The following is a Guest Post by Stephanie Zvan of Almost Diamonds.
Background
On February 26, Anonymous Coward at Bayblab suggested that popular ScienceBloggers like PZ Myers (Pharyngula) needed more science content in order to be counted as a science blog. In the first comment on that post, DrugMonkey pointed out that there was plenty of science on Pharyngula, and the matter rested there (sort of, once the author proclaimed the post only an experiment).
Then, on May 12, rommy told PZ Myers (in a comment on Pharyngula), "Sorry PZ - I have long thought that your blog was one of the weaker science ones - too much ranting not enough science - go take some lessons off Darren at Tetrapod Zoology on how to write a science blog."
Obviously, the question of whether Pharyngula is a science blog needed to be settled. Greg issued the challenge and I, because I am a complete geek who can't walk away from piles of data when it might answer a question, took it on.
Sorting the Posts
I chose five blogs to look at. Pharyngula had to be included, of course, and Greg suggested he be as well. rommy held up Tetrapod Zoology as an example of a blog that was doing everything right. Bayblab pointed to Cognitive Daily as another. And it only seemed fair to include Bayblab as well. In the interest of full disclosure, I read Pharyngula, Greg's blog, and Cognitive Daily regularly. Cognitive Daily was my gateway drug for ScienceBlogs. I've read Tetrapod Zoology and Bayblab occasionally if I've seen a link to a post that looked interesting.
I picked February, the shortest month, to make my life easier. The effect was somewhat mitigated by this being a leap year. I made no attempt to determine whether February was a typical blogging month for any of the bloggers I chose.
Because I wanted to know what people were talking about in more detail than whether they were talking about science, politics, science politics or something else, I expanded on Greg's suggested categories. I ended up with eight. Brief descriptions are included below. If a post's content was mixed, the higher category on this list prevailed. I made no attempt to grade the posts on amount, depth or quality of information included.
Post Categories
Original Science Content: Summaries of current knowledge, presentations of the blogger's research, definition and discussion of terms.
Other Science Content: Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research, reporting and linking to research results, announcing future research projects, links to educational essays or videos.
History of Science: Who discovered what and when.
A Life in Science: Life as a scientist.
Politics of Science: Controlling what is funded and taught.
Other Politics: Not directly science-related.
Blogkeeping: Meta-blogging, blogrolls, requests for information, links to interesting blog posts, promoting and reporting on the blogger's appearances on the web and in person.
General: Other items that strike the fancy or the nerve of the blogger.
Not that inclusion in a category such as Blogkeeping or General does not mean that the post was not full of geekery that would appeal to scientists and science fans. Also, events, interviews and podcasts promoted by the bloggers frequently contained science content that wasn't counted for this study because it was not on the blogger's own site.
Results and Discussion
What did I learn? Greg posts a lot. Well, okay, I knew that already, but categorizing 310 posts for a single, short month is still painful. Pharyngula boasted just over half that many at 175, with Bayblab at 43, Cognitive Daily at 17 and Tetrapod Zoology at 16.
Aside from that? How much science content you see on each blog depends on how much you limit your definition of science content. If you only include Original Science Content, Tetrapod Zoology is your winner, with Pharyngula and Cognitive Daily suffering by comparison. Add Other Science Content, however, and Greg pulls away from the pack, while the other four even out somewhat.
Add the other science-related categories, and Greg and PZ make the others look like total slugabeds. (Yes, that's a technical term.)
So it would seem that the real burden of the complaint is not so much that Pharyngula doesn't contain enough science, but rather that it contains too much other stuff. While I don't know that "too much" was within the scope of my assignment, Pharyngula, Greg's blog and Bayblab do contain much higher percentages of non-science content than Tetrapod Zoology and Cognitive Daily.
Again, please note that much of what is labeled here as non-science may still hold special appeal for science fans. Additionally, at least on ScienceBlogs, readers may use feeds that exclude much of the non-science content.
Conclusions
Once again, we discover that there are differences between bloggers. What hasn't been borne out is the idea that writing about things other than science requires that there be less science content in a blog. In fact, prolific science bloggers tend to blog prolifically about science as well.
There are two questions I'd still like to see addressed: Why is diversity among bloggers a bad thing to some people, and who thinks that telling a blogger what to write is productive?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Ugh.
