A Taxonomy of Science Blogs | Watts Up With That?

A Taxonomy of Science Blogs | Watts Up With That?

What would it look like if you asked 600+ science bloggers to list up to three science blogs, other than their own, that they read on a regular basis, and then visually mapped the resulting data?





Now, you can see WUWT in yellow over on the left, almost totally isolated from the other groups of blogs, in tiny type, with only a few links to it. This raises an interesting question, which is—how could Ms. Jarreau’s results be so far from reality? I say “far from reality” because by just about any measure, Watts Up With That is at the center of the climate blogosphere. Whether you look at total page views, “bounce rate”, page views per visitor, daily time on site, Alexa rating, you name the metric, WUWT comes out an order of magnitude ahead of any other climate blog. For example, Alexa rates WUWT as the 20,839th most popular blog worldwide … while RealClimate is an order of magnitude lower down, at 217,939th among all blogs.


I’d say three things contributed to the skewed results. First, people don’t always tell the truth. Ms. HotWhopper is the obvious poster child for this. From the topics of her posts it’s obvious that she spends a whole lot of time reading WUWT … but she didn’t list it. I suspect that for some people, it’s a guilty pleasure, but that if asked, they’d say the equivalent of “I only read Playboy for the articles” …


The second reason for the skewed results is the way that news of the survey was passed around. It doesn’t appear that there was sufficient effort given to ensuring that the questionnaire was widely distributed. A better method might have been to write up a description and invitation to participate in the study, and to ask the various blogs to use it as a guest post. In any case, more thought about how to select participants is definitely indicated. Third, and in my opinion most important, there appears to have been no definition of terms, particularly as to what constitutes a “science site”. A large number of people in Lucias thread said well, HotWhopper Sou didn’t list WUWT because it’s not a science site … and according to them, the evidence for their claim that WUWT is not a science site is that often WUWT publishes studies which later turn out to be incorrect in some way, and sometimes are totally mistaken and wrong. To me, this reflects a profound misunderstanding of what makes a science site. The problem is that there are different kinds of “science sites”.


I’ll use mostly climate science sites as examples, as I’m familiar with them. One kind of science site is just a news aggregation site. The best example of this kind is Climate Depot. It just puts up links to stories about the climate with little commentary. Another kind of science site generally restricts itself to discussions of peer-reviewed science, but gives some commentary on each link. “It’s Not Rocket Science” or the Scientific American blog are examples of this category. Another kind of science site mostly deals with the original work of an individual author. Climate Audit and Isaac Held’s blog are examples of this kind of site. Then we have sites such as Lucia Liljegren’s site, or Judith Curry’s site, which reflect the individual interests of the author but which range widely over a number of subjects. Finally, we have Watts Up With That (WUWT). What makes WUWT unusual is that it is not a site that publicly discusses peer-reviewed science documents. Instead, it is a site for the public peer-review of science documents, including original work done by guest authors such as myself, and also studies which have been peer-reviewed by one of the journals.


This is a very different animal. To start with, just as happens with the secret peer review which is the usual format for the journals, not all of the papers that are reviewed will pass muster. Of course the journals don’t publish anything that doesn’t pass peer-review, they are hidden from view. But for public peer review such as goes on at WUWT, everything is visible, good, bad, and ugly. So when people complain that there are misguided or incorrect scientific claims posted at WUWT … well, doh. That’s an unavoidable part of the public peer-review game. Some of the pieces won’t make the cut. Not only that, but it is an extremely important part of the game. Knowing not only which scientific claims are wrong, but exactly why they are wrong, is perhaps more important than knowing which scientific claims are right. So yes, there is some very sketchy science that sometimes gets published and publicly peer-reviewed at WUWT … and almost invariably, it gets shot full of holes in short order. This makes WUWT more of a scientific site, not less of one. You don’t see that kind of thing happening at say RealClimate (RC) for a simple reason—such comments are invisibly and ruthlessly censored.


