[Taxacom] The bloggification of science

[Roger Burks]

I agree 100% with what has been said by Doug and Richard about this.

I would like to add that part of the problem is that culture is
undergoing a massive change in the direction of making everyone's
opinion equal, informed or not. It's a situation where evidence cannot
help, because any bias in the speaker is searched out before evidence
is consulted. If any a priori opinion is detected, the evidence is
treated as having the same force as a completely uninformed opinion.
That has levelled the playing field of public opinion (including
blogs) in some serious ways. All that is needed is one completely
uninformed person, with no job and all day to rant, to effectively
invalidate any blog that scientists have time to post--as far as the
general public is concerned.

And sadly enough, excellent research conducted over years (not just
blogs) can easily be shouted down by any one of the many popular
socio-political blogs that may cite it. All it takes is some angry and
largely uneducated person with an Internet account to say "no" in a
highly charismatic way, and scientists suddenly have at least half the
world against them.

The positive part of blogs is that they get the community more
connected--as was mentioned: "preaching to the choir." This is
actually sorely needed to facilitate communication between scientists
themselves! I would set my sights on the easily feasible
(communication between scientists) and not really bet the farm on
success with people who aren't necessarily willing to give science the
time of day. Someone might come along who can accomplish both, but
it's a very rare person that can do that without uniform help from the
rest of the community.

Roger

On 5/5/11, Morgan Jackson <jackson at uoguelph.ca> wrote:
> Doug,
>
> I think you might be underrating the potential for "bloggified" taxonomy.
> While I agree it's a lot of work to maintain a blog and continually grow the
> readership (I manage and write the Biodiversity in Focus blog -
> http://www.biodiversityinfocus.com/blog), this shouldn't scare taxonomists
> away from contributing to the blogosphere. It's been my experience that most
> blog authors would be thrilled to host guest posts by researchers discussing
> their recent work. I actively encourage other graduate students to share
> their published papers on my blog, much as previous generations of grad
> students would distribute reprints. A paper review or species highlight post
> averages ~700 words on my site, which is only slightly more than the text in
> your original email (602 words). With less than an hour's worth of work,
> taxonomists have the potential to share their readership with an extremely
> broad and interested audience!
>
> There are several benefits to a taxonomist blogging their work: 1)
> presenting their work in a "translated" fashion will reach many more people
> than normal, potentially increasing collaboration between individuals who
> might not have "met" otherwise. The 10th most read paper published in 2010
> in Zootaxa had 2053 reads; by comparison, one of my 2010 review posts
> received 423 views, and other posts received upwards of 750 hits; 2) the
> authors can include other data which may not have been publishable but which
> they still find interesting & relevant (eg. stories from field research,
> hunches which need more attention, additional photos, etc.); 3) by relating
> their research and the organisms on which they work in a more personal
> setting, taxonomists can interact directly with amateurs and the public,
> increase interest in their organism of choice, highlight issues which may be
> threatening the organism, and foster an interest in biology and the science
> of taxonomy in the general public; and 4) include a public outreach section
> on a CV or grant application, a factor which is becoming increasingly
> important to publicly funded research programs.
>
> While I agree that there are a lot of blogs out there which could be deemed
> detrimental to science, the same is true in all aspects of media (Fox News
> still manages to survive, as does a certain "journal" which has been a hot
> topic on Taxacom lately). As far as I can tell, Google does a good job of
> bringing the cream to the surface, allowing for a taxonomist's work to be
> found at a later date by inquisitive people. Add in social media and digital
> word-of-mouth and there is a strong potential for taxonomic blogs to go
> viral (we likely won't be the next Star Wars kid however). If you want
> science writing online to improve, who better than straight from the
> researcher themselves?
>
> I'm sure that there are taxonomists who write blogs on all manner of life,
> allowing for any taxon to find an appropriate niche blog which accepts guest
> posts. If not, I'd be more than happy to work with taxonomists willing to
> unleash their inner-blogger!
>
> Cheers,
> Morgan Jackson
>
> --
> Morgan D. Jackson
> M.Sc. -- Insect Systematics
> Dept. of Environmental Biology
> University of Guelph
> Guelph, Ontario, Canada, N1G 2W1
> (519) 824-4120 ext. 52582
> (519) 835-7907 (Cell)
> http://www.biodiversityinfocus.com/blog
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