Posted by: ERV | May 29, 2008 8:18 AM
I think Phil Plait would love to read that. In my utterly scientific estimation (cough cough) he is told to stop ranting and write about his subject (astronomy) more than almost anyone.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 29, 2008 8:29 AM
ERV, my sympathies. As though the lol-speak and idiosyncratic punctuation weren't a big part of your voice, which is drawing in your readers and making the technical bits palatable to those who might otherwise be intimidated by them. Do you think people told Don Marquis that his work would be better if he wrote proper English and had more sympathetic characters?
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 8:37 AM
Obviously, the appropriate question is not, "Do you have a science blog?" but, "How PURE is your science blog?". This is a wonderfully subjective question, so the questioner can decide, for instance, that the absence of apostrophes dilutes the science content of ERV's blog. It's also important, because defending purity is a virtuous act.
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 29, 2008 9:01 AM
When dealing with blog critics, there is an important point I try to remember. It's MY blog, not theirs. I write what I want to write about since these are the things that are important to me. Not everyone is going to agree with me and the big subscription numbers seem to go to bloggers writing about celebrities and the latest craziness anyway (at least that's what I keep telling myself).
Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | May 29, 2008 9:11 AM
"Again, please note that much of what is labeled here as non-science may still hold special appeal for science fans."
In the tradition of half-full cups, one may ask, is it half pro-science or half anti-religion?
There exists a natural pairing between having an active interest in science and having an interest in seeing anti-science smacked down.
"Why is diversity among bloggers a bad thing to some people, and who thinks that telling a blogger what to write is productive?"
Been trying to figure that out myself. If someone wants a 100% science blog, they can always start one themselves.
This is perhaps more of an issue for people concerned with the culture wars and good PR, who may essentially agree with PZ, but think that he goes "too far" and/or provides too much quote-ore, and that we should be attracting flies with honey, or whatnot.
Personally, I think the anti-science must be mocked out of existence, but that's just me and, of course, opinions differ wildly on this.
Good post. I appreciate all the hard number crunching you did to make it happen.
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 29, 2008 9:17 AM
All science is politics, all politics is science. I like the science in these blogs but if they were "pure" I probably would not read them.
Posted by: Joel_m | May 29, 2008 9:18 AM
For me, as a pure consumer of sorts (as close as I get to science as a profession is the software engineering that supports my creative writing), I look at ScienceBlogs as blogs by and about scientists, in the particular sense, rather than blogs about "Science" in the "Big Vanilla" sense. I certainly expect scientists to share their knowledge, insights, and passions about their research. I also expect them to share much more of themselves as well. That's what makes ScienceBlogs such a thriving ecosystem.
And look at it this way, if these blogs were only about pure science, posts like this one would also be off topic :)
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | May 29, 2008 9:19 AM
Good point, Geoff ... is THIS a science post or a not a science post?
Posted by: Joel_m | May 29, 2008 9:25 AM
Okay, now we're getting into the hard vs. soft science debate, which would require a whole 'nother rant. Or are you merely suggesting that the wee bit of snark dilutes the tone enough to keep this from being science?
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 9:45 AM
I guess because it uses a bit of science (well, statistics, anyway, if that counts) and it provides direct commentary on (and within the context and methods of) the very subject of which it is a part, this self-referential aspect of it makes it -- a Literary post! Yay!!! Score 10...
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | May 29, 2008 9:46 AM
Well, some categories are meta and some are not. I like the color coding in the graphs, by the way. The symbolism is very nice.
Posted by: Joel_m | May 29, 2008 9:50 AM
The conclusion I draw from these statistics (good work by the way) is that Pharyngula is not a science blog. General/Blogkeeping/Politics (of science or not) have an equal share of the pie, and there is a little bit of actual science thrown in. When a new item from Pharyngula appears on my aggregator, there's a small chance it will be about actual science
Posted by: Yasser | May 29, 2008 10:03 AM
Geoffrey, you're lucky I'm not one of those genre writers. That literary comment would get you hurt in some places. Sure, it would just be paper cuts, but they do sting.
Statistics is a tool used to test hypotheses. Which part of using it that way isn't science?
Yasser, while I have yet to see a definition of "science blog" that satisfies everyone, I have trouble accepting the idea that, given the amount of its science content, Pharyngula isn't one. Have you checked out Research Blogging (researchblogging.org)? Sounds like it might help you narrow your feeds to just the stuff you're interested in.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 10:20 AM
Nice little study!
