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A Response to the Science Be Damned Faction!


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The problem at Popular Science is more likely due to an absence of resources and/or the managerial will needed to provide effective moderation. Either way it's easier to simply blame the trolls and close the comments than to deal with them on a daily basis. I can't blame them. Maybe some enterprising forum or another will pick up their lost commenters, and score some advertising for their magazine out of the deal ;) .
 
I cant blame them either, its a constant source of frustration to me to read some of these comments at many of the news sites.
You cant load a new palaeontology news item without the usual "evolution is a myth" crowd, citing their musty old texts as counterpoint to some new scientific discovery.

You are quite correct what they need are more moderators, but this works too, as Sherlock Holmes would say "just the facts please".

Presenting the facts without the ignorant commentary is a format they know works, their publication started out as "read only" and now it looks like its come full circle
 
Interesting comment from the mag:
"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."

Sadly, this is very true. The moderatly rightwinged former Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen (now head of NATO, urggh, because he kissed Bush's oil-stained ass every chance he got) launched a veritable campaign against 'the tyranny of experts', when he entered office.
What this meant in reality, was that e.g. several excellent government environmental agencies were gutted, and he hired the buffoon that is Bjorn Lomborg, a climate 'sceptic' whom is cherished by the Republican Party in the US, and several fossil-fuel lobby groups. Lomborg is not a biologist, he's a statistician, and I'm happy to say I personally managed to make a total fool of him at a university conference, his ignorance about ecology was evident to everyone, when challenged. Yet, he still gets adequate funding from big business to spew his crap, which is very clearly lobbying for laissez-faire unregulated 'free enterprise'. Because big business doesn't like rules, even when those rules are in place to save the effin' Earth.

Anyways, that was just an example. The problem is even more apparent where unholy alliances exist between religious institutions and big business. There are so many websites that blatantly ignore everything we know, to advance some sad religious- or business-related cause, riding on the back of anti-science.

Science itself is neither ethical nor unethical, of course, it simply generates knowledge. And knowledge requires expertise.
 
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Jimi H. said:
Science itself is neither ethical nor unethical, of course, it simply generates knowledge. And knowledge requires expertise.
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Excellent post Jimi. The problem is that your nemesis Lomborg is probably considered to be an "expert" by a large enough faction to get him into a position of influence. So the real question is what is a so-called "expert", and what should the real "war on expertise" be about? Personally, I don't think the war is over. Or if it is, I'm one of those lost soldiers who is still hiding in the jungle after it's all over thinking that someday I'll see the flag of truth rise in glorious victory. All too often these so-called experts have been the ones with more power than competency, and this is what I believe the war should be about. When those with power and control win out over those with competency, we've lost a battle. But this doesn't mean we've lost the war. Keep up the good fight.
 
Another aspect, and its something i do myself on occassion, is if an article is very long and or overly technical, i skip to the comments section and see if i cant get a précis from it.
If for any of the reasons above you do this, you are more likely to bow to the consenus expressed in the comments section, and if the prevailing sentiment is this article is wrong, its easy enough to just say well that must be true.
I can see where such commentary would irk the authors and editors of such articles.

In order to keep the information pure you have two choices, moderate and redact the ignorant commentary or just turn it off.
 
Sadly, it truly is "a war on expertise" done by "a fractious minority." This is not only politically motivated, it's done under the guise of being "fair and balanced" whereas science should be objective. Whenever some fringe element is given the same time as a science discussion , it is elevated to the same rank as science. It gives the illusion that there is actual debate when there is none. While I would prefer a heavily moderated comments section, I'd agree that the next best thing is to simply not have a comments section.
 
Its one of the reasons sock puppet accounts are often frowned apon in some forums, it becomes all too easy for a single or small group of people to create a false consensus.
You can just imagine the editor looking at a perfectly good article, ruined by an ignorant but vocal subset, and thinking "this is why we cant have nice things"

Moderating dedicated trolls is a full time chore, and by that i mean they get to learn when the moderators are in bed and will strike then.
Yes you can clean it up a few hours later, but the damage is done if even to a small degree.
Some sites employ moderators from overlapping time zones to address this, but the cheapest simplest solution is to just close the comments section.
Give they started out as a paper magazine, this is the original model anyway.
 
RenaissanceLady said:
Sadly, it truly is "a war on expertise" done by "a fractious minority." This is not only politically motivated, it's done under the guise of being "fair and balanced" whereas science should be objective. Whenever some fringe element is given the same time as a science discussion , it is elevated to the same rank as science. It gives the illusion that there is actual debate when there is none. ...
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Very good point! Journalists frequently understand their job function as simply presenting opposite viewpoints. Yet, if one side is completely unobjective, what's the point, and what does the journalist expect to gain from it? It's so aggravating to watch, or read, when that happens.
 
Jimi H. said:
Very good point! Journalists frequently understand their job function as simply presenting opposite viewpoints. Yet, if one side is completely unobjective, what's the point, and what does the journalist expect to gain from it? It's so aggravating to watch, or read, when that happens.
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He said, she said journalism, does not really challenge those in power. It gets the journalist approval of the medias owners while pretending to be investigative journalism.
 
Here is an excellent article on the "Rising Antiscience" perpetrators.......
The Rising Antiscience | Victor Stenger

images
 
At root this is not so much a war on expertise as it is a board game to determine whom it serves. No sane person, for instance, will forgo state of the art medical treatment on grounds it was made possible by shifts in a societal world view that lead us to question shamanic dogma. (One may decide what constitutes "sane".) Information, i.e. the intellect, is still power. And humans will always concoct elaborate schemes to acquire it. Including public renouncement of its value.
 
