Meltdown at Scienceblogs.com – bloggers jumping ship

Oh my God!
I’ve been eating Doritos, will I go to hell for that?
I had a beer with them, instead of a Pepsi, will that buy me some discount time in the Fire?

mmmmmmmmmm Mug Rootbeer. I had no idea that Pepsi was owner of Dole Juices, nor do I really care beyond knowing that fact.
Who peed in their Wheeties…wait is that a Pepsi product too?

Pepsi running a science blog, hilarious,..”everyone knows Pepsi is what makes plants grow…it’s got electrolytes”

Was this the excuse the SB bloggers were waiting for to abondon the sinking AGW ship?

You have to love a narrow minded over-reaction based on your own assumptions, at no point does pepsico say they are going to tell pepsi is good for you. They do say;
The focus will be on innovations in science, nutrition and health policy.
Which doesn’t seem unreasonable for a large company with a huge portfolio in today’s world

The CO2 is the least of the worries on soda. Do not even get me started on Aspartame I could rant all week!!!

MMmmm all this CO 2 molecules running in our brains after having a Pepsi…
They should be blacklisted too….
[sarcasm off]

Some people have to gripe about everything.
Sure some corporations have done terrible things in the past, and time to time still do some bad things. But on the whole, they are very responsible and have made our lives immensely better.
Take a look at the list of products. I see many there that I enjoy on a daily basis. Let the people decide for themselves if they want or don’t want to buy.
The eco-zealots are so out to lunch (and often with Pepsi products).

This is too funny – except it suggests the way they want their world to be. Would they have been up in arms if Ben and Jerry’s or Stonyfield Farm (NE Organic Yogurt)had sponsored the nutrition site? Hold on, didn’t Ben and Jerry sell out to Unilever? The money grubbers did. We can’t have those Capitalist swines at Unilever sullying the science, even if they are Europeans.

Nylo: July 23, 2010 at 2:54 am
However, I will feel totally outraged if these companies “pretend” that they care about the health of their customers. No, they don’t. If they say that they do, they’re lying. And I may not care that they play somewhat with my health, but I won’t tolerate that they also lie in their customers’ faces. Because I may not care, but maybe others do.
So perhaps these people are overreacting, but they do have a point.
It’s more a reaction to having a representative of the vile, bourgeois, manufacturosyndicalist cabal intrude into the *purity* of their site — it forced them to face the Inconvenient Truth that somebody has to pay the rent.
Which is why I get a chuckle when I see outraged commenters demanding that Anthony change WUWT to conform with *their* points of view…

Hey, Pepsigeddon has been no easy thing:
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2010/07/tempests_teacups_and_the_futur.php
You might remember Joe D’Aleo who recently posted here why he couldn’t move ICECAP to a more friendly platform which would allow commenting. I think he said he has thousands of articles which would have to move somehow without being lost.
My local banks are still using 1980’s software because of the nightmare that transferring to new software would represent. Fossilised blogs are just a new Y2K-like result of this rising tyranny of the electron!

This has nothing to do with outrage over health concerns just as the science of global warming has nothing to do with concerns about the planet. The truth is, wherever Coke and Pepsi are ascendent, western culture is as well. So perhaps this is really an argument pitting Aristotle against Marx.
I drink Coke and Pepsi, and lead an active and healthy lifestyle in a vibrant community that embraces the western tradition.

Some people seem to like their science as a big white shiney temple where peaople piously sing hymms to theoretical constructs.
While others would prefer to urinate against the wall and see the world as a place to observe.
I think the Sb thing is really Climate Change in a bottle. People disconnecting from whats real to let their preconceptions be the world. PepsiCo probably has more chemists in it’s employ than NASA and has done positive things, the litmus test is are they making blog entries about scientific facts in a Science Blog? Its too early to tell about Pepsi, but not about the people who don’t seem to bother with empirical evidence.

What, the authoritarians are taking their ball and going home? Who they gonna play with?
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The anti-corporate thing runs deep apparently. Note that they threw a hissy fit immediately, they didn’t wait to look at what PepsiCo actually wrote/blogged about, no no no. Corporation = eeeevil. NGO apparently = good. Big Oil is bad bad bad. It seems the more likely they are to actually use the product the more they want to demonize and hurt the providers of said product.