Personally, I'd put "blogging about peer-reviewed research" into the "original science" category, or give it its own category to distinguish from "blogging about research press releases/news reports," but that's a minor quibble. Interesting stuff, confirming some suspicions I already had about what makes a "science" blog.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 10:20 AM
Dave, thanks! I quibbled on the peer-review posts. I finally decided it was too hard to tell just how much content the blogger added without going way beyond what I was prepared to do. That's why I took care to be clear where they were included.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 10:25 AM
Isn't there a technological solution to this issue? Couldn't blogging software be written so that individual readers could set their own preferences to display only "hard science" posts?
That is, if this issue is really a problem. I read PZ, ERV, Greg, and others - I love the diversity, and I'm also more interested in the non-science content. So I'm not really a good judge. I say, "more of the same, please."
Posted by: idahogie | May 29, 2008 10:35 AM
Stephanie appears to have pioneered the field of blogthrapology. Good post. ERV: lack of punctuation didn't do ee cummings any harm.
If people don't like my blog, I tell them to have a full refund and engage in sex and travel.
Posted by: Peter Mc | May 29, 2008 10:37 AM
Awesome. Taking the bayblab to task was a good idea.
Have to say that I thought the original bayblab post was not about telling science bloggers what to blog about, but WHY 'science blogs' have so much non-science. Bayblab is just as guilty as many other blogs of posting similar non-science content (although your analysis suggests that the amount of this material is lower).
Why is it that science blogs have so much anti religion content, for example? Is that part of science? Is that what the community finds interesting?
Also it's interesting that so many science blogs have such a similar political leaning. Perhaps that is true of bloggers in general or something.
BTW tetrapod zooolgy is hardcore!
Posted by: Rob | May 29, 2008 10:38 AM
Peter, to the best of my knowledge, Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light (and disemvoweling) fame has been doing this longer than there have been blogs. Her work tends to be more descriptive than quantitative, though. :)
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 10:46 AM
Rob, I took Bayblab "to task" at the time in the comments. I really just wanted to know what they blogged about. Kamel's pretty good.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 10:50 AM
These are really the correct questions to use in response to people who complain, "too little science!" If you don't enjoy Pharyngula or other blogs which include much more other content, it's not as if you're being forced to read them. This is the Internet--the science content is out there, and easy enough to find even without ScienceBlogs.com. I personally don't find much interest in PZ's posts, but I don't stop by his comments to tell him what he's doing wrong because he's obviously got a very good readership without me.
All of which isn't intended to diminish this post, Stephanie: extremely interesting, and I enjoy meta-analysis as much as the next geek. But I find it obnoxious when people tell bloggers to write about what they find interesting, especially when the niche they like is already being explored by plenty of others.
Posted by: Jimmy | May 29, 2008 10:53 AM
Nice post. I'm actually a little surprised at how we stacked up science-wise.
Posted by: Kamel | May 29, 2008 10:54 AM
I'll take that as an compliment :)
And the rest..
Posted by: Darren Naish | May 29, 2008 10:59 AM
Or 'a compliment' even. Me no so good lalanguage.
Posted by: Darren Naish | May 29, 2008 11:02 AM
And thanks for the kind words!
Posted by: Kamel | May 29, 2008 11:02 AM
Yasser:
You bring up a question that pertains in its overall form to many things, even things beyond the blogosphere. To address it, first an analogy, then an experiment.
The analogy: Say you live in Elk River, Minnesota, where there is both a drug store (very rare these days) and a Target. (A Target is a giant store that sells everything). It may well be that even though the Target sells lots of stuff that is not over-the-counter meds, you still would prefer the Target because it sells a greater variety, more likely in sock, at a better price, than the old drugstore.
Now the experiment: You want science blogs. Here's the deal. You pick a blog to read for one month, and commit to reading only that one blog. I'll give you a dollar for every science post (according to Stephanie's definition) that you encounter on that one blog. Which blog are you going to pick?
Obviously, it is fair to say that one may not want to wade through a bunch of posts that are not science posts, so a blog like TZ, which posts very little, but it's all science, is very nice that way. But still, you can't say that Pharyngula or GLB is not a science blog is belied by the obvious result of my (thought) experiment. (And it was a thought experiment ... there will be no dollars, sorry.)
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 11:02 AM
Or 'a compliment' even. Me no so good lalanguage.
Posted by: Darren Naish | May 29, 2008 11:03 AM
Greg, does this mean I'm not getting paid for this? :)
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 11:04 AM
The check's in the mail.
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 11:13 AM
Hmmm... I suppose that's possible, but if it was, you might think someone would have already done it.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 11:16 AM
Heck, Dave, you might even think someone would have already plugged it upthread of the question when the "problem" first came up.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 11:22 AM
Dave: Research Blogging and the RSS feeds that Scienceblogs provides do indeed serve this purpose. I would like to see more capacity, though, for customizing the feeds. It is probably out there and I'm just unaware of it.
