The Benefits of Science Blogging

 
In one of the few time that I agreed with Matt Nisbet, I argued earlier that science blogs are good for science journalists, [Scientists Enter the Blogosphere].

But how significant are these discussions if only a minority of scientists read blogs, or write them? "Blogs are important sources for opinion leaders, activists, and journalists. They help create a lot of the discourse out in the world," explains Nisbet. Indeed, many discussions that grab the attention of bloggers have ended up in the pages of The New York Times or in the news sections of science journals. "Blogs are having an impact because newsmakers read them," says Moran. "To some extent we are writing for science journalists. We are saying ‘Here is something getting the wrong kind of coverage’ or ‘Here is something you should be paying attention to.’"

I'm pleased to see that Michael Lemonick of TIME agrees [Why I Hate Scientist-Bloggers].

Now look what's happened. Go to the Science Blogs website and you'll find dozens of actual scientists, commenting in real time on every aspect of science you can imagine. It wouldn't be so bad if they were inarticulate—but most of them aren't! They're eloquent, funny, sarcastic and really smart (the last kind of goes without saying). No sooner does a paper appear in a major (or even a minor journal) than they jump in with knowledgeable reaction.

The truth is that science journalists have always relied on actual scientists to help us understand the implications of some new discovery. Some of us are pretty savvy about some areas of science, but still, we need to get expert perspective. Scientist-bloggers help us do that, only more efficiently. And because there are so many of them, with many more scientists commenting on their posts, the wisdom of crowds distills the essence of the arguments very quickly.

The bad news is that Sandwalk isn't on his list of favorite science blogs. This is one of those times when people aren't making the distinction between "science blogs" and "ScienceBlogs^TM."

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[Hat Tip: Pharyngula, which is one of the favorites.]