UPDATE: Luboš Motl finds some interesting tidbits about the state of science at Sb, see below the “Continue reading” line.
UPDATE2: PZ Myers ends his “strike” and flames me, see response in Update2 below.
Many WUWT readers are familiar with some blogs that reside at Sb. For example there’s Wikipedia edit master, William Connolley’s “Stoat-taking Science by the throat“, Tim Lambert’s “Deltoid“, and some others like the well known Pharyngula by the ever grouchy PZ. Myers. It’s all good fun to read.
But, now there’s quite an exodus occurring at the scienceblogs.com conglomerate. Just look at the front page for today and the list of bloggers leaving or expressing concerns:
What’s happened? Well it all started with the parent company, SEED, allowing the Pepsi Company to start a blog on nutrition. Some bloggers went ballistic, perceiving that SEED caved to the almighty dollar and let some evil corporation into the sacred science temple.
Newsflash: SEED is a business. The Guardian did a story on the Sb blogger anger, and Sb was faced with a mass revolt. The SEED management didn’t handle it well enough or fast enough for some bloggers tastes, even though they removed the Pepsi Food Frontiers blog. The result: 15 Sb bloggers upped and quit in protest. Here’s the content they are protesting.
As PZ Myers writes at Pharyngula, it is getting worse, more bloggers are leaving, and he’s on strike with a list of demands for the Sb management.
Meyers writes:
It’s come to this. We’ve been facing a steady erosion of talent here at Scienceblogs, with the loss of good people like Carl Zimmer and Ed Yong a while back, and with the very abrupt departure of 15 bloggers after the recent PepsiCo debacle — an event that damaged the reputation of this place. And now just yesterday we lost PalMD and Bora. Something is going rotten here. What could it be?
…
Just in the time it took me to write this up this morning, Superbug, Zuska, and Speakeasy Science have all announced their departures, and Casaubon’s Book is considering it. We really are having a serious crisis of confidence, and Seed has to wake up and take action.
Add Mike Dunford to the list of departures.
Sb is crumbling fast. It seems to be the season for things crumbling. I wonder though, how many of those indignant bloggers that couldn’t handle a PepsiCo sponsored nutrition blog actually consume many of PepsiCo’s brands and don’t know it? There’s a lot of brands, Doritos and Mountain Dew for example. What blogger can do without those?
And PepsiCo has a lot of green brands, like Ethos Water that helps children get clean water worldwide.
And who could argue with the greenness and innovation of PepsiCo stuff like this?
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.
But what is really funny is how the new Food Frontiers blog was presented by SEED management in the first place:
As part of this partnership, we’ll hear from a wide range of experts on how the company is developing products rooted in rigorous, science-based nutrition standards to offer consumers more wholesome and enjoyable foods and beverages. The focus will be on innovations in science, nutrition and health policy. In addition to learning more about the transformation of PepsiCo’s product portfolio, we’ll be seeing some of the innovative ways it is planning to reduce its use of energy, water and packaging.
Oh the humanity! Lots of tolerance over there at Sb.
I’ll give this piece of advice we always used to give in the TV Newsroom to people calling in that demanded we remove/edit/censure certain news stories, TV shows, or advertisements:
I understand your concerns, thank you, there’s no need to yell. Respectfully, if you don’t like the content, change the channel, we don’t force you to watch.
I find the whole Sb revolt thing hilarious. It’s a tempest in a pop can. 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. Then they’d be heroes, right?
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UPDATE: Luboš Motl finds some interesting tidbits about the state of science at Sb:
To demonstrate that scienceblogs.com has almost nothing to do with science these days, let us look at the five most active articles on their server, according to the main page of scienceblogs.com:
1. Episode LXXXII: Is this the thread for the tea party?… P.Z. Myers just included a would-be funny video that attacks the tea party movement
2. Monckton vs The House of Lords… Tim Lambert wrote a short text discussing purely the form, not the content, of some exchanges of Lord Monckton with the deputies
3. What fresh torment can we perpetrate on young girls?… P.Z. Myers discusses breast ironing in Cameroon and argues it occurs because the inhabitants are Catholics
4. Boyd Haley finally does the right thing, but is it for the wrong reasons?… Orac celebrates that the ScienceBlogs surrendered to the commies like him in PepsiGate; it’s discussed that evil companies are adding drugs to food
5. GOP Talking Points Even GOP Doesn’t Believe… Ed Brayton about Bush tax cuts. Doesn’t even pretend to be science
As you can see, science is virtually non-existent over there and everything is biased left-wing politics. But they still have the breathtaking arrogance to attack PepsiCo’s scientific blog on nutrition as insufficiently scientific for them.
Compare the above postings to the Food Frontiers blog now at PepsiCo’s website.
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UPDATE2: Predictably, the always angry PZ Myers goes zerkers over this post. He thinks I don’t understand the issue of “ethics of keeping advertising separate from content”. Um Newsflash there PZ. I spent 25 years in a TV and radio newsrooms, don’t lecture me about keeping infomercials off the news. I’ve fought that battle. But as I pointed out and PZ missed, if people don’t like infomericals, they can turn off the TV or switch the channel. The organized rant that forced SEED to remove the PepsiCo Food Frontiers blog denies readers their right to choose. That’s so uncool but typical for people like PZ that think people shouldn’t be allowed to choose for themselves. Just look at his religious hatreds he posts regularly. No science there, just hate.
Also, without citing a single sentence he claims I have particular take, that the reason for the exodus is that people don’t like PepsiCo products. Well noooooo, if you’d read it rather than engage your typical hateful knee jerk keyboard pounding reaction, you see it was a question.
I wonder though, how many of those indignant bloggers that couldn’t handle a PepsiCo sponsored nutrition blog actually consume many of PepsiCo’s brands and don’t know it?
