Do Comments On Web Pages Ruin Science?

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."

Comments

Dissident Speech

[nurb432]

Nope, no room for that, even in the "science" community.

Conform or be squelched.

Your science can't handle comments? Back to work!

[itsybitsy]

If your science claims can't handle some comments from others then (1) it's back to the lab for you to fix your science, (2) you're doing science wrong since science is an adversarial system of people attempting to produce empirical evidence based hypotheses and others attempting to falsify and refute your hypotheses and claims so go back to Science 101 and Re-Learn The Scientific Method, (3) it's not your science that can't handle the comments, it's actually your funding sources that can't handle the comments, in this case you're S.O.L. and it's time to enter the real world where people work for a living. [;-)]

Re:science and perceptions of science.

[Tailhook]

Actually, my favorite comments are at the right-wing rag Daily Caller. Every single comment thread devolves into one party accusing the other party of being closet democrats.

More relevant to the topic at hand is this story about the Global Warming hysteria spun from the latest IPCC report. Did you know that if all the heat "caused by" CO2 and retained by the oceans had "gone into the atmosphere" then air temperatures would be 212 degrees?

<blink> 212 DEGREES!!!!!!1</blink> herp derp

How can we expect our lay discourse on science to be anything other than a heinous cacophony when people are fed that crap all day?

Science ruins science. Science used to advance controversial agendas, exaggerated by partisans, unchallenged because the "scientists" are paid tools of the policy makers and have pissed away their credibility.