your oil and tire pressure at a gas station anymore?) Doing this while opening trade with the cheapest provider of labor is asking for destruction of your own production capacity, which is the real reason behind the economy going south.

      Nixon was an interesting fella, he allowed the special interests to dominate and to take over.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    5. Re:Asinine by Spazntwich · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They probably shouldn't.

      There's increasing evidence that... well, there's just no point to arguing because people's internalized beliefs are fairly static.

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/03/confirmation-bias-scientific-evidence

      "The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord, Ross and Lepper in 1979: they took two groups of people, one in favour of the death penalty, the other against it, and then presented each with a piece of scientific evidence that supported their pre-existing view, and a piece that challenged it; murder rates went up or down, for example, after the abolition of capital punishment in a state.

      The results were as you might imagine. Each group found extensive methodological holes in the evidence they disagreed with, but ignored the very same holes in the evidence that reinforced their views."

      But that doesn't make the arguing less fun!

    6. Re:Asinine by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I used to think that people's point of view was malleable, but the study you linked to convinced me otherwise. I have therefore changed my mind.

      --
      Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
    7. Re:Asinine by wonkavader · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Years ago, I was amused and horrified when I went to a talk by Carl Schank. He was saying that people don't think when they converse. Instead, they just listen for key words and index those to stories they can reply with, such that a conversation is just one story after another, related only by key words, not key ideas.

      One of the people listening to the talk said "Well, but right now, I'm asking you a question about your comment. How does that fit? it seems like I'm thinking about what you say, and reacting to the ideas, rather than simply repeating a story."

      Schank waves his hands and says, approximately, "No, no, no. I'm not talking about us, here. I'm talking about Them. You know, normal people."

      So much for that theory. Only not. Because the theory and the study actually still holds, to some extent. It holds with dumb people most of the time, and smart people some of the time. We can all be rational actors when we want to exert that effort. The problem is that it's an effort.

      For some people it's really, really hard, and for other's it's not so hard. We need to teach people to do it more, and we need to understand that they don't do it a lot of the time and react/legislate accordingly. You cannot argue that people are 100% rational actors and thus we should get the hell out of their way, and you cannot argue that people are lemmings, and we need to make a safe cage for them. To do either is a rhetorical trick to prevent action.

    8. Re:Asinine by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Some of us will pay more. Until I see a "Hecho en Mexico" sticker on a bottle of Coca-Cola, I won't buy it. The bottlers there use sugar, while US bottlers use HFCS.

      'course, they also use a different recipe, which is probably why you prefer it.

      I used to think Canada didn't use HFCS in it's Coke. "But I prefer the taste!" I would say, and that's certainly true. But it has fuck-all to do with the sugar, because they use HFCS here, too. What they *do* do is use a different recipe in Canada, though, hence the flavour difference.

      Incidentally, I've also had Mexican Coke, and guess what? It tastes pretty similar to the Canadian version... which is just further evidence that what you prefer is the formula, not the sweetener.

    9. Re:Asinine by Wheat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, there is no reason to stop eating fruit. If you'd watched the linked video on sugar, you would know that it's only when the liver is overwhelmed with fructose that it freaks out and follows the pathway to convert the fructose into a harmful substance. In small, slowly absorbed doses, fructose is converted to glycogen in the liver where it's used for fuel. Eating 2 or 3 apples, not a worry. Drinking a few cans of pop, and that's an equivalent fructose dose of 20 or 30 apples, and all that fructose is going to hit the liver faster than it would take to digest even half of a whole apple.

    10. Re:Asinine by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm very sorry that a can of Pepsi killed your mother and molested your dog

      NO! The can molested my mother and killed my dog, you insensitive clod!

      Then it ate my cat!

      I'll get you, can!

      CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!!!

    11. Re:Asinine by StopKoolaidPoliticsT · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nixon - the same guy responsible for getting away from sound money (gold standard)

      Nixon gave it the final death blow, but FDR killed the gold/silver certificate in 1933. Truman later agreed to the Bretton Woods Agreement, in which foreign currencies were fixed to US dollars, effectively making the dollar the world's standard. During Vietnam (which France had actually helped cause), France ended up draining the gold reserves backing the US dollars, ultimately leading to Nixon's decision to permanently cease the gold standard.

