I found this humorous. h/t to Andrew Revkin.
Over at Scientific American, Bora Zivkovic writes about Why the NYTimes “Green Blog” Is Now Essential
Andrew Revkin of the NYT found the story worth noting, and included it in his story The Changing Newsroom Environment, about the closure of the NYT’s Environmental Desk:
Bora Zivkovic, the blog editor at Scientific American (and much more), posted a must-read analysis of the shift at The Times, noting the importance of sustaining the paper’s Green Blog. One administrative issue, of course, is who would manage that blog without a desk? In my reply to his post, I said that all roads lead to the Science desk. In a comment, Dan Fagin of New York University predicted that the paper, due to “organizational culture and especially economics,” was unlikely to adopt Zivkovic’s prescription. I hope you’ll explore the conversation and join in, there or here.
(There is one odd element there, a posted comment that was removed and replaced with this note:
“This comment removed by blog owner, due to inclusion of a link to ideologically-motivated anti-science site What’s Up With That.”
If I censored every comment on Dot Earth that had an ideological framing, or was in some way anti-scientific — think GMO debates, nuclear power, etc. — there wouldn’t be a lot left. I know that leads to frustration and some noise, but I err on the side of free speech. On a related front, I’ll be writing up a piece this week on research finding that incivility in comments amplifies polarization.) [1:55 p.m. I asked Bora about the comment policy. His reply is in a comment below.]
Here’s a screen cap of that comment:
Even funnier, Bora has now removed the comment at his blog noting the comment has been removed! I saw it earlier, noting 5 comments including that one, and I refreshed to see if other commenters had weighed in only to discover it vanished.
Maybe his “harshness” is why he has only 4 comments. Let’s help him out folks.
And Bora, it is “Watts Up With That“, just so you know when you delete in the future 😉
@Rhoda: If it wasn’t for WUWT the likes of Bora would be like that tree in the forest falling without anyone to hear it.
Advertisers are assured that there are 5.3 million readers, although the audited circulation from Tim M’s post above is more like 500,000. 10 readers per issue, not bad!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/mediakit/assets/pdf/products_international.pdf
Crackpot,
“I have several problems with this reaction, but my first and outmost source of anger is the remark that whoever is dissenting with this person should be shot on contact. Maybe it would be good to inform VP Biden that the left is more likely to commit mass shootings.”
Don’t be silly, what left thinking person would own a gun. /sarc
“Two what?” “No, four watt.”
This joke is so old. 🙂
(There are longer versions of it, though)
I think that Watts Up With That is an excellent blog, and I read it often. I agree with most of what Anthony publishes here, and have donated money. However, one of my own posts here was bowdlerised: in the body of a comment I once made, I had a link to a story at Real Climate. After my post was vetted by the mods, they had removed the link, just like Borat Zivkovic did on his blog: “This comment removed by blog owner, due to inclusion of a link to ideologically-motivated anti-science site What’s Up With That.” To be clear, the WUWT mods were not as draconian as BZ: they snipped the link, but allowed my comment.
My support for WUWT is unflagging, but I guess I am still feeling a bit stung by what the mods did.
And for the record, I did not agree with the story at Real Climate to which I had linked. I consider RC to be anti-science. My intent was to stimulate discussion here by linking to some BS they were propagating.
REPLY: I’m going to find out which of the mods removed that link and have a “come to Jesus” meeting with them. There’s no reason to remove a link to RC. The only reason to remove a link would be to a piece where some hate speech or ranting is bandied about. Those sorts of things don’t deserve oxygen. While RC is often self serving and smug, they rarely go into that realm. My apologies to Mark. – Anthony
Well I did my own censorship back a couple of years, when I finally terminated my more than 35 years plus subscription to that “Scientific” American magazine. I finally tired of their unmistakeable political bias in their stories.
I do still pay for a subscription for a long time friend; but I am no longer a reader.
John roberson says —
A whole 5 comments, the delete button must be smoking.
I nearly fell off my chair when i read the above. I still got tears in my eyes.
Eugene WR Gallun
Hey, don’t be too harsh on our Bora Zivkovic (not to be confused with Danish football (soccer) player.
How do you get the right background to be blogs editor at Scientific American?
Start with racing horses in Serbia and end with circadian rhythms in Japanese quail.
With name like Zivkovic (not to mention Vukcevic) you have to be controversial to be noticed in the English spoken world of science. Two of us are products of the same University, in a society where censorship was an ‘essential branch’ of science.
The new mantra, in case you haven’t noticed it, is this:
‘The timing of interventions against CAGW will determine it’s effectiveness’.
This is translated, today, in today’s Independent (along with the Guardian, UK’s most strident apocalyptic global warmers (amusingly enough, owned by an ex KGB officer who presumably has instructions from the Russians to get the idiotic British to cough up, cough up, whilst they dig their heels in): ‘$2trn the cost of delaying tackling CAGW to 2020’.
All their article assumes the following:
1. That scientists can predict temperatures accurately up to 100 years in advance.
2. That scientists can model the effect of interventions accurately up to 100 years in advance.
3. That scientists can predict with certainty the evolution of technology, to be used or not in interventions, for the next 100 years.
I humbly submit that the newspaper, its editor and its journalist are lacking in insights when evaluating all three of those issues skeptically.
Zivkovic (who’s he? Why does anyone think anything he writes is worth reading?) writes in his article:
“I have argued many times that, despite the proliferation of many new outlets that may do reporting better, traditional big venues, like The New York Times (and just a few other ‘biggies’, like BBC, Guardian, Washington Post, The Economist, PBS, NPR and not many more), will continue to play an important role in the media ecosystem for quite some time. These are trusted brands for far too many people who grew up in that world.”