And that is why the Jarreau claim that RC is at the center of anything scientific is a joke. Science doesn’t censor scientific comments, and RC does censor scientific comments. You do the math. (Of course, all sites censor comments that violate blog policy, such as those that are vulgar or insulting, or wildly off-topic … but RC censors polite, on-topic, clearly scientific objections to their posts. No bueno.) As a frequent guest author, to me this pointing out of bad science is one of the most important aspects of WUWT—any mistake that I make will be identified in very short order. This has saved me immense amounts of wasted effort following blind trails … but some foolish folks think that my occasionally publishing claims that eventually turn out to be erroneous reduces the scientific value or nature of WUWT.


Nothing could be further from the truth.


Identifying errors and falsifying claims is central to science, and the only way to do so is to first publish the claims that later turn out to be wrong. As a result, Anthony has to undertake a continuous delicate balancing act. He doesn’t want to publish things that are obviously pseudo-science, but then he doesn’t want to exclude things that might be right … plus sometimes he wants to publish things that he knows are wrong simply so that their errors can be publicly identified. Does he make mistakes in the choices at times? Of course. It’s a tough job, and it is a job that no one individual could possibly be qualified to do, for a simple reason—nobody is as smart as the collective wisdom of the crowd. There’s no way to guess what errors a thousand readers might find in a piece that you or I might think is flawless. And there’s also no way to identify the odd and curious scientific claim that in a few years might be “settled science”.


So Anthony has to pick and choose, and not every choice is right … so what? Since the public falsification of bad science is essential to scientific progress, I find the idea that WUWT is not a science site because it sometimes posts shaky claims to be very parochial and short-sited. Private secret peer-review has obviously failed. In fact, many of the ridiculously bad “science” claims discussed at WUWT are peer-reviewed studies published in the most prestigious journals … but nobody can get that kind of nonsense past the kind of public peer review which is exemplified by WUWT. There are too many smart, insightful, capable people commenting on the posts for much to slip by …


So yes, WUWT does publish some obviously bad science, including obviously bad peer-reviewed science. But what some people fail to understand is, public falsification is the heart of science … and the only way to do that is to start by publishing and discussing that science, whether it is “good” or “bad”, and whether or not it’s already been peer-reviewed. In any case, those three reasons are why I think that the Jarreau results are so out of touch with reality.

Tags -- I'm it!

I've been making a lot of posts on this blog, but most of them have involved forwarding articles that pique my interest or curiosity. A lot of these articles are ones I decide I want to be able to find later.

I have a number of tags I've used over the years, intended to make it easier to find posts on certain hot topics.

I just looked in on the blog today and realized I've let too many posts stand without tagging.

The first step is to assign the "*untagged" status to everything with no tags at all (since Blogger doesn't have a way to filter the display to only posts with no tags), and then start editing the ones that only say "*untagged" to give them the tags they deserve.

In a lot of cases, I'm also going in to posts that have only a link and posting an excerpt of the linked piece.

This should be enough work to keep me busy for quite a while.

Kimberlin Threatens Even More Unconstitutional Peace Orders Against Aaron Walker

Brett Kimberlin Threatens Even More Unconstitutional Peace Orders Against Aaron Walker

via Patterico's Pontifications by Patterico on 6/27/12

Kimberlin, in a letter to Aaron Walker's attorney yesterday:

Again, I want to be left alone by your client. That is my demand as required by Galloway and the criminal harassment statute. His false narrative that I framed him is defamatory and inciting extremists to threaten me. He is responsible for their conduct. I will not hesitate to seek additional peace orders or criminal harassment charges if he does not leave me alone.

The trouble is, Brett Kimberlin defines "leave me alone" as "don't blog about the lawfare I have waged on you." He wants the right to engage in dishonest and abusive litigation, but he demands more: the right to do it without criticism. As you can see from his response to Aaron's filing for an emergency stay, Kimberlin continues to assert that he has the right to an email inbox free from Google Alerts relating to posts written by Aaron about Kimberlin:

Mr. Walker, contrary to what he says in his motion, did, as Judge Vaughey found, contact Petitioner directly in order to harass him. In his blog posts andon his Twitter page, he addressed Petitioner directly. He knew that his posts and tweets would end up in Petitioner's email box, and taunted Petitioner to turn off "his Google alerts." This is akin to telling someone to shut off their phone or stop their mail service if they did not want to receive harassing calls or mail.