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 11:29 AM
Stephanie,
oops -- sorry I missed that.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 11:45 AM
Dave, your mention was perfectly appropriate (and nicely snarky). I was being annoyed that it needed the second mention, which clearly it did.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 11:58 AM
The way I see it is like this: ABC has lots of sports and news and movies in it, but it's not a news, sports or movie channel.
So, I'd say that Pharyngula covers science among other things, but it's not a science blog. Science doesn't even seem to be the modal topic of the blog, politics is.
Posted by: Yasser | May 29, 2008 12:15 PM
The meat is in the percentages and the numbers.
They show that Greg posts more of all the types of content. He gets more readers because there's a higher chance that readers will open up the SB home and see something they haven't seen before.
So the guys that post more of everything get more readers. That isn't surprising.
As for my opinion:
So far the mix on SB I think is good. It's good that PZ and others are defending science from the holy rollers. I'd also like to see more blogging that exposes instances where science is manipulated for politics to the detriment of the public, and more posting about innovation being squelched by huge corporations and lobbies that don't want competition.
SB could categorize it's own feeds according to whether the material is more weighted to pure science, but I am glad they don't. Now you get people who think they don't want to read pure science to read some science, and the structure encourages the geeks who avoid politics like vampires avoid daylight to get over it, get involved and do something to help their profession.
If the mission of SB is to engage the general public (like me, for example), then there will have to be some mixing of "Nature" style articles and pure academic stuff with material that people like me can get a better handle on.
On the other hand, if SB becomes too much like People magazine, I'll stop reading it. That's why I don't read "Discover" magazine for example - they have decided to popularize their whole issue, and that turned it into just more noise in the mediasphere (tell 'em I said so, I don't care).
Now on SB there's a balance between pure science, and other stuff such as science politics and what I'll call here "science explained for non-scientists".
So far it's working, and it's quite within the scope of SB (and I think healthy for SB) to have these discussions to help keep the mix in a healthy balance.
Posted by: yogi-one | May 29, 2008 12:22 PM
I get comments fairly regularly that take the form of "why are you on ScienceBlogs if you're talking about (fill in the blank)." I've gotten it often enough that it irritates me and I usually just reply "don't like it? Then go somewhere else."
Posted by: Ed Brayton | May 29, 2008 12:26 PM
Dave, Stephanie,
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Reader A goes to Pharyngula and sees all the posts. Reader B visits and sees only Original Science Content. Reader C sees OSC plus Other Science Content and History of Science posts. Each reader establishes the level of content he or she wants to receive as a preference.
You may correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that Research Blogging does that. However, a little less snark would be appreciated.
Posted by: idahogie | May 29, 2008 12:33 PM
idahogie, I'm sorry. In the context of the comments and discussions that prompted me to do this work--far more than are referenced in the post itself--it would have been difficult for me to read your comment as anything other than trying to weed out all non-science content. Not your fault.
Dave can speak to the capabilities of Research Blogging far better than I can, but you're probably right.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 12:47 PM
Well, on Cognitive Daily you can click on the "research" tab and just get the science. On Pharyngula there isn't a single overarching category but you could click on the "archives" tab and explore just the categories you're interested in ("science," "fossils," "molecular biology," and so on).
Most blogs do offer some way to sort through their posts. ResearchBlogging offers a way to sort through the posts on a whole bunch of different blogs. In our new version (coming soon™) we will also offer readers the opportunity to view just posts about research on a blog-by-blog basis.
If you only want politics, however, you'd have to go elsewhere.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 12:47 PM
So the guys that post more of everything get more readers. That isn't surprising.
I don't think I have more readers than Cog Daily. I know I don't have more readers than Pharyngula. My extra posts don't add readers, they just increase the annoyance level for the readers that I do have.
What? My efforts to replicate People magazine have failed? Drats!
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 12:56 PM
@ Stephanie
Actually I do regard statistics as a science, of course (although my own background is Computational Science and Information Theory), as an engineer the application of statistics per se as a wholesale tool of analysis is bound by such practical limits that when I see it and other subgenre of mathematics otherwise applied in the popular sphere without professional rigors (or safeguards as the engineer in me would have it) I get snarky (and when it comes to clowns like Berlinski, I get moreso...)