It is impossible to take seriously anyone who includes BBC, Guardian and The Economist in any list of “trusted” media brands. The BBC lost any trust it may have had several years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. The Guardian has only ever been “trusted” by the self-appointed “liberal elite” aka leftwing Socialists. Ironically, it has for years been subsidised by Autotrader magazine. The Economist is now just a pale shadow of what was once a serious magazine.
If those are the sources which Zivkovic trusts his views are of no account. It’s time he caught up with the real world.
“Anti-science” in CAGW newspeak means “anti-Climatist.” It is equivalent to heresy in the Church of Climatism, and punishable by excommunication from Blogs proclaiming the Litany of Climate, and the Mysteries of Warming and Change.
/Mr Lynn
In 1798 the Federalists managed to pass the sedition act. In the election of 1800 they lost their majority. By 1829 the Federalists ceased to exist as a political party.
There is a lesson there I guess for proponents of silencing dissent.
When I was a medical student in 1966, we invited the publisher of SA, Gerard Piel, to come to the medical school as a visiting lecturer and I learned that he was pretty far left at that time. I still subscribed for another 20 years but finally gave up. That was before global warming alarmism but they were anti-nuclear power and seemed far too political.
Andy Revkin reported that Bora Zivkovic, a blog editor at Scientific American, deleted a blog comment on a SA blog and then inserted this notice of the deletion:
– – – – – – – –
This is a comment directed to Bora Zivkovic who is a member of the Scientific American editorial staff.
Bora Zivkovic’s use of intellectual differentiation is faulty. By any view of the range of science’s different contexts, he has failed in identification of the fundamental scientific context of the WUWT blog.
‘Anti-Science’ is a movement that uses the fundamental idea that science (and its inherently associated and necessary technological / industrial development) is a damaging influence for a civilization. Therefore, WUWT is excluded prima facia from all ‘Anti-Science’ contexts.
But, also consider the fundamental idea of ‘Pseudo-Science’; it is an attempt to emulate the appearance of having the same respected status as a related science at any period in the ceaseless ongoing development of the scientific process. Pseudo-science is a scientific mimicking and detecting the mimics is within the normal healthy scientific process. It is to be expected, is normal and is common in the history of science for there to be scientific mimics (Psuedo-Scientists) . I think the open forum WUWT provides is an effective means for facilitating the healthy scientific process of culling out the climate science mimics; culling out Climate Science Psuedo-Scientists. It is understandable that those endorsing the mimics in climate science, like Bora Zivkovic does, do not like WUWT.
Also, consider the idea promoted by Cook’s blog. His fundamental idea is the products of IPCC process are incontestable authority in climate science. Has he focused on the normal and necessary culling out the climate science mimics (Climate Science Psuedo-Scientists) in the IPCC processes and its products? No, he excludes the IPCC from that normal and necessary scientific step of culling out the commonly occurring mimic science; culling of pseudo-science. Cook’s blog profoundly avoids the scientific process in that regard. His blog represents what I call Scientific Mimic Abetting.
John
john robertson says: January 13, 2013 at 1:08 pm
A whole 5 comments, the delete button must be smoking.
========================
And one of those was Revkin’s, who did not see fit to comment on the practices of Zivkovic,
Commissar of Information and Science.
REPLY: I’m going to find out which of the mods removed that link and have a “come to Jesus” meeting with them. There’s no reason to remove a link to RC. The only reason to remove a link would be to a piece where some hate speech or ranting is bandied about. Those sorts of things don’t deserve oxygen. While RC is often self serving and smug, they rarely go into that realm. My apologies to Mark. – Anthony
————————————————-
Thank you Sir. This is the sort of self-calibration I expect from your fine blog 🙂
After reading this, I strolled over to SciAms blog website to look over the offending blog. Under “Most Read Posts” there was a link to one on Science Sushi that some how fit:
“Fake Feces To Treat Deadly Disease: Scientists Find They Can Just Make Sh*t Up”
Of course, it’s not about the IPPC, EtAl, but geez, if the shoe fits.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2013/01/10/fake-feces-to-treat-deadly-disease-scientists-find-they-can-just-make-sht-up/
Borats writing style reminds me of the old Dan Akroyd/Steve Martin bit about “wild and crazy guys” His constant use of the word “cool” makes for good comedy
I gave up on SA many years ago. Then about 2008, my wife got a free subscription “deal” because an airline was canceling their frequent flier miles. One of the rags she signed up for was SA. I glanced through the first few issues to see that it was worst than ever, and had become very political, climate change was everywhere. I told my wife to throw the magazine out as soon as it arrived. She asked “I thought you like Science?” I do.
When the subscription ran out, it didn’t stop coming. Every month a new magazine arrived with a cover sheet – You must renew your subscription now in order to keep receiving Scientic American. Finally I called them and demanded that they stop sending me the magazine. They said that it was free – I wouldn’t be charged. I told them that free was more than it was worth to me.
> Who’s Bora?
Read this:
http://mistersugar.com/article/4777/an-interview-with-bora-zivkovic
Born in Belgrade, moved to US in 1991,
… and with three more years blogging experience…
He started with political blogging… and never really left it.
13 comments now, looks a lot like a mutual admiration circle, the usual suspects.
Bora will be using the spike in traffic to brag what a great article he wrote and how SA is so relevant .
We may have saved this gentleman’s job.
Short term that is.
Re jan 13 12.47 Lewis P Buckingham
My apologies to SA and Mr Zivcovich about the salt flat of Lake Eyre being used as an icon for global warming and drought when it was flooding and cool. The article I referred to was actually in the National Geographic.