Um, no, it's not. If you set up a service where your phone rings every time someone talks about you in public, I am not "phoning" you if I talk about you in public. If you set up a service where you receive a piece of snail mail every time someone talks about you in public, I am not "mailing" you if I talk about you in public. Having a Google alert for your name is YOUR choice. It cannot be used as a sword to force people to stop talking about you — and it is not "taunting" for Aaron to say: if you don't want your email inbox filled with notifications about Aaron's posts, turn your Google alerts off.
And Aaron Walker is not responsible for the reaction of other people to his peaceful speech, in which he repeatedly disclaims any intent to have people harass Kimberlin in any way whatsoever. (As do I.)
The thing is, Kimberlin has been told all of this before — and he still goes back and gets peace orders. And the judges in the Maryland court system give them to him. These judges feel bound by their own rules instead of the rules set by the Supreme Court, as Judge Vaughey famously made clear.
So when Kimberlin makes a threat like this, it is not idle.
He is not going to stop, until someone (morally and legally) forces him to stop.

Peace Love Profits

Peace Love Profits

The Lonely Island Of Little Green Footballs « The Diary of Daedalus

The Lonely Island Of Little Green Footballs « The Diary of Daedalus

The Johnson McCain Insult-fest

This from The Blogmocracy:
Robert Stacy McCain responds to charges of racism leveled by the owner of Little Green Footballs.  Among other comments:

I've studied Johnson's modus operandi and, what's more, I know the type: People who seek to impress others by a pretended expertise, and who become enraged when it is pointed out that they don't actually know what they're talking about. Everybody knows the guy who, when among a group of football fans watching a game on TV, makes a point of lecturing about the zone defense, etc., presenting himself as an authority to whom others must defer. And if you question his authority, however mildly, he'll get angry and start arguing vehemently as if disagreement were an insult. It's about him, you see.

I do believe I've encountered the type before.  I can't say whether this is the case at LGF, but I think it is elsewhere.

Greens against wind power

From John Ray's blog:

The following is from a newsletter put out by Greenies who OPPOSE wind power. The email followed a strategy discussion of how to defeat a bad wind energy bill (the disastrous Massachusetts Wind Energy Siting Bill).

What I have reproduced is fairly long but there is in fact more to it. If you ask to be put on the mailing list of John Droz jr. (aaprjohn@northnet.org) you can get the whole of it. Droz is a physicist and his site is here

The Continuing Deflation of LGF

Perspective from the Big Government site: The Continuing Deflation of Little Green Footballs

I feel compelled to answer the Little Green Monster after I saw him go after James O’Keefe with that same tired wet noodle of a charge he has leveled at so many, calling him a white nationalist. Johnson claimed in an LGF post that “ACORN sting filmmaker James O’Keefe was photographed attending a 2006 white nationalist conference titled ‘Race and Conservatism.’”

Sounds terrible, right? Sure, until you get the facts that Johnson doesn’t tell you. When it became clear that it wasn’t a “white nationalist conference,” Johnson tried to slither out of responsibility for his words by saying in a new post: “It’s very clear that I attributed the ‘white nationalist conference’ claim to One People’s Project; that’s what the words ‘according to’ mean.”

Busted! As if it weren’t obvious that in his original post, he was approving of and endorsing what One People’s Project said. But this is typical of Johnson’s weaselly hit-and-run smear tactics.

Meanwhile, Larry O’Connor at Big Journalism uncovered the truth about O’Keefe’s supposed participation in this conference:

1. He was not “manning a table” at the event.

2. He was not involved with the organization or operations of the event.

3. He attended the event with many of his Leadership Institute co-workers since it was right across the street from their building in Arlington, Va., and it was organized by other LI associates.

4. The organizer who is being called a “White Supremacist” is half Jewish and half Korean.

5. One of the panelist was an African-American named Kevin Martin.

The event was forced to move to a Georgetown University building in Arlington, not at a cross-burning.