Not here though -- this is just nice, straight-up analysis of a well-specified question (and using good perspective on the question). I'm wondering how many more dimensions of categorization (re a given post's subject or approach) would reveal even more, or whether it might simply be tedious. In cases were the subject is ostensibly non-science, is the approach from either an appreciably scientific or is it approached from a purely political POV? Is the issue regarded in a particular post part of an ongoing narrative in the context of the blog (part of the blog's political and social culture perhaps ) or just ad-hoc in-box mongering to fill a post-quota? and so forth.
(I wonder if one could get a grant for this?)
My point would be though that applying the same numbers-assessment to these other metrics is less revelatory of meaning that considering these questions vacuus duco, and it's in the depths of these more subtle assessments the real truth lies (so to speak). Statistics only goes so far; take me that far and I can walk the rest of the way.
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | May 29, 2008 1:02 PM
Geoffrey, I don't think I want the task of trying to separate science from politics in the thinking of science bloggers. Even political posts that don't explicitly say anything about someone's field of research often obviously reflect it.
See Greg's recent posts on racism and sexism in the Democratic primaries. You can't imagine that those aren't influenced by his study of human development and gender roles? Or that PZ's posts lambasting politicians for spewing crap about homosexuality aren't influenced by his understanding of the current science on the subject? Or that a blogger talking about education funding isn't aware of the studies showing how much a dollar spent in early childhood saves in costs to society later?
And on an unrelated note: dude, science is almost all baby steps. It isn't not science just because it doesn't answer all your questions.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 1:21 PM
Good idea and nice study. It would be cool for blog readers to have access to more of this type of information.
Posted by: bayman | May 29, 2008 2:15 PM
bayman, are you allowed to come over here and say nice things? :) Thanks.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 2:19 PM
What I find interesting is that for a group of bloggers who insist that religion has no influence on science as well as relentlessly claiming that ID (which is not religious) is dead, dead, dead, it's obvious from the endless posts written on the two topics that that is not the case. It's also apparent that your philosophical viewpoints are every bit as bent as the "pseudoscience" pushers you so abhor.
Personally, I think the description "sciencebloggers" should be changed to something like "thepoliticsofscience" or something a bit more accurate. Most of you are more about bashing religion and groups of people who don't follow your dogma than you are about providing the public with information about what is happening in the world of science.
Posted by: FtK | May 29, 2008 2:33 PM
Wow. Trolled. I feel like a real blogger now.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 2:43 PM
I suppose I'd call myself something of a Scienceblogs groupie. I like the Scienceblogs precisely because they're not "just science." Science doesn't exist in a vacuum, and neither do scientists.
The Scienceblogs are valuable precisely because the bloggers talk about the cultural ecosystem, if you will, that they live and work in. These blogs are at least as much about being a scientist as they are about doing science. And being a scientist - a human being who does science - necessarily involves dealing with life in human society in general, including all the political and cultural craziness out there.
There are plenty of other outlets, both online and offline, for "pure science," and lots of individual blogs out there that deal with "life through a scientist's eyes." But AFAIK, there's no other far-ranging assembly of scientists addressing the world outside the lab like you'll find on Scienceblogs.
One of the goals of Seed magazine (host of Scienceblogs) is to explore science's place in the context of messy human society, and I have yet to see a Scienceblog that doesn't do exactly that. Keep doing what you're doing, Sciencebloggers! I wouldn't change a thing.
Posted by: themadlolscientist | May 29, 2008 3:07 PM
Stephanie,
Just curious why you consider me a troll? It seems to me that I'm posting on topic, and I've certainly wondered in the past why Sciencebloggers are so often focused on religion and politics rather than actual science. In fact, I've considered putting together some graphs similar to your own and posting them at my blog. But, I thought I'd be nice and not point out the lack of actual "science" being discussed by this group sponsored by Seed Magazine.
Posted by: FtK | May 29, 2008 3:29 PM
Posted by: Geoffrey Alexander | May 29, 2008 3:37 PM
Of course, considering the comments here and the content of the *popular* blogs in the Scienceblogs group, it seems that your readers are those who are looking for politics and religion bashing rather than real science.
So, that's cool, keep doing what you're doing...but I'd seriously consider a different group sponsor and a change of description simliar to my first suggestion.
Oh, hey, here's a good description of this group...
*The Political Sideshow in the Scientific Culture Wars*
...or something simliar.