      they same guy setting up minimum wage laws

      Again, minimum wage laws, as well as wage and price controls, started under FDR as part of the New Deal. You can also thank union organizers, who wanted to use the government to encourage people to join the unions in order to get a job (mostly because the union bosses wanted more dues to put in their pockets). People were desperate to earn money and would willingly take pennies just to do some type of meaningful work to take care of their families. The unions didn't want to be undercut and have their workers put out of work, so they cozied up to FDR and used the government to harm non-union workers (the entire National Recovery Act was built largely on helping the unions while harming business owners and non-union workers).

      the same guy who destroyed the working health insurance for people by getting government subsidies into it and causing the insurance prices to skyrocket

      Health insurance didn't exist prior to the New Deal. It was a way to get around the imposed wage controls in order to keep good help. In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid were passed because "it wasn't fair" that working people had their health costs paid for but poor and elderly people didn't. Thus, it wasn't Nixon that started subsidizing health care, but LBJ as part of the Great Society as a reaction to an unintended consequence from the previous government interference under the New Deal. Ted Kennedy created the HMO system, which Nixon signed, as a result of Medicare/Medicaid destabilizing the existing insurance market. Another side effect of that, was Social Security reform in 1967 which allowed the government to use the Social Security surplus to cover up the exploding budget deficits caused by Medicare/Medicaid (which had greatly exceeded cost estimates) and the escalation of Vietnam. Oh, and, of course, today, we need a new government health care system to save us from the existing problems that government health care caused. As an added bonus, Social Security is running in the red already and we'll have to borrow money to pay it. Forget the $13 trillion debt, that's small potatoes; We owe $109.5 trillion in unfunded liabilities and they start adding to the debt NOW as boomers start to retire. Doubly so if the rumored legislation to get people to retire early to "create" jobs for younger people happens.

      By fixing food prices to make them 'stable', he caused

      Again, it goes back to FDR, the New Deal and the Great Depression. Did you know that FDR ordered tons of food destroyed, while people were starving, to prop up the price? Did you know that under him, it became illegal to grow wheat for your own consumption (see Wickard v. Filburn)?

      By getting government into health insurance (CHIP), he created a moral hazard for the medical establishment that allowed it to spike the prices up, which happens only when government guarantees to pay,

      Nixon signed Ted Kennedy's HMO system into law. Clinton signed CHIP into law and it was expanded under GWB and Obama. And, again, it was Medicaid/Medicare which drove up the costs, making existing insurance plans insufficient, resulting in more government interference in health care to shore up the private plans.

      same problem with government loans for higher education - prices shoot up.

      Again, thank FDR for that, passing th

      --
      Stop Koolaid Politics
  5. Re: That question at the end by matt4077 · · Score: 5, Informative
    "How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?"

    Not by paying Seed/Scienceblogs, that's for sure. How about publishing papers if you have a scientific point to make? Or, if you want to avoid the formality of those, how about a blog at science.pepsi.com? Let the content speak for itself without paying anyone to get a ride on their reputation.

    But the real question Seed is faced with is probably "How are we supposed to make money from ScienceBlogs if you won't let us sell out to a company that's probably killing more people than Philip Morris ever did?"

    --
    Fleur de Sel
  6. And we can only blame ourselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, it is. But well, we all know how well subscription based models tend to work out. And not a lot of people donate to their favorite sites, either. And increasingly large amount of people hate advertisements and use adblock. (You can go on about "Well, that's originally THEIR fault for all the flashy banners and whatnot" but it is irrelevant, really. Even sites with a decent advertisement policies get hurt.) Any ads that can be identified as such can be blocked... So our behaviour is forcing the site owners to either wrap things up or come up with ads that don't look so much like ads. PayPerPost product reviews and the like.

    (Yeah, as someone who has worked in internet advertising and currently earns some decent revenue from my sites, I am about as biased as we come. But I personally had the options of either stop delivering content to my readers and find something else to do or start earning by more questionable advertising. I think that really, many of you would have done what I did and could still sleep your nights well.)

