The Week of Science Challenge

Do you consider yourself a Science Blogger? You could be a hard blogging scientist, science journalist, student of science, or just a member of the general public with an interest in the scientific process. If you identify with any of these, I've got a challenge for you.

It boils down to this:

• One week of science blogging and only science blogging.

• At least one post a day of pure science content.

• No blogging about anti-science -- no creationism, no anti-vaccination, no global warming denialists.

Just Science from February 5 through February 11.

More information can be found here or below the fold. Further details (how to make your participation known, how to contribute to the RSS feed, etc) will be provided in the coming weeks.

On the internet you can find a blog dealing with pretty much any subject you fancy. There are some topics that receive the majority of bloggers' attention: personal life, politics, pop culture, politics, politcs, sports and of course, politics. And you can find a fair number of blogs devoted to science as well. The science bloggers can be further classified into those who deal primarily with science, those who write about the interface of science and culture, and those who blog about the politicization of science.

There is also a strong anti-science presence on the internet - global warming denialists, creationists, the anti-vaccination movement - and many science bloggers end up spending a fair amount of time combating the misinformation spread by these groups. This comes at the expense of blogging about actual science, and sometimes it swallows all the content of the blog. Many of us are tired of the attention anti-science advocates manage to receive. We understand the importance of engaging them, and yet feel that the debates where anti-science is the topic of interest sucks much of the oxygen out of the science blogging community, in time and effort, which we could devote to commentary on genuine science.

While there is no immediate solution to the various anti-science movements (and ignoring them is hardly a viable long term option), we would like to propose a Week of Science, to begin on Monday, February 5, and end on Sunday, February 11. During that time each blogger should post about science only, with at least one post per day. Furthermore, issues which are favored by anti-scientific groups (creationism, global warming, etc.) should be either avoided, or discussed without reference to anti-scientific positions.

If you consider yourself a science blogger (whether you are a scientist, science writer, philosopher of science, or interested in the interface of science and politics) and would like to accept the challenge, you can find more details below.

Bloggers who self-identify as scientists and science writers should post on:

1. Published, peer-reviewed research and their own research.

2. Their expert opinion on actual scientific debates - think review articles.

3. Descriptions of natural phenomena (e.g., why slugs dissolve when you put salt on them, or what causes sun flares; scientific knowledge that has reached the level of fact)

Bloggers who claim to be philosophers of science (or have been accused of so much) should post on issues, ideas, and debates in philosophy of science that are not frequently used or dictated by anti-scientific groups. The demarcation problem, for example, should be avoided unless it\n can be discussed without reference to anti-science movements.

And bloggers who are not scientists - focusing mainly on public and policy debates on scientific issues - should post on issues that are legitimately controversial for scientific reasons. Topics that are controversial simply because of anti-science movements should be avoided.

The challenge has been issued. Do you accept?