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[PopSci] Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments [Debate is bad for science] (barf)
Popular Science ^ | 9/24/2013 | Suzanne LaBarre

Posted on 09/24/2013 6:37:34 PM PDT by markomalley

Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.

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.

That is not to suggest that we are the only website in the world that attracts vexing commenters. Far from it. Nor is it to suggest that all, or even close to all, of our commenters are shrill, boorish specimens of the lower internet phyla. We have many delightful, thought-provoking commenters.

But even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests. In one study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Dominique Brossard, 1,183 Americans read a fake blog post on nanotechnology and revealed in survey questions how they felt about the subject (are they wary of the benefits or supportive?). Then, through a randomly assigned condition, they read either epithet- and insult-laden comments ("If you don't see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you're an idiot" ) or civil comments. The results, as Brossard and coauthor Dietram A. Scheufele wrote in a New York Times op-ed:

Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant's interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they'd previously thought.

Another, similarly designed study found that even just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.

If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.

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.

There are plenty of other ways to talk back to us, and to each other: through Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, livechats, email, and more. We also plan to open the comments section on select articles that lend themselves to vigorous and intelligent discussion. We hope you'll chime in with your brightest thoughts. Don't do it for us. Do it for science.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: 1984; achillwind; algoreisnotmygod; censorship; debate; dnctalkingpoints; evolution; flamewar; globalwarmingscare; greenjournalism; junkscience; orwelliannightmare; popularscience; pseudoscience; science; shutupandsitdown; stalinisttactics; theinternet; thoughtcrime
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To: FredZarguna
ad hominem works for either sex, although it is grammatically masculine.

ad virum would be a male person only.

21 posted on 09/24/2013 7:01:34 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: markomalley; a fool in paradise; Slings and Arrows
They won't admit how right they were!


22 posted on 09/24/2013 7:02:46 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: scrabblehack

Haven’t had anyone to practice my Latin with for forty years, and you just can’t get the newspapers in Latin out here in the boonies.


23 posted on 09/24/2013 7:02:55 PM PDT by FredZarguna (With bell, book, and candle, please.)
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To: scrabblehack

[it was facetious]


24 posted on 09/24/2013 7:03:49 PM PDT by FredZarguna (With bell, book, and candle, please.)
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To: markomalley
Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television.

These guys obviously haven't heard of Werner Heisenberg. Certainty is the anathema of science. I stopped reading PopSci a long time ago and this just reminded me why. They've gone PC.

25 posted on 09/24/2013 7:04:59 PM PDT by InABunkerUnderSF (Because 2 terms with Jerry Brown as Governor was all I could take.)
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To: markomalley

At one point, the consensus among Europe’s intelligentsia was that earth is flat. Until science and scientific methods showed that consensus meant nothing in science. But then, it became very important again: It’s a consensus that the science of climate change is well established.


26 posted on 09/24/2013 7:05:57 PM PDT by paudio (Liberals teach Whites about guilt and shame better than Christian churches do...)
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To: jdege

You can add the magically disappearing hole in the ozone cured by banning R-12 Freon to that list. It was the practice run for GoReBalWarMinG!!111!!!eLeBiNtY!!!111


27 posted on 09/24/2013 7:07:10 PM PDT by 98ZJ USMC
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To: markomalley
Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant's interpretation of the news story itself.

Uncivil comments? Or inconvenient comments?

28 posted on 09/24/2013 7:07:38 PM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: markomalley

When your positions don’t comply with 8th grade SCIENCE you grow too embarrassed to allow public ridicule.


29 posted on 09/24/2013 7:09:01 PM PDT by G Larry (Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Psalms 109:8)
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To: rockrr

pathetic

then again, it’s the ‘indepth investigative studies’ the low info progressives are use to


30 posted on 09/24/2013 7:09:36 PM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: markomalley

Back in the 1970s, the term “Greenhouse effect” was quite popular. One issue, I believe it was Popular Science, after years of using it, had an editorial that they would NEVER use that term again. That was when they believed that a new ICE AGE was starting.

I watched their issued and sure enough, several years later the were using another term, GLOBAL WARMING!


31 posted on 09/24/2013 7:09:56 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
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To: freedom462
Who wants to place a bet that this started when they started getting their asses kicked on global warming debates?

I dunno...they've been getting their asses kicked on this subject with some regularity for the past decade.

32 posted on 09/24/2013 7:12:54 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (It's hard to accept the truth when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.)
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To: markomalley

“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.”

Ha! Everything from evolution to the origins of climate change? What else is in that “everything” spectrum? I don’t recall any politician or tv talking head debating relativity or the big bang, so I am guessing there is no “everything”. They are just mad that the public won’t swallow their very politically charged “scientific opinion” on those two topics as the gospel.

You know what? If you politicize science, then you can’t complain about science being fodder for political debate.


33 posted on 09/24/2013 7:17:01 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Revolting cat!

I didn’t know that Dick Nixon used to be a taxi driver. A well-dressed one, too.


34 posted on 09/24/2013 7:21:41 PM PDT by rfp1234 (Impeach We Much!)
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To: markomalley
Science ain't ever "settled."

No scientific model is ever complete.

Any science that claims to be "settled" ain't science.

35 posted on 09/24/2013 7:21:44 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (When your policy is to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on enthusiastic support from Paul.)
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To: PAR35

No doubt.

But I would like to air a pet peeve. The phrase “ad hominem attack” is a degenerate form, and I would say a vulgarisation, of the original idea of an “ad hominem argument”.

“Ad hominem” means “to the man”, not “against the man”, and it originally meant an argument tailored to a particular audience. For instance, if speaking to an audience of astronomers one might include rhetorical references to stars and galaxies and other astronomical objects. Galileo actually used the term ( ad hominem ) in a sense close to this.

I think the particular meaning we have today arose because of one form of arguing “to the man” in a debate before an audience. One might try to sway the audience by ridiculing the opposing debater, suggesting that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, etc. We can suppose that this sure-fire formula would be widely practiced and become familiar to all as the “ad hominem attack”.


36 posted on 09/24/2013 7:21:49 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: markomalley
The facebook page is a laff riot. Bunch of posts, "Oh it's terrible you had to shut off the comments, but there were a lot of mean people acting mean and saying mean things just to be mean!" I guess pointing out the errors in their popular science is mean.

Hey Gang! The name of the rag is "Popular Science." It's all about what's the popular "thing" right now. I wouldn't go there for anything higher than an eighth-grade level of understanding. Which was fine back when I was in the eighth grade....

37 posted on 09/24/2013 7:23:45 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (It's hard to accept the truth when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.)
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To: rfp1234

And he took fares that smoked!


38 posted on 09/24/2013 7:25:56 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (It's hard to accept the truth when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.)
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To: dr_lew; PAR35

I saw a movie once called “Attack of the ad hominems”.


39 posted on 09/24/2013 7:30:19 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (The monsters are due on Maple Street)
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To: Revolting cat!

Minivans with sunroofs! No cup holders?


40 posted on 09/24/2013 7:33:14 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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