    1. Re:And we can only blame ourselves by RobertLTux · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The biggest problem is sites that have articles spread across 15 different pages because 70% of each page is taken up by
      1 Site banner
      2 Section Banner
      3 Ad banner
      3 subsection banner
      4 social networking/ list every fracking blog block
      5 affiliates block
      6 random ad blocks
      7 multiple intra-site link blocks
      8 brainless poll blocks
      9 Rich media blocks
      10 ect
      11 audnauseum

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  7. Current list and other details by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Carl Zimmer has a more detailed breakdown of what happened with a list of what bloggers are moving- http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2010/07/07/oh-pepsi-what-hath-thou-wrought/. Major bloggers leaving include Mark Chu-Carroll of Good Math/Bad Math, and Rebecca Skloot (who may be known to many more for her excellent book on HeLa cells and their namesake than for blogging). This wasn't a single isolated instance that is causing these people to leave, but for many the final straw in what they saw as very problematic and difficult to work with people at Seed Magazine (which runs Scienceblogs). Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority discusses some of these issues here- http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2010/07/pepsico_scienceblogs_and_the_f.php (he's uncertain if he is leaving or not and so may be a moderate voice). Meanwhile Abbie Smith of ERV thinks that much of the reaction is hysterics and hypocrisy http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2010/07/sciblogs_caves_to_hysterics.php.

  8. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What if I am NOT influenced by adverts, do not click them and avoid the products mentioned within them?

    You are influenced by adverts whether you know it or not. Now, your conscious influence may be stronger than the unconscious; I am fairly adept at detecting the manipulation attempted by advertisement, and it makes me angry. But that doesn't make you immune to the techniques used. It only means that they must be employed more subtly to work on you.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  9. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by neokushan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely the fact that you actively avoid the products mentioned within the advertisements means that you are influenced by them?

    --
    +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
  10. Mucha ado... by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If they are open about the source of the material and that it is paid I really don't see anything wrong with it. Readers will be aware that the blog is coming from a specific viewpoint and source; and can decide how much credibility they have and what biases may exist. To me, it's better than the blogger who may have an unrevealed conflict of interest or bias yet presents their viewpoint as factual and unbiased.

    The broader issue is, as pointed out, how do you engage with the broader public? Scientific papers are nice but most people never know they exist, let alone read them. An open forum allows a level of interaction and skeptical inquiry that rarely exists today; cutting that off is not very useful. Of course, the cynic in me thinks there are people, on both sides, who don't desire such rational discussion since it may go against long held positions and point out fallacies in those positions. Silencing a messenger is teh easist way to prevent the message from being delivered.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  11. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mod parent +1: Refreshing.

  12. Re:The LeftischScienceBlog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Then get on there, with some facts and figures, and change it. I am So Very Tired of people claiming science has political leanings. Science isn't left or right, science IS. If you can't prove that they are wrong, or show logical steps that they are missing in their conclusion, then they are right and you are wrong, until you can prove otherwise. It's okay to be wrong sometimes.

  13. "dialogue" (Ha!) by Type44Q · · Score: 2, Insightful

    " 'How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?' " Companies do not "seek" anything; the people who run them seek something... but it surely isn't dialogue. Any appearance to the contrary is just that, an appearance.

  14. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The complete opposite influence they want me to have maybe?

    I don't understand your comment.

    Even if it's the opposite effect of what they would like you to do, it's still an influence. So you saying that you are "not influenced" is 100% wrong. It's just not the type of influence the advertisers would like to have on you. This really isn't that hard to understand.

  15. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What if I am NOT influenced by adverts,

    Then you should immediately report to the nearest psychology lab and make a living being examined for this highly unusual trait.

    Advertisement today contains more science than Spirit and Opportunity. It practically is a science of its own - the science of manipulating masses, often unconsciously, and especially in such a way that they are either unaware of it or in complete denial.

    Ockhams Razor says you are not immune, you are in denial.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  16. Re:Not clear what the problem is by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I can't even find the PepsiCo blog to read it to see what was so terrible about it, and everything I read just says "IT WAS FROM AN EVIL CORPORATION" which doesn't say shit about the content or the quality of its science.

    High quality science can come out of corporate labs, but only when it is in the interests of the company. There is little doubt that PepsiCo scientists are well aware of the health effects of their companies products, but there isn't a snowball's chance in a sauna that such information will ever be released on their blog. In the meantime, the carefully controlled flow of information putting the company and its products in a positive light gains credence and respectability by being on a credible site such a Scienceblogs, and all the while every other blog on the site loses credence by having this propaganda held up next to their content.

    This has been dubbed corporate propaganda, and it's a succinct and insightful description. The entity known as PepsiCo may have been granted the human freedom of speech to engage in this sort of thing, but that doesn't mean other people have to associate themselves with it.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  17. Re:they should set up their fscking own blog by Eponymous+Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A Pepsi site would have zero credibility - at first. Science is science, doesn't matter who is doing it or why. Publish your results and let others scrutinize and try to replicate the results. Pepsi could indeed build a positive reputation for research, much in the same way that Bell Labs did so many years ago.