This is what Johnson does. He has gotten a great deal of publicity for his announcement about how he parted ways with the Right, but the real story of Charles Johnson is not even that he changed his mind or his politics. Little Green Footballs today is not a political site. It’s an attack site. He has set about to destroy the most effective voices on the Right. But in fact, he destroyed himself.

At first, I noticed he was attacking Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch. OK, maybe it's a pissing contest. When I followed links, all I could see was a pretty weak attempt at guilt by association.

Now he's attacking people all over the place, with the same charge.

Everyone's wrong but him?

I don't quite buy it.

---

And here's a copy of a retraction request aimed at LGF.

While it is true Mr. Johnson did not use the precise phrase “white nationalist convention” as was noted in Weigel’s article, he said something very similar in the comments of his blog. In this case, Mr. Johnson does not attribute his claim that O’Keefe attended a “meeting of white nationalists” to anyone.

We hope that Mr. Johnson, an influential presence in the blogosphere, will issue a retraction without playing the semantics game with the words “meeting” and “conference”...

In addition, his claim O’Keefe was “a friend” of Marcus Epstein is false. In an interview with BigJournalism.com, James O’Keefe denied Mr. Johnson’s claim, which, again, is unattributed. As was hashed out here, there is no factual basis for Johnson to imply a close link between O’Keefe and Epstein...

We kindly request retractions to both statements.

Little Green Responses

Charles Johnson has replied to Dennis' open letter.

<http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35656_A_Reply_to_Dennis_Pragers_Open_Letter>

Stage Right Outs Himself

Big Hollywood » I Am Stage Right

It has been almost one year since I began writing here at the Big Blogs of Breitbart.com. When it all began, I was motivated by the events that brought down Sacramento Music Theatre executive Scott Eckern. Ironically, his story, which inspired this new avocation also served as a real-life lesson in the new political world we inhabit. You see, Mr. Eckern was forced to resign his position because it was discovered that he donated money to the anti-same sex marriage Prop. 8 campaign. Knowing that, I would have been a fool to put my name on the things I’ve written here. So, “Stage Right” was born.
....
I have reached the point where I can no longer hide behind the warm embrace of anonymity while I stand shoulder to shoulder with such brave and noble colleagues. I no longer fear professional retribution nearly as much I fear the direction of my government and the lack of candid analysis from the professional journalists charged with the responsibility of critically analyzing that government.

So, to that end: My name is Larry O’Connor.

The Voyage of the Beagle

What if Darwin had blogged his voyage?The Voyage of the Beagle

Littler Green Footballs (Wizbang)

The footballs continue to deflate. Littler Green Footballs (Wizbang)

"Little Green Footballs" isn't the same site it was then, however. Now, there are a new set of foes that take the most prominence in being exposed and denounced. And the damnedest thing is, I agree, basically, with most of those opinions -- but I don't have the same vehemence.

Give me a blog!

John Stossel (famous for his "Give Me a Break" segments) has a blog at ABC.  His most recent post to date:

Jacob Sullum has a nice column in this month's Reason magazine debunking the idea that guns purchased in the US fuel the drug violence in Mexico.

  

"Making it harder for Americans to buy guns is not likely to stop Mexican gangsters from arming themselves. The persistence of the drug traffickers' main business, which consists of transporting and selling products that are entirely illegal on both sides of the border, should give pause to those who think they can block the flow of guns to the cartels."

  

He also argues, as I have, that conservatives who oppose gun control should also oppose the drug war. A war on drugs inevitably becomes a war on guns.

Enjoy!

 .........................Karl

Obamanopoly

http://atrueobamanation.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-game-in-town.html

Cartoon site

Some biting humor at this site.

blog

Personal Litmus
A source of editorial cartoons...

TOTUS

The Teleprompter Of The United States has its own blog.

Blog to check out

http://www.internetfoodassociation.com/

Anti-creationist conservative blogs

At Little Green Footballs.

And I've added a link to mine in the comments.

.....And thanks for the link!

neat links

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTk4NDFiZDMxOTFjNTZjOGQxNzVkM2IyOTE5YTkwNmI=