Apparently, the science was too popular, so what do these fools do? Alienate their readers of course:
Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here’s why.
Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off.
The stupid, it burns like a magnesium flare.
The go on to quote some study as the reason, and blame climate change discussions:
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.
Read it all here: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments
So, the problem is not scientists behaving badly by stretching conclusions from insufficient evidence, the problem is when thy are called out for doing so by the “general public.”
Gotcha.
http://www.dailytech.com/PopSci+Kills+Comments+Blames+Criticism+of+Global+Warming+Evolution/article33437.htm
You just can’t disagree with SCIENTISTS, I suppose.
In other words…..they were losing the comments war and couldn’t back up their “science”
Their “solid bedrock” is experiencing liquefaction.
Hear no evil… speak no evil… see no evil. See? Everything’s OK now. Trust me.
I guess they still resent the fact that so few believe the earth is flat. Popular Science – the true defenders of a flat earth.
So…leaving comments can change the way a story is read? Good heavens! Um, isn’t that why people leave comments? To effect the way people see the story?
The real problem appears to be that they aren’t successfully defending their beliefs, maybe because the evidence isn’t on their side!
…and I don’t for a second buy that evolution is being undermined by vigorous debate. That’s a baloney straw man.
“Comments can be bad for science.” sort of implies thinking can be bad for science.
Doctrine as in religious doctrine is about right.
Popular Science doesn’t want to be popular anymore. 😆
“Comments can be bad for science.” Huh? Bad? For science??? How? The only thing bad for science is censorship.
I think what they mean is, “Comments can be bad for the idiots who pretend they are talking about science and trigger a reaction from those who actually know science.”
I guess their readership number will go down now. Oh well, long may they live and learn.
Who needs em’ anyway when we can find out Watts Up right here?
They just wrote their obituary!
Hahaha–how long before they’re renamed “Popular Gaia”?
“You keep saying ‘science,’ but I’m not sure it means what you think it means.”
🙂
Andrew
They just need a moderation team as good as WUWT’s.
So they’ve decided to end the greatest “peer review” system available. Looks like they can’t handle the truth, or this is all they can do about it 🙂
So now it’s PopDogma?
As noted on a slightly more vulgar, but fun website; the author, Ms. LaBarre, seems OK with commenting about her job on Twitter.
Suzanne LaBarre â€@suzannelabarre
Why do I poop more when I’m on my period? JOURNALISM
http://pops.ci/19u6VnS
Who needs moderated comments and thoughtful posts, a 140 characters – right now should do?
“I’m not winning so I’m going to take my ball and go home” (Exit stage right pouting and stomping his feet.)
“Comments can be bad for science.”
Translation: “We are unable to defend [our] ideas.”
When I looked at the site, they provided a link to this cutting-edge article (along with the afore-mentioned poop/period piece):
“Why Dudes Who Can’t Smell Never Get Laid”
Somehow I don’t think my grandfather would have shared his PopSci with me when I was 8 with such important “science” as those articles between the covers!
Well, there goes their readership, but it is happening to all of them, from journals, magazines to newspapers, they all lost their way along the way and curiously can’t seem to understand why. Their close the eyes, ears, and mouth attitude is resoundly rejected by most credible scientists who realize that freedom of speech IS the bedrock of science itself. If they cannot describe their hypothesis clear enough for all to understand and accept then it is they that need to reconsider that possibly it is they who are mistaken and reopen their eyes and ears. What I have found is the skeptical scientists of climate changes are the most open and knowledgable of them all, by far.
I quit reading Pop Science 20 years ago. I read some articles on something I was well versed in and the stories were so far from the truth they were sci fi. Only thing that shocks me is it took this long to shut down comments.
I mean: Translation: “We are unable to defend our ideas.”
But that’s a good example, isn’t it? I made a mistake. I wrote “out” rather than “our.” It can only improve things to have the mistake pointed out.
Of course, if you are making pots of money from your mistake, it may not seem like an improvement to have the mistake pointed out. However that is only if you love money more than Truth. And that is where temptation creeps in, and the rot starts.