Sounds like a bunch of petulant drama queens throwing a hissy fit.
Reminds me of that time early in the evolution of the internet, when text only content gave way to a WYSIWYG graphical content and, horror of horrors, ads began appearing. The sounds of the offended just burst through every computer — and all without the benefit of soundcards.
Or how about this, for the sanctimonious and self-righteous: the very holy internet they profess to love was founded by tax dollars under the guidance of the military-industrial complex (aka DARPA). You want purity? Build your own internet with your own dollars and expertise.
Ever notice how sanctimony and hypocrisy seem to go hand in hand?

And the reputation of science takes another hit. So much for that silly idea that scientists were rational and level-headed. They’re as nutty as the rest of us. And there goes the free pass for science.

‘Point is that the bloggers who resigned in protest over a nutrition blog probably consume some of these things and don’t even know who makes it.’
Speculation doesn’t make a good argument one way or another.
‘Of course, PepsiCo could have defused this whole thing simply by making an announcement to stop putting deadly earth killing CO2 in their sodas, and instead sequestering it out back, underground.’
You don’t have other ways to view the world’s issues do you?
It is a textbook conflict of interest for SEED to take money from Pepsi and then give Pepsi blog space under the auspices that Pepsi scientists are going to give a complete picture of the science behind Pepsi products. I think that one is hard-pressed to claim that in that given situation there wasn’t a better way in which SEED could have brought Pepsi along. That was the major contention of many of the contributors.
The other contention had to do with the fact that while the contributors of ScienceBlogs work to give the site legitimacy (whether you agree with particular blogs or not), SEED was effectively selling that legitimacy to Pepsi without any feedback from the bloggers themselves. In the end, I think it was this fact that drove many away because they had had enough of having no say in the direction the site could take on any given day.
[snip]
[reply]As you said speculation doesn’t make a good argument one way or another. RT – mod

I find it impossible to understand why you skeptics don’t believe that RC is the fount of truth and beauty and that’s all there is to know.
RC Cola, that is.
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This is advertising from The Soda Pop Board of America (1950’s). “For a better start in life start cola earlier” “How soon is too soon? Not soon enough. Laboratory tests have proven……babies who start drinking soda during that early formative period…”
http://trueslant.com/daviddisalvo/files/2010/06/colaa12.jpg
Pepsi has science on its side!!

John A wrote:
An accurate epitaph for Scienceblogs.
Scienceblogs. Having spent more than enough time in the academic science environment I was always bemused by the highly doctrinaire social, cultural, and political views held by many. Along with the demand for conformity to these views and the lack of tolerance of any dissent. Also that the belief that they are correct about everything, regardless of whether or not it’s outside their domain of specialized knowledge, simply because of their belief that they are smarter than everyone else.
The outcry over Pepsi reminds me of an anecdotal story. I went out to dinner with a well known professor, in his field, and his students. This prof was a supporter of every so-called progressive cause one could imagine. Naturally, he was a vegetarian. So all his students fell obliged to order veggie dishes. I ordered the meatiest dish I could find on the menu. It was clear that the prof was not pleased – did not approve. So I said, “Well, my evolutionary ancestors did not fight their way to the top of the food chain, just so I would eat nothing but vegetables.”
The tenured types can predict their secure income over their working life to the last penny, so it’s not surprising that they may have difficulty understanding why Scienceblogs might need to consider a sponsor.
Anyways, I find that various science news aggregators, such as PhysOrg, TechReview, etc., a far more interesting, informative, and useful read than most of the blogs on Scienceblogs which, as someone correctly pointed out, are mostly not about science.

I find it interesting that in the 21st century we have arrived at Marxism without Marx and Leninism without Lenin. People still hold to the same philosophical positions (Gov = good, Capitalism = bad) but without the underpinnings from Marx and Lenin. In fact they would deny any connection to those two worthies, but they still pine for a socialist utopia void of profit motive.

What bothered me the most about the Pepsi-ScienceBlogs spat was the utter contempt a few of the bloggers there showed for “corporate science.” See “Corporate Science = Evil Science?” at http://www.aetherczar.com/?p=1151 P.Z. Myers thought I “missed the point.” You can judge for yourself.