  18. What a deceitful framing of the issue. by jonnat · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How do we empower top scientists working in industry to lead science-minded positive change within their organizations? ... How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?

    It's rather simple: open your blog network to scientists who work in industry, which you already do.

    It's rather dishonest to claim that the backlash from your sell-out of the site has the effect of preventing industry scientists to engage in "genuine dialogue" with the broad scientific community. If anything prevents this engagement, it's the draconian IP protection rules companies impose to their R&D staff. If a company is genuinely interested in a dialogue and not disguised propaganda, they can simply allow their researchers to have blogs in which they can discuss their work or issues they encounter in their environment.

  19. Reality cracking by improfane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is definitely a science like you say but it doesn't mean you cannot learn the science yourself. It's called 'reality cracking' and it's absolutely fascinating:

    http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/realicra.htm

    The idea behind reality cracking is that if you can begin to understand how the adverts work, you can become more aware and wise to how supermarkets, adverts abuse and play on you.

    If I do not see the adverts, I am more unlikely to buy them. I do not see adverts on TV because I don't watch it, I don't see them online either. I also read to become aware of the tricks. It saves me more time this way.

    I don't have an iPhone. I don't have a Mac, I try buy products that advertise less (like unheard of brands). I am a simpleton.

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
  20. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The complete opposite influence they want me to have maybe?

    I guarantee that you have not been able to ignore advertising or cause it to have the opposite influence. You're fooling yourself.

    What kind of computer do you use? What kind of portable media player? I guarantee that you chose them because of advertising. You know which components to buy when you build a computer because of advertising. You know which cereal to buy because of advertising.

    Even if you buy the cheap store-brand of corn flakes, it's because the store-brand is piggy-backing off the effect that Kellogs' advertising had on you or you wouldn't even know to buy corn flakes.

    I bet you know the names of Apple's laptop computers. I bet you know the names of the individual programs in Adobe's Creative Suite. I bet you can tell me the names of car models made by the biggest car companies. All because of advertising.

    There's a long game in advertising too. Even if you aren't directly influenced to run out and buy a product, you learn the names, you learn the qualities that made one brand better than another. Eventually you will make a decision, and though you think you're making the decision based only upon your own independent thinking, the marketing plays a bigger role than you think.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  21. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by improfane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I understand your point, it may be true of certain things.

    I found the cheapest laptop I could find at the time. In the past all my computer have been bought by untechnical people and they were cheap. I honestly think the software is more important.

    I do not have a personal entertainment player, I read books.

    I dislike Adobe products. I dislike Apple products. I know what they are.

    I cannot drive and I use public transport. I am apathetic for motor vehicles.

    I buy cheap clothes. A pair of jeans is jeans whatever way you look at it.

    The way my life is arranged is that I put products into categories. Nobody can tell me what category a product is in. A cheap plasticy pen is NOT a fountain pen. An optical mouse is NOT a trackball.

    Honestly it's the only differentiation you need. It means you can stop comparing different brands products and learn about the categories that solve your problem.

    I use an old fashioned phone with buttons not a modern phone with a touchscreen. I still maintain I am immune.

    If you understand what a product IS based on what it IS and HOW it does it, then you only need to see businesses as 'providers' for a category of product. I couldn't care less what brand my fountan pen is.

    Most people are hypnotized by branding.

    --
    Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
  22. What is the actual uproar about? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems that most of the rants on this story are with regard to PepsiCo being paid to post on the blog. Does that mean there would not be any of this uproar if they blogged for free? Of course this assumes the other bloggers aren't paid, either. Because if they are, then who is to protect us from their paid agenda?

    However, if one looks at the original question posed: "How do companies who seek genuine dialogue with this community engage?" then it seems somewhat hypocritical to suggest that the only way professional researches who work for a corporation should only be allowed to publish papers into the scientific community, when they already reach that audience and not the general public. And besides, why should this standard only apply to corporate researchers? Government researchers and those in colleges and universities also have a lot at stake in pushing their own agendas.

    I guess what is really at stake here is whether or not this blog site is for the general public or limited to the scientific community. If the latter, aren't scientists and researchers able to discern between what is propaganda or not in their field? And if it is for the scientific community, wouldn't a simple disclosure of the work relationship suffice, like it does in presenting research papers?

    On the other hand, if the site is for the general population to obtain information, then why is it alright for /. for instance, to have professionals in their field to submit stories or comment on stories related to their field. Aren't these posters also tied to some corporation, government or university?

