Comments

1. #1 Hank Fox

   July 10, 2010

   I’m pretty sure I had a couple of comments here, and I see they’re not here now. In fact, I’m pretty sure there were a couple of REPLIES to my comments, and they seem to have vanished too.

   You actually SANITIZE your comments?? Jeez.

2. #2 ERV

   July 11, 2010

   You are an idiot.

3. #3 Hank Fox

   July 11, 2010

   I think you’ve begun to self-destruct, kiddo, and you might want to rethink where you’re headed, what you’re doing — at least here online if not elsewhere in your life.

   Just because there’s nobody in the room when you’re typing these things, doesn’t mean the whole world isn’t watching. You have to keep in mind that everything we’re doing here is PUBLIC … and forever.

   For your own sake, be more careful about what you write.

4. #4 John C. Welch

   July 11, 2010

   Oh very nice Hank. Veiled threats and concern-trolling now?

   Maybe you should be more careful too. Remember, your name is attached to these comments forever as well. You wouldn’t want to be seen by future employers as a raging doucherag.

5. #5 Optimus Primate

   July 11, 2010

   I agree with Hank, Abbie. Be careful what you’re saying here. Keep going around being the voice of reason like you are and people are going to start treating you all respectable-like.

   Ick!

   You’re too young to get saddled with a reputation like that.

6. #6 Hank Fox

   July 11, 2010

   The “voice of reason” doesn’t call people “pig fuckers,” “ungrateful media whore,” “fucking two-faced ass,” and “hypocritical spineless shits.”

   That’s the voice of a juvenile and a bully.

   Abbie, your fans here assume that I’m the enemy because I criticize you. (Just as, out in the larger world, war-hawks assume that anybody who protests U.S. actions in Iraq or Afghanistan is somehow America’s enemy.)

   That may not be the case.

7. #7 Candid Engineer

   July 11, 2010

   This is one of the most shockingly unprofessional things I have ever read. Who calls their colleagues “media whores”, “pig fuckers”, “spineless shits”, etc? Do you plan on landing a job someday? Do you realize that it’s not so tough to figure out who you are?

   Perhaps instead of wasting time taking pictures of your midsection (which, by the way, still looks a little soft), you should set aside a few moments to pull your head out of your ass and start acting like a grown-up.

8. #8 ERV

   July 11, 2010

   And who are you, exactly, Candid, to tell me what emotions I am allowed to express (or not to express)?

   Why, exactly, am I not allowed to be genuinely angry at Mark CC for misrepresenting SEED? For acting like they are going to unceremoniously take down his blog with no warning, when that is the polar opposite of reality? Considering his undying support for the Blogger wing of Google?

   Why, exactly, am I not allowed to be pissed off I (and SEED) were taken for a ride by Sloot? She provided virtually no science content for this site, while soaking up all the media attention SciBlogs would give her, soaking up all the gratuitous site hits from free advertising for her book on the main page (I never got an all ERV week) which she got paid for, then left like she was taking the high road. Why would I, a person who has provided real science content for SciBlogs for years not be pissed off for being taken advantage of like that?

   Why, exactly, should I not be mad that people who supposedly care SO MUCH about the COMMUNITY of SciBlogs destroyed the last bit of trust I had in other bloggers here– the understanding of confidentiality– by sending that letter to the Guardian? There have been things that have gone on in the back channel Ive wanted to talk about for years, but I kept my fucking mouth shut because I have the *tiniest* bit of respect for my fellow bloggers.

   Why are all those activities fine and dandy, but someone being mad at those activities is wrong? Exactly.

   And Candid, I am in fantastic shape, and I really am proud of my physique. What you just said, ‘still looks a little soft’ does absolutely nothing to my self-confidence. But every girl reading this page who is bigger than me just felt really self conscious about themselves. Youre the reason girls starve themselves. Those people all in a tizzy about ‘BAD FOOD’ are why girls throw up.