BarryW says:
July 23, 2010 at 5:45 am
Capitalism was good when companies looked after their employees and not looking to grab the biggest profits and pay bouses to who can rip you off the most.
Government do not listen anymore when elected. They create their own agendas as it suits especially in early terms of office so to give time for the voters to forget as the world moves on with other stories that catch their interest.
People in general have a short attention span.

Oh heck! (trying hard to not get snipped!). A major company involved in the expansion of bellies and a narrowing of arteries….Good grief! Lets get back on topic, ignore the semantics and the hippies jumping ship!

But Pepsi helped bring down the Berlin wall by swapping cola for Stolichnaya, so they can’t be all bad.

A quick reading will show that Science Blogs have always been an oxymoron. Perhaps one or two bloggers there possessed an IQ bigger than their waist size, and those few have jumped ship long ago.
The readers of SB? Don’t get me started!

Daniel H: July 23, 2010 at 5:37 am
…and at this point I’d kill for a (formerly PepsiCo owned) Taco Bell Bacon Club Chalupa thing. You don’t normally realize how much you miss Taco Bell food until it’s no longer an option for you. It’s strange because there are KFC’s everywhere here but not a single Taco Bell in sight.
KFC translates well into most cultures — Taco Bell, not so much.
Most folks who don’t grow up eating dairy products (about 90% of the world) lose their tolerance for lactose — too much queso makes them queasy…

RockyRoad says:
July 23, 2010 at 5:10 am
Where would science be without the capitalistic system? Where would engineering be without the capitalistic system? And where would our standard of living be without the capitalistic system? All three would have a much lower level of development without it.
It sounds like many people at Scienceblogs don’t consider this, which isn’t too surprising. Their education at our higher institutions of liberalism has brainwashed them into believing capitalism is evil, that anything touched by that system should be rejected, and that self-flagelating behavior is the answer. They’ve constructed their own self-righteous demise.
——————
RockyRoad,
Well said.
I would suggest the words “. . . . education at our higher institutions of collectivism . . .” instead of your words ” . . . education at our higher institutions of liberalism . . .”. In 18th & 19th centuries the words liberal/liberalism were about liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then the 20th century came along (with its Marxism/Facism/Communism/Socialism/etc) and the meaning was intentionally switched to the opposite by those who wished to mislead.
The terms liberal/liberalism are now just too confounding for my taste. I avoid them.
John

Maybe they would prefer that Kool-Aid sponsor them?

Stupid! Stupid! STUPID!
All Pepsico had to do was call their blog “Naked Juice” and address Clean Water Purification as their main subject. There was no need for this to happen. No need at all! Now all these bozo’s get a bunch of free publicity on WUWT’s world-wide front page and bloggers everywhere are spattered with mud and look like a bunch of English Punks and American Rappers. Terrible! Terrible!!
I blame Pepsico!
Pass the Tropicana and Fritos please…

kadaka (KD Knoebel): July 23, 2010 at 10:25 am
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
– Rule #29
Personally, I’ve always been partial to Rule #12: “A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.”

RT,
what am I speculating on? The point of Anthony’s post is that what SEED and Pepsi were doing was absolutely acceptable in the spirit of raising revenue for the site. In light of the fact that the Pepsi blog was being presented as any other of the ScienceBlogs having paid for that space, it’s a conflict of interests. That’s not a matter of speculation and is the meat on my argument.
I was speculating on why others left based on what I had read on ‘Good Math, Bad Math’ and ‘PalMD’. I’m willing to admit that. This point, however, isn’t as significant as the factual point that what Pepsi and SEED were attempting to do represented a conflict of interests.
It’s ok to be wrong sometimes, you know. It’s even acceptable to admit one’s mistakes. You should try it some time.
Oh, and thanks for snipping the end.

Billions of dollars on advertising and marketing and they want to divert some of that complete waste into science? Fine by me. I’m pretty sure the science would be shit, but they deserve a chance to prove that.