    Of course is sites like ./ or Scieneblogs only allowed non-professionals to post and comment, then they really wouldn't be too useful, would they? Who would use WebMD if the only sources were not from the professional medical community?

    It seems that either the issue is about paid renumeration for content or the content itself. If the purpose of the blog (or even /.) is to allow the free (as in beer) discussion of ideas, then the content should be allowed regardless of renumeration or not. If on the other hand, the concern is that content may be tainted by the contributors ties to industry (or government, etc.) then why just single out content from industry and not other tainted sources. Of course, if all of those tainted sources were screened out, then where would the news and information on such sites actually come from?

    It's is kind of funny that people at Scienceblog resigned over this, based on tainted content. I guess their readers and posters aren't sophisticated enough to discriminate between real science and fluff. /.ers on the other hand seem much more capable of picking apart a scientific article, pointing out insufficiencies and down right falsehoods -- and I'm pretty sure to say that we (/.ers) aren't all professionals.

    Maybe, some of the responses to this article are correct. If you work for industry, government or educational institutions, you should only rely on officially publishing research to get your message out. Of course, they would then have to ignore who is funding the research in the first place as that might lend bias to author's paper.

    In the end, I am glad that /. allows the free dissemination of information without censoring the source, thus allowing the community to accept or reject the information presented.

  23. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Vintermann · · Score: 3, Informative

    A cheap plasticy pen is NOT a fountain pen. An optical mouse is NOT a trackball.

    And how did you decide that you needed the one and not the other?

    Even if you were the one person in the world that was personally totally unaffected by advertising, you wouldn't be free from it. Because you would be living in a society affected by advertising. Even if your choice of soap were totally unaffected by advertising, the kinds of soap your store would stock would not be.

    --
    xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  24. Pot, Kettle.. black? by synthesizerpatel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless every writer on the site does it for free with absolutely no compensation for their effort -- then they too are advertising -- 'themselves'.

    Granted the pepsiblog would probably have been terrible, but it's just another form of advertising.. But before you get all high and mighty, consider National Geographic, which regularly has _TERRIBLE_ borderline scam advertisements (Amish fake-fireplace, $2 bills for $10 + 5/s&h..) they still have great content that is basically subsidized by the worst elements of marketing.

    It's easy to get all pissed off at someone for wanting to cash in a little bit, but if it means the difference between them providing a service, or providing no service.. there's not a lot of ways it can go unless they start charging YOU for reading their content.

  25. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I do not have a personal entertainment player, I read books.

    Why the false dichotomy? I have an iPod *and* I read many books.

    I cannot drive and I use public transport. I am apathetic for motor vehicles.

    I have a 2 seater convertible roadster that can go 140 mph. Does that make me bad?

    I buy cheap clothes. A pair of jeans is jeans whatever way you look at it.

    Actually, I'm finding inverse results there. I gave up on the more expensive Levis because they wear out quickly and they went to a single belt loop in the back a while ago. The $20 Lee jeans I buy online last three times as long.

    Most people are hypnotized by branding.

    [citation needed]

    People are allowed to live their lives differently than you without deserving to be judged as "hypnotized"

  26. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Viperpete · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While I feel that the greater number of people are affected by advertising/brand recognition influencing their purchasing. I take exception to your statement that it is not possible to personally avoid it.

    Stop spending money on crap!

    When it comes to equipment, I chose mine based on what I could get for free from people who did not want them anymore. I may not have the best or newest equipment, but I have a lot of it and if anything craps out I replace it from the pile.

    When it comes to consumables like food, I purchase whatever non-processed lowest priced locally grown stuff I can find, the only time I care about the name on the label is when I do not like it, so as not to purchase it again. When it comes to something that you cannot find that is not branded, beer for example, I try many different types and settle for the one I enjoy the most for the best price.

    I do "recognize" brands, but, I could care less if I'm using my HP flatscreen monitor or the Dell or Acer I have in the basement, I just chose the largest one.

    --
    loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
  27. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm quite certain that you are right about the subconscious influence. It's like I can hear little wheels whirring away, when I am forced to look at an advert. The company and/or the product is categorized and filed under "NEVER BUY FROM THESE ASSHOLES!" Weeks of months later, when I realize that I need some doo-dad, I shop around, and actually search for whatever it is. When I see the name, or trademark, or whatever, I rank that product down about ten notches.

