Do Comments On Web Pages Ruin Science?

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 2, 2013 @10:17AM from the peer-reviewed-opinions dept.

GregLaden writes "Last week Popular Science shut down comments on their web pages citing the damage being done to the public perception of science as their reason. Earlier research suggested this might be a good idea because trollish, negative comments can color the perception by readers of a news story. However, some have taken Popular Science's move to be anti-science, implying that science itself is positively affected by web and blog comments, as though these comments contributed to the science being done itself. Here, I take exception to this and suggest that while comments are important in relation to the public perception of science (which itself is important) blog and web commentary never, or only rarely, influences the process of scientific inquiry itself."

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"The Study" by cirby · 2013-10-02 10:53 · Score: 5, Informative

...actually doesn't say what Popular Science claims it does.
What it DOES say is that, when confronted by rude or over-the-top comments, most people's views don't change - but the people at the "edges" get slightly more dogmatic about their opinions. We're talking about a very small percentage of comments overall which show any influence at all.
That's it.
No, contrary comments do not turn people off of the stories, keep them from commenting on-topic, or anything drastic.
What the study does end up doing is give journalists (with second-rate or nonexistent science backgrounds) a good excuse to ignore people who notice that they wrote a bad or scientifically incorrect story - or a completely overblown one. Like the meta-story about comments on science stories.