Sponsoring research?
Government Sponsoring:
Events of past ~2 years (or longer) show evidence that gov’t sponsors of climate science research are influencing the research they are sponsoring via biased funding mechanisms in favor of CAGW. Government benefits, directly and indirectly, from this bias toward CAGW in the areas of finance and political power over business/citizens.
Private Enterprise Sponsoring:
On the other hand, during the same period, we have the CAGWer’s (supported in funding predominately by gov’t) claims that some private enterprise (oil in particular) sponsors of climate research are influencing the results of the research they are sponsoring in favor of anti-CAGW. The private enterprise sponsors are accused by CAGWers of being biased in favor of their company’s financial gain.
The above perspective becomes more interesting when you consider that in climate research the level of private enterprise funding is insignificant compared to gov’t funding.
GAGWers are winning the sponsorship game big time. Game, set, match . . . . . yet are not winning the science argument and have lost credibility with the public.
John

It seems that there is a great deal of religion in the guise of anti-religion on many of the science blogs. It is more about who is talking than the message. That is just intolerance. You certainly see it more often in climate science than other sciences where it has become totally politicized. It attracts the most extreme political types from the left that couldn’t care less what someone says about climate unless they are on the approved list and only talk about doom and gloom. They can’t even admit that CO2 helps plants grow unless the plant is poison ivy.
How people with that attitude can call themselves scientists is beyond me. They only adopt science as weapon to ridicule people with. They forget how science is first about objectivity. They have totally lost objectivity and have adopted science as the basis of an intolerant form of religion. It seems to be a large part of the far left political movement now. That isn’t good for science.

You’ll wonder where the oil slick went when your brush your driveway with PepsiDent.
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Speaking as one of the bloggers who left Sb during the exodus, Anthony (and Lubos) missed the rationale of the episode.
It’s not about Pepsi. And if you read through the (excessive?) mountains of commentary rather than cherry pick through to find the political slant you want to make, the point should be clear. It’s about Scienceblogs and about Seed media.
All previous bloggers had been invited into the network after demonstrating a track record and building a readership elsewhere. Pepsi bought a spot. Essentially, Scienceblogs violated the bloggers’ conception of themselves as a meritocracy by selling blog space. THAT is what the fuss was about. What good is a slot on a prestigious network when placement in that network can be also be auctioned?
The bloggers are largely freelancers. Many are their own business, with their own brands, their own books, their own products. Many folks left for capitalistic reasons. Scienceblog’s unannounced move was perceived to damage the brand that these bloggers were selling to their consumers. This is especially true of the journalists.
I don’t see anything insightful in Anothony’s post, or in Lubos’. It certainly doesn’t match anything that I saw as the whole SBfail unfolded.

“UPDATE2: PZ Meyers ends his “strike” just to flame me.”
Erm… that claim is demonstrably false, as PZ had been posting entries for a few days now… unless he went back in time to add them to make it look like he was not ending just to have a go at A Watts.
REPLY: Yep I discovered the same thing just about the time you did a couple of minutes after I made the update. I was wrong, and I’ve edited the wording. – Anthony

From the Food Frontiers blog:
“The critics seem to feel there is no place for a food industry viewpoint in such a report”
http://foodfrontiers.pepsicoblogs.com/2010/07/the-critical-role-of-the-food-industry-in-the-obesity-debate/
I guess it’s a terrible option for many scientists: accept funding with strings or live within frugal means. For the guy writing the cheques the choice is a little easier. For scientists who like fame and fortune, easier still.

this is pathetic. If Mr. Watts had any integrity at all, he would side with those at sb. It’s blatantly obvious that the pepsico blog was nothing more than PR for pepsi, and did not belong. His post here has nothing to do with anything other than an attempt to erode the credibility of those whom his sees as his enemies in his little AGW is not real game. I can see how it might work for those that aren’t regular readers of WUWT and other blogs involved. If you actually read what is being said, it’s easy to see what a lame attempt at a smear this is.
REPLY: I’m not interested in your judgments of “integrity” when you hide anonymously behind “moondog” while lecturing me about integrity.
There are thousands of blogs under the same conglomerate here at which my blog is hosted, wordpress.com I don’t agree with a lot of them, some of them are nothing but ads with some BS content, but I and other wordpress.com bloggers don’t demand that they be taken down. If I did, imagine the caterwauling that would erupt. But those same people who support academic freedom at Sb would have me or Motls removed in a heartbeat if they could. They have already demonstrated intolerance.
The people and marketplace will choose, if a blog is doing a good job it gets traffic and accolades, if not it gets ignored. This is the way it works.
I’m not of the mindset to tell what other people and companies should do when it comes to having a blog or not. The group at Sb simply engaged in overhyped attempts to silence something they didn’t agree with. In the process, they’ve probably killed Sb once and for all. It will now likely wither.
Just like in TV, don’t like it, change the channel. In blogs don’t like it, don’t visit. It’s just that simple. – Anthony