Posted by: FtK | May 29, 2008 3:39 PM
FtK, I'm not unfamiliar with your work. Even if I were, the post above is a great example of latching onto a tangential discussion in order to push your own agenda. You're trolling.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | May 29, 2008 3:41 PM
Posted by: Mike The Englishman | May 29, 2008 3:50 PM
FtK, Don't mistake long comment threads for "popularity." While we're not allowed to give traffic statistics, I can assure you that some of the most-visited blogs on ScienceBlogs.com rarely if ever discuss politics. Politics tends to attract more persistent trolls and longer discussions.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 3:53 PM
Stephanie, I'm very concerned that you are saying that "For The Kids" is trolling. Perhaps she is just concerned for the kids, and not actually trolling. Concern is something to think about all the time, even when out strolling along the avenue.
Don't be concerned, though, I tend to patroll the comment section of my blog regularly.
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 3:55 PM
Well, Dave, yeah, but... if we take the four, five, or six (or so) blogs on Sb that are heavy on politics and add up their numbers, which we can't discuss, that's a very very large chunk of our readers (like, the rest ... the ones reading science ... could go away and that Shell Oil ad would stay right there on the side bar).
The truth is... (ready for this) most of our readers prefer the politics and stuff. Yet many do like the science. If we actually blogged in proportion to what the readers seem to like, there would be very much LESS science than there is.
Putting it another way, despite severe pressure to stop writing about science, we continue to do so. That is because we are cool with science.
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 4:01 PM
It would be interesting to compare Carl Zimmer's blog. My sense is he writes primarily about science for the pop-culture audience with very little politics. Is there less of a market for this type of quality pop-sci writing than culture wars politicizing?
Posted by: bayman | May 29, 2008 4:28 PM
Do other Sciencebloggers like Zimmer feel pressured to stop writing about science?
Posted by: bayman | May 29, 2008 4:30 PM
Part of it may be that the science is just more work (to read and comment on).
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 4:30 PM
Greg,
Again, not giving specifics, only 4 of the top 10 blogs on ScienceBlogs discuss politics more than science. That's including Respectful Insolence, which to me is a debatable case since Orac focuses on science most of the time; he just focuses on extremely hot-button issues.
Yes, the elephant in the room, Pharyngula, gets a vast swath of that traffic, but once you get down to the next 10 to 20 blogs, most of them talk about science most of the time, and they attract an awful lot of readers.
Bayman, I don't think Zimmer feels pressured in the least to stop writing about science. He makes an excellent living at it.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 4:51 PM
Dave: You are right, of course. I started to add up the same thing and ran into the same problem. I did not want to put Orac in politics yet it is all politics. Yet it is all science.
If you take pharyngula out you get a whole different story. But still, dispatches must be twice the size of the next blog in size, but then do you take that out? I'm in the top ten most of the time and I'm not small, and I'm half science (see analysis above).
Yes, there is a lot of science. But what I find interesting here is that the statement that there is not enough science, or that there is too much of other stuff, is almost always stated as a flaw or an accusation, yet the readers read what they read and .... most of it is not science according to any somewhat strict definition.
On my own blog, my most visited posts are often not science. Or, if they are they are politics related to science. My most sciencey posts, or at least the ones that I think of that way, are almost always he least read of the substantive posts. This is probably because people read them and then don't link to them.
In the month of march, my top posts were:
PZ Myers expelled
Myers and dawkins speak out
Teacher under fire (about creationism)
Homosexual geneticists isolate gene (a joke video)
behold the vampire squid (serious but short, squid in title)
myers dawkins expleled gate
expelled the movie
happy birthday PZ myers
murdered 15 year old (gay school kid killed)
the framing critique.
So my readers mainly want to read about PZ.
I wrote many peer reviewed posts, lots of other stuff that month. We are basically mirroring hollywood here. THe really good documentaries are what we really want to do, but the people line up for pictures of britney spears pregnant, lurid stories of murder, and of course, the soap operas (pz/dawkins/expelled)
Science is to be found across the above listed posts, but I think they are the sorts of posts that people look at and say "that's not science" ....
Posted by: Greg Laden | May 29, 2008 5:05 PM
Sure, but you count as a "non-science" scienceblog, since you write less about non-science than science. CogDaily's most popular posts are, for the most part, about science. That was true even back when we used to post a lot more silly polls and YouTube videos.
Someone (and it's not going to be me) would have to do a detailed post-by-post analysis of all the "science" scienceblogs to find out if non-science is *always* more popular.
Posted by: Dave Munger | May 29, 2008 5:18 PM
Dave and Greg, this is why the Politics of Science definition is so limited. As I mentioned upthread, I don't r