Watch out for possible commenting glitches

There have been these annoying glitches in TypeKey comment management in the past, and the source of the problem is inconsistency in how the different science blogs require valid email addresses in your comments. We’re about to enforce a uniform standard across all the science blogs—you will all be required to use a valid email address, although I don’t think it will be displayed—and that might cause a few hiccups here, at first. Give it a chance and it will all shake out, I hope.

Skeptical magazines

Martin Rundkvist has some complaints about the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, specifically about their staff and contributors.

They’re all men, and their mean age appears to be about 55. This is perhaps not surprising given the age and gender of the editor-in-chief.

Now wait a minute—being in your 40s and 50s and 60s is no problem! It’s actually a very sensible age. The lack of female input is a serious shortcoming, but let’s not give people grief for their commendable longevity and long-term activism. (Also, Martin seems to have missed that young whippersnapper, Chris Mooney, who has a column in the magazine.)

The problem isn’t old people: it’s the lack of diversity. When I see the list Martin puts up, what I see is a group in trouble, one that has failed to extend its reach beyond the fairly narrow circle of its founders, and one that is going to fade away as that group dies off. As he notes, it also means the magazine acquires an old-fashioned tone that is going to fail to bring in new blood.

He recommends Skeptic magazine, to which I also subscribe, and which definitely tries much, much harder to extend its reach—it has a whole section, the Junior Skeptic, specifically for kids. My one complaint about it is similar to the one about SI, though: sometimes there isn’t enough diversity, because there’s too damn much Michael Shermer. Nothing personal against the guy, but sometimes it does seem like it’s a glossy magazine dedicated to showcasing Shermer…and that also has perils for long-term viability.

Portrait of the blogger

The most amusing coverage of the Nature top science blogs article comes from The Technology Chronicles, which begins by calling scientists “sober, dispassionate, precise” and suggests that we’ve abandoned “Olympian impartiality” to compete with Cute Overload. I get the impression the author hasn’t ever met a real scientist. Nick will love being called a “budding Matt Drudge.”

We need more cute, huh? OK, I can do cute. I had to run my photo through a face transformer to do it, but here I am, rendered a bit more adorably than in real life.

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Now I just sit back and wait for the fans to roll in.

(Thanks to Lindsay, who took the original photo.)

Evolution of Hormone Signaling

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Last week, I received some delusional e-mail from Phil Skell, who claims that modern biology has no use for evolutionary theory.

This will raise hysterical screeches from its true-believers. But, instead they should take a deep breath and tell us how the theory is relevant to the modern biology. For examples let them tell the relevance of the theory to learning…the discovery and function of hormones…[long list of scientific disciplines truncated]

Dr Skell is a sad case. He apparently repeats his mantra that biology has no need of evolution everywhere he goes, and has never bothered to actually crack a biology journal open to see if biologists actually do use the theory. In my reply to him, I did briefly list how evolution is used in every single one of his numerous examples, but today I’m going to focus on just the one I quoted above: hormones.

[Read more…]

I blush to mention it

Declan Butler has a short article in this week’s Nature on the “Top 5 Science Blogs”. This was determined by identifying blogs written by scientists and determining their rank on Technorati. The top five are:

  1. Pharyngula, at #179
  2. The Panda’s Thumb, at #1647
  3. RealClimate, at #1884
  4. Cosmic Variance, at #2174
  5. The Scientific Activist, at #3429

Declan asked each of us to say a little bit about why we were succeeding in this medium, and that’s given in a short summary. It’s seriously edited down, though—I have no complaints at all about what he wrote, but he didn’t use one part I wrote to him. I can’t blame him, since it undercuts the premise of the article, but I wanted to mention it here, at least.

Hmmm, reasons for my “success”…well, first of all, I have to say that I don’t measure success in terms of Technorati rank or traffic. There are great science blogs out there (check out the list at scienceblogs.com) that are more focused than mine and certainly do a better job of more sharply elucidating the niche they occupy. I’d say I have wider popularity because I do tend to wander off into many different topics, so there is a more diffuse field of potential interest, tapping into the broader areas of liberal politics and atheism. I think, also, I’ve tapped into a fair amount of resentment against the reactionary religious nature of American culture—to some, I suspect I’m one representative of opposition to the excesses of our dominant political regime. This country is strongly polarized, and my position makes it easy for many to identify with me…and those who disagree find it easy to characterize me.

Nature has made available a list of the top 50 science blogs, which will make for a useful start for anyone trying to fill up a blogroll. As Sciencebase notes, though, it does have some omissions.

Coturnix turns up a publicly accessible copy of the article.

Butler D (2006) Top five science blogs. Nature 442(7098):9.

Dire warnings

Reading some of my favorite blogs today, I can’t help but feel the looming hand of fate preparing to destroy us all.

  • Jon Voisey is praising a director of the Oklahoma ACLU, Joanne Bell. You’re in Kansas, Jon. It’s not that far from Oklahoma. What happened to Bell could happen to you.
  • Ophelia Benson is saying harsh words about Mother Theresa. An uppity woman criticizing an icon of Christian charity? Someday, you could be in a hospital with a hatchet-faced nun looming over you, contemplating how best to chastise your body before your immortal soul meets the god who will fling you into the flames of Hell.
  • General JC Christian dares to mock those who would sic Jew-haters on the home of the Dobrich family. You’re anonymous, old boy—wouldn’t it be a fine coup for some winger somewhere to publish your home address and phone number? Let’s see how funny you are when a manly Christian fellow shows up at your door with a demand to give your inner Frenchman a workout.
  • Cream Pickle Pups? Oh, no—it’s fair time in the Midwest, when the most obscene foods appear in greasy carts on dirt paths in places that reek of farm animals. We’re all gonna die.

Despite the horrible possibilities, though, I can’t help but hope that everyone keeps it up. Well, except for Diablo Cody—no one really needs to OD on fried fats in grease, do they?