   Go fuck yourself sideways with a rusty knife, pig fucker.

9. #9 Divalent

   July 11, 2010

   Candid Engineer: “Do you realize that it’s not so tough to figure out who you are?

   Damn, if you can pull that off, I bet they’d hire you at the Discovery Institute!

10. #10 ERV

    July 11, 2010

    LOL! I missed that, Divalent.

    I can return the lulz, though! Google ‘Candid Engineer’ on SciBlogs. Its amazing how so little can explain so much.

11. #11 Science 2.0

    July 11, 2010

    Whew. In a morass of ‘I am ethical if I leave but you are ethical if you stay’ rationalization and hand-wringing (hand wringing by the people making the most money here) you actually came down on the side of not assuming scientists are on the take just because their paycheck comes from one type of corporation instead of another and instead noted the hypocrisy over an issue that everyone outside Seed writers knew about but that Sciencebloggers apparently just discovered.

    You just gained a reader.

12. #12 John C. Welch

    July 11, 2010

    #105

    This is one of the most shockingly unprofessional things I have ever read. Who calls their colleagues “media whores”, “pig fuckers”, “spineless shits”, etc? Do you plan on landing a job someday? Do you realize that it’s not so tough to figure out who you are?

    Oh jesus h. christ, another one of these fucking fearmongers? “oh, you better watch out, someone might find out you’ve said harsh things” Considering her name’s all over the fucking blog, along with where she’s currently getting her postgrad work done, it’s pretty fucking easy. Abbie does a great job of owning her words, for better or ill. Unlike overpretntious prats like you who claim to be outspoken, (in your oh-so-precious blogger profile), yet make sure no one can ever trace you to your words and opinions. “Brilliant U”

    Pro tip: hiding while lecturing someone who doesn’t hide about the ‘consequences’ of someone ‘tracing’ them to their words is not cowardice, it’s just hypocrisy. It’s totally lame fucking hypocrisy, and shameful.

    Especially when when you’re talking about silly shit like pig fucker. Don’t ever read my blog, you’re delicate little head will just go aallllll kinds of ‘splodey’. Oh, and not only does my boss KNOW about my blog, I insisted he read it before he agreed to hire me, just because I didn’t want him to get blindsided. As I was offered the job, it appears that being open and up front has some small value as a tactic. Maybe you should consider it more, instead of hiding away like a hamster at a cat convention.

    Perhaps instead of wasting time taking pictures of your midsection (which, by the way, still looks a little soft), you should set aside a few moments to pull your head out of your ass and start acting like a grown-up.

    Seriously? Not only are you lecturing Abbie for being all a-skeered like you, but now you resort to a fucking FAT JOKE? Where the fuck are YOUR abs for us to evaluate? Where the hell is your example of taking a fucking risk like Abbie did to make a pretty salient point, in ways that words couldn’t have.

    How fucking lame and sad do you have to be to resort to a fucking cheap shot like that? Christ, you remind me of the six-pack dorks i used to teach martial arts to. They’d see me, with my legacy of graduating high school at 5’6″ and 260lbs, and think that i was just some fat old man who would be lucky to make them break a sweat.

    Two hours later, when they were all pale and a-shaking, they’d learn the dangers of judging by mere appearance, and that as it turned out, being in shape because you are teaching 6 classes at 3hrs a day every week gives you a rather different level of fitness than fucking an ab machine.

    That’s the best you got? “someone might find out who you are, oh, and FAT!”?

    Like i said, stick your ass out there the way Abbie did, and then you can talk.

    Oh yeah, and Abbie’s right. You’re a total pigfucker.

13. #13 Candid Engineer

    July 12, 2010

    Abbie, I don’t know you, and I had zero preconceived notions of you before I started browsing your site. Here is the impression I am left with after reading your posts:

    You are unprofessional. Childish. Self-absorbed. Stupid. Not a good colleague. Crude. Arrogant. Malicious. Quarrelsome. Completely shallow.

