You may remember “ScienceBlogs’ The official party line (according to Wikipedia) was:
ScienceBlogs was an invitation-only blog network and virtual community. It was created by Seed Media Group in 2006 to enhance the public understanding of science.
…
As a result of the free rein given to bloggers and the incentive to increase traffic, bloggers on the network often discussed hot topics such as politics and religion in addition to science. These topics frequently incited heated arguments in the comment threads and bloggers on the network sometimes got into arguments with each other over a series of posts.
And THAT was the formula for the inevitable demise, because the kind of hateful rhetoric spewing out of “ScienceBlogs” was something we knew couldn’t sustain itself…and it didn’t. It’s gone dark as of October 30th, it is now no more.
On 14 October 2017, astrophysics blogger Steinn Sigurðsson publicly revealed that ScienceBlogs was due to be shut down,[17] and David Gorski, author of the “Respectful Insolence” blog under his pseudonym Orac, stated that ScienceBlogs had “barely existed as an entity for a few years”. [18] Astrophysics blogger Ethan Siegel reported on 22 October 2017 that ScienceBlogs had informed bloggers it “no longer had the funds to keep the site operational, and so they would be shutting down”.
Gone are the hateful. stupid, and narcissistic missives of anthropologist Greg Laden, who in my opinion, is about as execrable of a person writing about science as you could possibly imagine. He routinely deviated from science topics into attack mode. Some examples:
- Greg Laden, liar
- Howler of the day – pure comedy gold from Greg Laden
- Greg Laden caves – makes nice with Tallbloke
I decided some years back it was time to ignore him after this poll was conducted: Reader poll – should I sue the pants off Greg Laden?
My decision then was to ignore him, and the decision was a good one. His blog died in the vacuum that followed. Nobody cared anymore what he had to say.
Another blog at ScienceBlogs, “Deltoid”, run by Tim Lambert, met a similar fate, but much earlier on. It seems Tim crossed the line one day on a climate opinion, and smeared a respectable journalist, and that journalist decided to fight back, hard. I had some behind-the-scenes involvement in that. After that, Tim was reduced to posting monthly open threads, and that was it.
Last but not least, let us not forget “science blogger” William Connolley, the copious ever-present Wikipedia climate bully-editor, who got himself suspended from Wikipedia for multiple violations. It seems this post was prescient:
Yep, his “science blog” is dead and as far as I know, nobody attended the funeral. So much for “Taking science by the throat“.
Moral of this story: hate isn’t marketable.
Update: I forgot all about Pharyngula by the ever grouchy PZ. Myers.
I miss the arguments at Greg Laden’s blog. There was a lengthy non-discussion of George Orwell’s “1984”. But I see that I haven’t commented there since February so apparently I don’t miss it much.
I have no doubt that the Climate Change Alarmists will one day be seen as we see 17th Century Ptolemaic mathematicians today. Simply wrong. They weren’t stupid. Some were in fact mathematical geniuses. Simply their paradigm was/is wrong.
And until that day when the veil of climate ignorance is lifted, real scientists must live with them. It is hard I realize. They currently infest much of academia, the science academies, editorial staffs at big name journals. They sometimes are deceitful and use non-scientific methods to further their careers and paychecks. But like Sb, truth and unavoidable climate reality (that the Earth is entering a climate optimum) will win out over the hate.
And like Sb, their time will come for being flushed down the toilet of bad ideas. Not by a person. But because their ideas on CO2, on stifling dissenting, inconvenient science data and debate, as the central element of Earth’s climate will be as curiously quaint as the idea of an Earth-centric universe is to us today..
Sorry Joel. The AGW idiots are too dangerous to be that forgiving. Their behaviour is more like willful negligence and they must be held responsible for their actions. Michael Mann’s hockey stick worl for instance, was deliberate and crooked, no simple mistake, and he has had ample opportunity to disavow it and offer apologies. He has no place in science!
To be fair to the 17th century Ptolemaic mathematicians, their computations were complex, but accurate. In effect, they were applying Fourier transformations on ellipses.
Good news.
Anthony Watts November 6, 2017 at 9:04 pm
“reallyskeptical” what’s your profession?
reallyskeptical
Suggest to all WUWT commenters, any subsequent post from reallyskeptical be responded to with only “What’s your profession?” until such time as an honest answer is provided. And all are free to be really skeptical of that answer…..
Who? In the meanwhile the following attributed to Jim Brainard is more interesting:
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/unofficial-us-delegation-prepares-to-defy-trump-at-bonn-climate-summit/article36840368/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
The russians did it.
I stopped visiting the Guardian for the same reason. The fewer the hits, the smaller the income.
Me too, but oh, there was a glimmer of hope in this hedline:
“Bird killers are getting away with it. But there’s hope in sight”
But alas, no bitter complaint against wind power.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/06/bird-of-prey-killers-get-away-hope-legal-changes-hen-harriers-peregrines-buzzards
Our local version of the Guardian/NYT is the Toronto Star. Last year, they stopped taking comments. I said then that, while I understood the reason, from a financial sense, its dumb. I would visit several times a day (alas) to comment. Each visit was a click, each click (maybe) a few cents.