It seems he’s ended his “strike” (he’s been posting the last couple of days), now he’s busy spiting me for noticing him at all. Next time I’ll just ignore him.
Some class act that PZ. He is the face of Sb today, so sad that science is co-marketed with anger and hate there.
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UPDATE3: see my detailed comment below
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Ah, now I understand. The problem was that Pepsico was attempting to talk about science on a science blog! Notice that those are the blogs these bloggers hate and depise .
You’ll wonder where the oil slick went when your brush your driveway with PepsiDent.
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I look at these events with great humor.
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.
Seed inc is always one bounced check from insolvency. Usually just as they make the final step on the banana peal, some friendly unnamed sugar daddy gives them a cash infusion. The one I witnessed (via the net) was half a mil ($500k). That was just before obama was elected, 2008 Setember or there abouts.
1/2 million dollars is a LOT of money by any single “donation” …
I wonder if the donor (Soros – an international financial seer who has made his money “shorting” – or betting on the destruction of certain stocks and money funds) was involved. He has received 10% of his company’s investment money from Obama’s US government backing deep-water off-shore drilling off of Brazil.
PZ Meyers is on strike? At least some good comes out of this silliness.
“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
Flavor Aid, Austin, not Kool Aid.
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.
Anthony must be funded by Big Cola.
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
“The organized rant that forced SEED to remove the PepsiCo Food Frontiers blog denies readers their right to choose. That’s so uncool but typical for people like PZ that think people shouldn’t be allowed to choose for themselves.”
You’re a complete idiot. PZ didn’t stop SEED from having a PepsiCo blog, but he was against it because the scientists from PepsiCo could not be expected to be independent. It was a blog taking advantage of Sb’s reputation to promote PepsiCo. Furthermore, as I said, PZ didn’t stop SEED from doing anything. He merely voiced his opposition to it as did many others.
Also, you’re complaint about “choice” is particularly idiotic. If Pepsi wants a blog, there’s nothing stopping them from setting one up on their own site. But when corporations can buy their way into having a blog on Sb, it damages the network’s credibility and therefore the credibility of all the blogs there.
REPLY: SEED is a business, they can do anything they please with their business as long as it is legal. WordPress.com (where I’m hosted for free) has buy ins too. CNN and BBC bought into WP.com for example under their VIP hosting program. I don’t like CNN or BBC but you don’t see my demanding WP.com take them off. All Sb bloggers had to be were good neighbors, instead they banded together and convinced SEED to throw the new people out of the neighborhood.
Like SEED, WP.com has the right to say yes or no to any business that wants to buy an enterprise level blog. Unfortunately SEED caved to demands of censure now it appears the whole enterprise is going down hill.
And, I wouldn’t get into a credibility battle much when you have people like PZ writing about how much he hates constitutionally protected religion, tea party people (also constitutionally protected), far more than he blogs about any science. His science to hate ratio is pretty ugly. If you go read the PepsiCo Food Frontiers blog, you’ll see a professionally written blog. You may not agree with it, but nobody is forcing you to read it. The same would be true on Sb.- 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
Wow, first time commenting on any blog ever and I get a five paragraph response. Must be on to something.
Anyway, I know you would never try to silence something just because you didn’t agree with it…
http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-crock-week-whats-anthony-watts-take-2
REPLY: No, that was a copyright issue. But people like you that hide behind anonymity always twist it into what you want it to be. So after all the DeSmog induced caterwauling over it because I’m apparently not allowed to defend the use of my own image, I didn’t pursue it further. And, the video remains.
– 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’?;)
Oh, and apparently they think I’m a bloke and many of them refer to me as ‘he’ on those threads (that’s when they’re not referring to me as ‘it’, that is).
But they’re *not transphobic*, of course…
Nah…probably just the age-old tactic of ‘you’re not submissive’ = you can’t be a real woman coming into play.
But, hey, they’re *not sexist*, of course…;)!
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
Is SEED still around? Six years ago I wrote a stinging critique of the magazine:
Seed Magazine: Germinating or gone to seed?
The cover story of that issue urges people to ““Vote Kerry 2004”.
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.
====================
I’m mistified at why someone, anyone, at Pepsico would even consider opening a site at Sb. There’s no reason for it. It does nothing for Pepsico. It would only help Sb. If they were serious, they should have opened a site at WordPress or some other reputable outlet. Why Sb? That is the question! There is a mystery here, it borders on the paranormal. Maybe it’s chemical. You think, maybe, if we drink too much Pepsi we’ll go crazy too?
Kim says,
Which one are you: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php ?
Hi, Doug. Stone walls do not a prison make. I skipped before he put me in the dungeon, but he told me he was banning me in a thread shortly after the Stan one. I don’t remember whether or not I challenged his ban. So, I may not be in the dungeon. I posted simply under ‘kim’ and I double underline everything.
====================
P @ur momisugly 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.
=================
Anthony opined:
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.
You have an oddly stunted view of the free market.
Yes, consumers make their choices, but in a free market so do producers. You seem to be saying businesses shouldn’t actually make decisions about what product to market- they should just produce a bunch of whatever crap is lying around and let the consumers sort it out.
Scienceblogs is a different type of product than WordPress. It’s a more narrowly focused product, one that trades on exclusivity of writers (much like, say, The Atlantic, or NRO). Blog readers have a choice to read those smaller networks, or to read free-for-alls like WordPress. The market works because there are lots of readers with different tastes and lots of bloggers and blog networks offering different ways of doing things.
Yet you seem to want all blog networks to work like WordPress. I admit- I like WordPress. That’s why I returned there. But I can’t figure out how your view can actually be free market, when you would prefer all blog networks to be free-for-alls instead of letting the blog ecosystem settle itself out with a diversity of blog network models.