Anthony wrote:
“The people and marketplace will choose, if a blog is doing a good job it gets traffic and accolades, if not it gets ignored. This is the way it works. ”
That’s exactly the way it works. And if a blog network makes a decision that affects the bloggers it hosts, they can move elsewhere. And they did.
What you witnessed there was an excellent example of the free market at work, and instead of seeing it for what it was you’re trying to make it into some ideological point because of some pre-standing tif between yourself and one of the 80+ bloggers at Sb. I really don’t buy it.
REPLY: Sorry, but banding together to demand censure/removal is not a free market exercise. It would be a free market exercise if the new blog went along, got no traffic there, and then PepsiCo decided to pull it for lack of interest or SEED said you aren’t meeting some minimum so we are shutting your down.
-Anthony

“Some class act that PZ. He is the face of Sb today, so sad that science is co-marketed with anger and hate there.”
Hmmm…I’ve just written a post about PZ on my blog.
I chanced upon a post on Professor Myers’ Pharyngula blog purely by accident when doing some research on transgendered issues and I actually assumed (admittedly wrongly) that he was some sort of KKK-aligned far-right extremist.
Suffice to say I didn’t exactly make myself very popular by voicing that assumption. Okay, my assumption was stupid and my aggressive reaction even more so, but I was taken aback by the amount of ‘anger and hate’ which hit me – phew!!! (which, in turn, instead of shutting me up only served to have the counterproductive effect of making me angrier and more aggressive on that thread). In short; wish I hadn’t gone there.
Also, as an ‘idiot’ intellectual inferior like apparently I’m told I am, I might have come away with a bit more respect for Professor Myers had he actually bothered to stoop down so low as to ask and discuss my issues with his post before he brought his famed banhammer upon my head and went ahead and banished me to *the Dungeon* accusing me of ‘insipidity’ and declaring me ‘obsessed and touchy’ and in ‘in desperate need of a mental health professional.’ Besides, isn’t that just ‘politically acceptable’ code from the normally desperate-to-be-seen as anti-sexist PZ for ‘you’re a pathetic, hysterical wee girlie with whom a great man like me would never lower himself to engage in intellectual intercourse with’?;)

The fact is the SB crowd are not nutrition skeptics and they blindly accept what their biases tell them, just like how they accept AGW. To combat them, WUWT should include articles and scientific research on benefits of daily consumption of liters of Pepsi (ok, Coca Cola can join in too). I have no doubt Anthony Watts is the man to do it.
REPLY: Why not have a look at the PepsiCo blog and see if you can find that topic?
http://foodfrontiers.pepsicoblogs.com/
– Anthony

Heh, PZ banned me, but not before I got in my licks on the epic Stan Peterson thread. In my opinion, his hatred for religion gets in the way of his pursuit of science. A sad irony.
====================

Kim says,

Heh, PZ banned me, but not before I got in my licks on the epic Stan Peterson thread.

Which one are you: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php ?

P @ 4:56.
Maybe someone at Pepsico thought that the veneer there of science was for real and thought it might help the brand. Little did they know the planet was populated with crazies.
=================

One must seek hard at the Pharyngula site to find some science – it’s mostly a constant Myers’ attack against anything remotely religion-related with a religious zeal that would be more becoming in a Great Inquisitor or maybe exorcist 400 years ago.

Anthony: so you’ve made your position clear on where you stand with respect to corporate sponsorship of blogs. I’ve always wondered: do you recieve corporate sponsorship for your blog? (And if not, why not?) Either way, the answer is interesting. Excuse the boldness of the question, but it does strike precisely to the center of the issue.
[reply] So far as I know, the blog relies on Google Ads revenue and donations from visitors. Any corporate money top up required is likely from Anthony’s own business. He may see this and clarify for you. RT-mod.