    You seem like a real winner.

14. #14 DidITweetThat

    July 12, 2010

    Dude, lay off the Pepsi, it seems to make you a little… agitated… . maybe even …. angry.

    ;-D

15. #15 John C. Welch

    July 12, 2010

    Unlike many, i’ve no problem with getting angry when it’s called for. Beats suppressing that shit, avoiding it, and any other ‘bad’ emotion, until when you finally can’t, you have no ability to deal with it.

    I don’t fear my emotions. I don’t deny them. As a result, i’m better able to master, (not control, there’s a difference) them, so that when i do need to dampen them down, i can do so far easier than someone who hides from it. being intimately familiar with anger, annoyance, et al allow me to deal with them far better than those who think the only acceptable state is some bizarro droolingly happyland. fuck that.

16. #16 Orac

    July 12, 2010

    Why, exactly, am I not allowed to be genuinely angry at Mark CC for misrepresenting SEED?

    How did Mark misrepresent Seed? Please be specific.

17. #17 ERV

    July 12, 2010

    Its in the post, Orac.

    Thanks for reading it.

18. #18 Psi Wavefunction

    July 13, 2010

    Glad I’m not the only one irritated by the sheer hypocrisy of ‘enlightened’ people screaming “braindead corporate zombies” the second anyone not funded [partially] by NSERC/NSF/CIHR/NIH/whatever. Without even thinking about where their own funding comes from. Without even admitting to their own biases and conflicts of interest (eg. serious bias towards ‘positive’, well-accepted and hype-friendly results).

    Corporations are not evil. Nor are scientists saintly. Nor are religious leaders evil. They’re all just people. Each with their own interests and desires, own worldviews, own goals; people trying to get by in this distinctly unfriendly world. Some are in disagreement with your interests. Some aren’t particularly good at long-term thinking and commit stupidity. But automatically lumping them into binary ‘good’ and ‘evil’, moreso based on profession, is completely absurd and counterproductive.

    Nor does fucking swearing completely invalidate all the shit I just bloody wrote =P

    You’ve just gained yet another reader!

    -Psi-

19. #19 Stephen Wells

    July 13, 2010

    I was particularly impressed by MarkCC’s initially posting that he would leave SB if Pepsi stayed, and stay if Pepsi went. Then Pepsi was kicked out. And MarkCC is leaving anyway. Great consistency.

    I’m reading here from this post: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/07/seed_conflicts_of_interest_and.php

    in which Mark said: “If Seed decides to back out of this spectacular stupidity, then I’ll start posting here again. If not, then I’ll go looking for a new home for GM/BM.”

    Which of course is followed by http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/07/goodbye_scienceblogs.php in which he says “So my decision is made. I’m closing up around here. I’m in the process of working out exactly where I’m going to go. With any luck, Seed will leave this blog here long enough for me to post an update with the new location.”

    You’d think he would grasp that the blog stays up until he actually leaves…

    I don’t think I’ll bother much with GM/BM. It was fun once but has degenerated badly.

20. #20 John C. Welch

    July 13, 2010

    #113:

    Here Orac:

    2. Mark CC– Over on GM/BM fretting about how he doesnt TRUST SB anymore! OH he has to back up his posts ASAP cause they might DISAPPEAR TOMORROW! What a fucking two-faced ass. First of all, SB has always made it abundantly clear that no matter the circumstances we leave, they will leave our blogs up for us to back anything up. For Mark to say ‘Ohhhhh theyre gonna take me down any second now’ if a fucking lie. A manipulative lie.

    And its hysterical Mark is soooooo worried about his blog being taken down without warning, when every fucking time Blogger (run by HIS EMPLOYER GOOGLE) takes down MY blog, or Steve Mathesons blog, or a fucking teenage kids fashion blog without warning, he buts in like fucking Porky the Pig saying “Bu-bu-bu-bu-but Google is duh-duh-duh-doing a good job! Monitoring blogs is HARD!” Heaven forbid someone at Pepsi actually like their job and genuinely want to defend what they do there, though.