Now? I don’t click as much, if at all. Hiring someone to edit comments is a cost, that’s for sure, but when all those commenters go away, isn’t that smart of a business model, no?
With the sheltering of “Teen Vogue”, and Gothamist.com, etc…I think we’re seeing the inevitable conclusion that even billionaire angel investors are tired of losing money supporting what is basically very bad writing covering even worse politics.
It seems also that Donald Prothero has stopped blogging, see http://www.skepticblog.org/author/prothero/ at scepticblog, Prothero devoted an entire blog to the Texas-sized floating plastic waste in the pacific (which I doubt exists), with of course no pictures, just hearsay, he is a real rabid climate blogger, or was, I am glad he slowed down, but he was good entertainment for a while. Donald R. Prothero was Professor of Geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Lecturer in Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He earned M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees in geological sciences from Columbia University in 1982, and a B.A. in geology and biology.
He is a quite competent paleontologist when he keeps away from CAGW, which unfortunately is rarely nowadays.
There were good blogs on ScienceBlog at one time, e. g. “Tetrapod Zoology”, however they either moved away or died years ago.
Too bad, so sad . . . where’s my violin?
“where’s my violin?”
I’ll find you a magnifying glass.
It sometimes amazes me how easily otherwise intelligent people are conned into not discussing what the “scientific establishment” wants left undiscussed . . by otherwise intelligent people.
“ As a result of the free rein given to bloggers and the incentive to increase traffic, bloggers on the network often discussed hot topics such as politics and religion in addition to science. These topics frequently incited heated arguments in the comment threads and bloggers on the network sometimes got into arguments with each other over a series of posts.
“And THAT was the formula for the inevitable demise, because the kind of hateful rhetoric spewing out of “ScienceBlogs” was something we knew couldn’t sustain itself…and it didn’t.”
Sure, it’s not the hateful rhetoric spewers, but the topics . . which magically defy rational moderation . . Kinda like trucks being spoken of as responsible for much recent mass death, rather than the hateful people diving them . .
I think this is (was in this particular case) actually part of an intentional “gettoizatation” effort, to prevent intelligent people from discussing things beyond a narrow range of focus, so the interconnections between various agendas/realms are not grasped or understood by them/us.
I mean, seriously, if something as contentious/polarized as “climate change” can be dealt with routinely, what in the world makes anyone think some other subjects are going to cause some sort of serious problem? If someone gets hateful, warn and then boot them. Stifling/prohibiting non-hateful speech/discussion on the grounds that someone else might be provoked to hateful rhetoric by it, is just plain capitulation to hateful people, in my eyes. A victory for the controlled society freakazoids (whom I believe were the backers of the CAGW scare/vitriol all along).
PS ~ In reality-land, the implied division between “climate science” (and by logical extension, science in general), and politics, and religion, is virtually nonexistent, it seems to me. Just today I saw this stuff;
“Gov. Jerry Brown led a delegation of California politicians and climate change activists to Rome this weekend, where he gave a keynote address during a Vatican-sponsored conference about threats facing the environment. The governor, who once studied to become a Jesuit, urged religious leaders to mobilize their flocks to join the fight to protect the planet—and he attended an 80-minute meeting with the head of the Jesuits.
“Until religious leaders from every part of the globe and from every denomination are engaged, we’re not going to be able to move aside the huge rock of indifference, complacency and inertia,” Mr. Brown, a Democrat who is California’s longest serving governor, said during the conference. “Going forward we’re going to have to find the pathway to awaken the world to get done what needs to be done.”
Our “opponents” are not remaining compartmentalized, I see, and along with other crap like the Exxon Knew/Rico prosecution attempts, and the “climate activism” of the Pope, ought to I feel, justify delving into these realms to some extent . . which does occur. Strategically speaking, it behooves the “skeptic clan” to convince as many Christians as possible, to be skeptical too . . I suggest. There are quite a few of them, ya know ; )
Tim Lambert @Deltoid?
I am curious about what happened with Tims pro-CAGW-blog Deltoid? Does anybody have more details?
Anthony Watts said he was kind of involved? Was the journalist Peter Wood of CHE?
Because Tim L went from topical posts to only monthly open threads (sometimes to be months overdue when opened) during a time when I first was mentioned/discussed (in a guest post by John Mashey in a response to Woods article in CHE) whereafter i quite quickly and by popular request was banned to ‘my own ‘Jonas-thread’) which thereafter for more than a year was the main part of any substantial discussion over at Deltoid.
This being obvious through (most often) the most recent comments all being in a and old and very long 2011-post, the Jonas-thread, apparently was embarrassing to Tim Lambert, so he tried to slow the discussion down by delaying my comments for weeks in so called ‘moderation’. And that thread would still not die.
So finally he closed it for comments all together.
I would think that some 6000+ comments there constitutes one of the longest threads/discussions on ScienceBlogs.
(Now closed: scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/09/12/jonas-thread/ )
(CHE-article: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/bottling-up-global-warming-skepticism/29754)
There’s a relevant comment by the blogger Godfrey Elfwick: “Free speech in theory sounds like a great idea, until you realise how many people use it to say the wrong things”.