Now we have a group in Kansas that is trying to keep evolution from being taught in science class because they claim it's a religion. Using some rather convoluted logic, these parents insist that any absence of religion is therefore also a religion, thereby violating their First Amendment rights.

Realistically, even in Kansas, the lawsuit is likely not to go far. It's nonetheless a symptom of a mindset that believes those who live without the need for logic and reason should be elevated to the same rank as those who live in an evidence-based world. Their "logic" follows that whatever class-time not spent in prayer should have an equal amount of time spent in prayer, or simply not taught at all. Objective science should be met with nonobjective religion. "Fair and balanced" all over again, to the hindrance of those students who might actually need an education.
 
Ah-- before the internet, there was only the bathroom stall. The internet has put its walls and the chalkboard of the real thinker on display in the same huge room. Chaos !

In addition to that craftier 1 percent of the American "30 percent" who are hostile to science, the manipulators who either instinctively or consciously know better, there stand behind them millions of voting people whose minds either cannot or will not tolerate a reasoning process in complex shades of grey. It's natural to fight over a choice of either-or. Those shade of gray only lead to endless discourse. Or worse yet, discourse followed by investigation with results that change society in ways that may make people feel ignorant or just downright "icky".

Where did I just read it--in a book my Gregory Benford maybe ?--a saying to the effect that passion in human discourse is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
 
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Websites are not shutting down comments because comments are difficult or expensive to moderate. They are not. This trend of shutting down comments is merely a futile attempt by dinosaur media to regain their lucrative monopoly on propaganda dissemination.

I've administered online forums since the old Wildcat BBS days. Automated IP blocks and CAPTCHA prevent 99% of commercial spammers. The other 1% are easily banned each morning in under a minute with the click of a mouse.

Trolls and hate-mongers are easily eliminated via group censorship with user-controlled blocking, vote-down, and ignore functions.
 
Charlie Prime said:
Websites are not shutting down comments because comments are difficult or expensive to moderate. They are not. This trend of shutting down comments is merely a futile attempt by dinosaur media to regain their lucrative monopoly on propaganda dissemination.

I've administered online forums since the old Wildcat BBS days. Automated IP blocks and CAPTCHA prevent 99% of commercial spammers. The other 1% are easily banned each morning in under a minute with the click of a mouse.

Trolls and hate-mongers are easily eliminated via group censorship with user-controlled blocking, vote-down, and ignore functions.
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Excellent comments Charlie Prime. I signed up with an amateur astronomy forum because I like the subject matter and wanted to know if any of their members had ever seen anything unusual. I took a university level astronomy course once and although I'm a believer, my participation is fairly skeptical and well considered. I don't hide my identity and hadn't posted anything inflammatory, yet I was banned permanently within half a dozen posts just for responding to some comments about UFOs that were already up. So it's certainly possible to get rid of posters you don't want, even if it isn't fair and has more to do with politics than friendly and open discussion.
 
It is my policy to withhold content from websites or forums that are unfair. It's like the "vote with your dollars" idea. If you hate McDonald's or Mastercard, do not give them your business. Your individual effect is miniscule, but the policy is powerful if enough people do it. Catherine Austin Fitts is doing this with investment portfolios.

I've been banned from both GOPUSA and Democratic Underground, not for cussing, ad hominem, or being rude, but merely for expressing libertarian ideas.

Echo chamber forums are self-destructive. I've seen it a hundred times. When moderators enforce a rigid orthodoxy, the forum slowly dies. I've seen it on motorcycle forums, gun forums, religious forums, survival forums, electronics forums, martial arts forums, and computer forums.
 
Charlie Prime said:
It is my policy to withhold content from websites or forums that are unfair. It's like the "vote with your dollars" idea. If you hate McDonald's or Mastercard, do not give them your business. Your individual effect is miniscule, but the policy is powerful if enough people do it. Catherine Austin Fitts is doing this with investment portfolios.

I've been banned from both GOPUSA and Democratic Underground, not for cussing, ad hominem, or being rude, but merely for expressing libertarian ideas.

Echo chamber forums are self-destructive. I've seen it a hundred times. When moderators enforce a rigid orthodoxy, the forum slowly dies. I've seen it on motorcycle forums, gun forums, religious forums, survival forums, electronics forums, martial arts forums, and computer forums.
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While I don't think I actually favored a no comment section I didn't find it a lack of one to be especially constraining. Your post brought out some pretty key points about being a forum that preaches to the choir situation which obviously isn't good for anyone. However it's easy to just say to people "look there are people with views that don't match yours but that doesn't make them wrong so suck it up or leave," There are two things that get in the way , one; most of us have very fragile egos and two; most of us want to be heard and soon the site in question descends into bitter vitriol to the point that the original post is long forgotten and people are too busy coming up with ways to degenerate their fellow posters. I would have to imagine that's pretty disappointing to the author, imagine how you would feel if you came up with a paradigm changing concept and people were too busy throwing s*** around to consider your post. In that context I don't blame pop- sci for taking that action. So the answer would be to have a more hands on moderated forum, but probably some sites and/or authors have the time , personal or inclination to do so. Who wants to be in charge of a bunch of kindergartners? I'm sure all the current and past moderators in this forum have plenty of other things to do then to keep us in check, but at the same time I think here, for the most part, the members keep ourselves in check so they don't have to bring out the wooden paddles that often. in that they, and by extension, US members are quite lucky too have this forum. It seems other forums don't have that luxury.
 
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