    There, fewer werds to wayde throo.

21. #21 Rob

    July 13, 2010

    Abbie, you rock.

22. #22 Passerby

    July 14, 2010

    I don’t think Pepsi wanted to talk food science as much as nutritional policy issues that can impact public health status down the road, maybe even next year.

    They want feedback and discussion, and they would rather have it from the science-educated public.

    I don’t buy the argument: ‘you can eat junk food and still be healthy’. You buy junk food because it tastes good and because you have decoupled risk and reward recognition and behavior control.

    You don’t smoke ‘just a puff’ and magically won’t suffer the consequences. Big Tobacco answered this idiot mentality (“aww, a few puffs won’t hurt me, so I can cut down on my smoking…see, I only smoke 6 per day instead of a whole pack”..blah, blah, blah) with deliberate product re-engineering.

    What they did, starting in the early 90s, was to change filter design, tobacco genetics and processing, such that far more nicotine was delivered in the first few puffs of cigarette consumption, and it was delivered deeper into the lungs.

    You got more of addiction hook than the old cigarette designs. But you also got more lung damage from deep penetration of combustion gases and microparticulates.

    Yummy.

    Interestingly, marijuana (hereafter, ‘weed’) also underwent selective breeding to enhance both addictive qualities and narcotic effect. It’s primary audience was the growing population of meth-heads who needed a bridge between binges.

    It’s more potent. Much more potent that the weed your parents were used to smoking.

    I am willing to put down good money that massive outlay on product advertising and clever product design in snack foods has played up to addiction-prone behaviors, probably resulting from inadequate or ineffective emotional stress coping and reduced stress tolerance, from shitty lifestyle choices….but maybe more.

    I think it was ERV who opined that maybe there was more to junk food addiction than just poor choices.

    I think what we have is a case of general reality Denial – much of it in response to constant delivery of Bad News – with a side of addiction-dependence from dysfunctional coping mechanisms.

23. #23 John C. Welch

    July 14, 2010

    119:

    I don’t buy the argument: ‘you can eat junk food and still be healthy’. You buy junk food because it tastes good and because you have decoupled risk and reward recognition and behavior control.

    You don’t buy it because your implication has nothing to do with what Abbie was saying. She never said she eats *nothing* but junk food. She said the idea that any consumption of junk food instantly and forcibly turns you into a mountain of suet is bullshit.

    Your statement only is true if you only eat, or if junk food makes up the majority of your diet. People who are casual consumers of junk food haven’t decoupled anything. they understand they are consuming empty calories full of HFCS and other unhealthful shit. So they do it in moderation and make sure to exercise and eat other, more healthful things.

    This isn’t a binary issue.

24. #24 Stephen Wells

    July 14, 2010

    Sometimes I buy a cheeseburger because I’m hungry and would like to eat something that tastes like a cheeseburger, because I like those.

    My life expectancy might rise fractionally if I never, ever ate cheeseburgers. But then I would have to live a long life with no cheeseburgers in it.

25. #25 Passerby

    July 14, 2010

    “In the merry, merry land of La..”

    >Your statement only is true if you only eat, or if junk food makes up the majority of your diet.

    No. In order not to incur negative impact from fast food consumption, it needs to be < 10% of daily dietary intake.

    The average American's diet consisted of 25-30% junk food, as reported in 2004. It's closer to 40% of daily diet in 2010.

    Researcher finds one-third of U.S. diet comprised of junk food. June 2004.
    http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/6416

    “Among the food items, soft drinks and pastries led the list of top 10 foods contributing the most calories to the American diet. As the leader of the pack, sodas alone contributed 7.1 percent of the total calories in the U.S. population. Foods such as hamburgers, pizza and potato chips rounded out the top five food items. ”

    America can’t provide it’s population with enough fruits and veggies to satisfy current nutrition pyramid recommendations.