    And, it's not that hard to do, if you're not shopping for "bling". Those companies that spend the most on adverts tend to oversell the bling anyway, and undersell whatever merits the product might have - if any.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  28. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by Omestes · · Score: 2, Informative

    When you define things broad enough, everything can fall into that definition, meaning the definition has become meaningless.

    What kind of computer do you use? What kind of portable media player? I guarantee that you chose them because of advertising. You know which components to buy when you build a computer because of advertising. You know which cereal to buy because of advertising.

    Does spending a couple of hours on Newegg or Tom's Hardware count as advertising? Being aware of a brand itself doesn't mean much, I'm aware of a lot of brands and I don't have a compulsion to purchase them. When I recently bought a new harddrive, I was aware of Seagate, but didn't buy their product, instead buying a Hitachi (I wasn't even really aware they made HDDs, really), after spending a couple of minutes on Tom's looking at benchmarks. Is this an epic win for Hitachi's advertising department, being that I have never seen an advert for their HDDs? As for what type of computer, in general, I am using, it is a piecemeal bunch of parts, most of them I only bought thanks to good old fashioned word of mouth, reading online user reviews, looking at the raw numbers, etc... Advertisements didn't have a damn thing to do with my purchase. The metric for me was purely a ratio between performance (measured by 3rd parties) and price.

    I do own an iPod, but I only got it because it was cheaper than everything else out there (with a $150 discount). I wouldn't have based on the iPod brand, or the Apple brand, or any amount of "Apple is cool" advertisement. I was actually going to get the cheapest HDD player there was at the time, but Apple beat them on price.

    Even if you buy the cheap store-brand of corn flakes, it's because the store-brand is piggy-backing off the effect that Kellogs' advertising had on you or you wouldn't even know to buy corn flakes.

    All my friends eat cornflakes, I like my friend's tastes, therefore I will eat corn flakes. I grew up eating corn flakes, therefore I eat them. My culture likes them, therefore I do. There are tons of reasons to choose anything that are not based on corporate wishes.

    I bet you know the names of Apple's laptop computers. I bet you know the names of the individual programs in Adobe's Creative Suite. I bet you can tell me the names of car models made by the biggest car companies. All because of advertising.

    Or by just living in a world surrounded by them. I know a lot about Apple because I researched them awhile ago when looking to buy a computer. I know about them because some of my friends swear by their products. I know about them because of their reputation, etc... I don't know all the products they make, much less Adobe, though, since it isn't relevant to my life. Same with makes of cars. I have no clue. Don't care one bit.

    There's a long game in advertising too. Even if you aren't directly influenced to run out and buy a product, you learn the names, you learn the qualities that made one brand better than another. Eventually you will make a decision, and though you think you're making the decision based only upon your own independent thinking, the marketing plays a bigger role than you think.

    Yes, marketing often has a role, but it doesn't ALWAYS have a role. There are many products that I have bought where there was NO marketing whatsoever for. There has been even more products that I've bought that were not directly influenced by an ad agency, because I did due diligence and researched the product on my own. There have been tons of products I've discovered the old fashioned way, word of mouth. There have been tons of items where I've gone and incrementally bought all of the different brands until I found one high on the holy cost/quality curve.

    Advertising works, sometimes, on some people, and in some circumstances. Not always, universally, and on everyone.

    There have been studies showing that if your aware of the gimmicks, advertising has a much lower effect on you, for example.

    --
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  29. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by jshackney · · Score: 2, Funny

    My choice of soap is 100% influenced by what the hotel stocks today. I probably have a couple years' worth of soap in my linen closet harvested from various hotels across the U.S.

  30. Re:What If I never click adverts anyway? by metrix007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh, Hogwash

    If you have even the least amount of will, or the least ability to think critically, then you won't be magically subjected to advertising without your knowledge.

    It isn't science, it is still just psychology. And like Psychology, what is true for masses does not have to be true for any individual.

    The reason advertising works is because people are dumb, not because of advanced clandestine techniques.

    --
    If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
  31. Funny, Slashdot is more critical than actual site by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

    I just spent the better part of an hour reading the posts actually on Scienceblogs regarding all of this and with the exception of two other bloggers who quit blogging over this, most posters are thinking it was a "knee jerk" reaction and PepsiCo shouldn't have been pulled without first seeing what was actually being posted by them. There seemed to be a real desire by many on the site to here from PepsiCo's R&D scientist on various topics, but they now concede it is unlikely that something like that will every happen.

    The most interesting question posed was why people weren't so upset about CoKe blogging on the site. Anyway, from the postings on the site, it seems to be much less scandalous than it does here on /.