Slashdot Mirror
Popular Science Is Getting Rid of Comments
Daniel_Stuckey writes "From an article announcing the sites' decision to do away with comments: 'It wasn't a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter. ... even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests. ... A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.'"
This comes alongside news that Google is trying to clean up YouTube comments by adding integration with Google+. "You’ll see posts at the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles."
"Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again"
Maybe they wouldn't have gotten so much spam and snide comments, if they would have stuck to actual science.
It does, indeed sound like sour grapes. Just for example: a few days ago, after the recent shooting, they re-printed an opinion piece from Michael Shermer on gun control. And of all people, Shermer should have known better than to write the article he did... he didn't cite sources (although he casually mentioned some without any actual detail), and so on. It was a political smear piece, timed to take advantage of tragedy.
If they had stuck to science themselves, maybe they would not have given people the impression that science was for sale, or up for vote.
Evolution and climate change are NOT in the same category in terms of scientific doubt. In the case of evolution, the fact that anyone can go to the Southwest or Pennsylvania and find sea shells buried deep on mountain simply proves life predates 10,000 years ago. Climate change, on the other hand, presents itself as a chicken-little scam. From scientific misconduct to continual promotion of vague, yet terrifying sounding, consequences in the media, climate change is the biggest swindle of faith since Pope Leo X.