    “The NCI team worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to calculate how much food the United States produces, imports and gets to retail outlets.

    Fast-food outlets, junk food makers and snack companies are well supplied…”

    Fighting cancer: Diet, scant exercise problems.
    May 10, 2010
    Reuters (report on NCI study)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64I73220100520

    US Agricultural subsidies tend to favor fast food ingredients: top 2 are corn and wheat. Number 7 is rice and 9 and 10 are meat/dairy. Number fourteen is tobacco.

    farm.ewg.org/region.php

    Fast/junk foods are cheap, readily available, poor sources of important nutrients, and the ingredients tend to be government subsidized.

26. #26 FastLane

    July 14, 2010

    Abby, I’m coming in late to this thread, I know….

    …but if you decide to flounce, can you be sure to get it on video!

    I hear nerd flouncing is all the rage these days.

27. #27 John C. Welch

    July 15, 2010

    #122

    “In the merry, merry land of La..”

    >Your statement only is true if you only eat, or if junk food makes up the majority of your diet.

    No. In order not to incur negative impact from fast food consumption, it needs to be

    you need to read the quote I was referring to first:

    You buy junk food because it tastes good and because you have decoupled risk and reward recognition and behavior control.

    that assumption cannot be true for people who recognize that junk food is just that, and eat it knowing that it’s empty calories that taste good with little to no nutritional value. the only group that assumption works for are people who eat mostly junk, because they DO tend to be in denial over it.

    You didn’t qualify that in any way or on any level. I was not, nor were you, talking about the effects of junk food, you were talking about nutritional value. that’s not what i quoted.

28. #28 Garg

    July 19, 2010

    Late to the party, but it seems like this entire problem could be avoided with some better organizational oversight. Such as:

    1.) Clearly mark any corporate sponsored blogs, so readers will not be confused that the owner/sponsor is paying SB for the space/opportunity.

    2.) Have a community process for voting blogs out. Seriously. Ever been to a community craft store? The local artists co-op to rent the space. Any artist taking up shelf space who doesn’t sell gets kicked out. Now I’m not saying to make the rules based on page views or ad click-through, but some sort of board or community process would help out. And clearly, power would have to be balanced.

    Anyway, thanks very much for your post. It was inflammatory, but amusingly so. I generally think the Pepsi blog was a bad idea, but even evil mega corporations have to hire scientists. It WOULD have been interesting to see what would have been posted, and holding judgment until then. But then, there doesn’t really appear to be a process for dealing with bad content/marketing fluff in place anyway, besides the current behavior of many SBers.

29. #29 IanW

    July 21, 2010

    That was good for me, how was it for you?!

    At first I thought this was just about the Pepsi plan, but having read much more as this has unfolded, it’s become patently clear that a lot of the bloggers here were just waiting for an excuse to flounce out, and the carbonation of Science Blogs gave it to them.

    That’s not to say that the Pepsi issue could not have been handled a whole lot better. From what I’ve read, Bly seems to be rather ham-fisted when dealing with his bloggers and is now threatening what was originally a superb idea, but your take on it is probably the most accurate, even when set side-by-side with Bora’s take – the one he just posted announcing his departure – which also had a lot of interesting things to say.

    Keep up the good work and you’ll be replacing PZ as the leading blogger, except that you’ll have a significant science content, which he doesn’t seem able to manage these days.

30. #30 Billare

    August 17, 2010

    It was so good to read this dose of common sense — cathartic for me, even.

31. #31 William Wallace

    March 3, 2011

    I just saw this. Old, I know. But funny. Especailly @116. And ERV’s post. It feels like watching an episode of cops. Or Jerry Springer. I know it’s not right, but it’s fun to watch people with whom you don’t often agree turn on each other.

    But I will say, with much respect, that ERV has bigger balls than PZ, PalMD, and MarkCC combined. (Yeah, I know, PZ stuck around, but he still has an obvious testosterone deficiency.