I propose an experiment. Head on over to Cosmic Variance or Bad Astronomy. Count the posts on the front page that have to do with their respective subject areas and how many have to do with politics or religion. Hold that ratio in your head for a moment.
Professor Orzel on Uncertain Principles is discussing the limitations of science blogging in terms of how much of a scientific education people can get from reading those blogs. He thinks there’s certain limitations intrinsic to the form, and he’s right. But he also makes a tangential point in passing:
Look, I don’t disagree with a thing he says about the incentive structure of science blogging, and blogging in general. He’s absolutely right that the desire for traffic pushes people to write about topics that will bring page views and comments, which all too often makes scienceblogs.com feel like ranting-about-religion-blogs.com. His analysis of the culture and processes of the science blogosphere is spot-on.
This I agree with, except the possible traffic motivation. Do those kinds of posts actually drive up traffic? After all, there’s a lot of blogs out there which are specifically about politics. Tons of them. Metric tons, even. There’s not exactly a shortage of religion blogs out there either, from the most strident atheism to mainline Christianity to obscure deranged cults. There is some supply and demand at work here. There’s a finite number of eyeballs interested in reading about those subjects, and a glut of supply is going to make it difficult to obtain traction with readership. If traffic honestly spikes noticeably after a post about one of those subjects I would be surprised.
There’s also the risk of alienating some readers. I personally tend to get a bit peevish when I head off on the blog circuit to read about science and end up reading a dozen angry screeds about the latest partisan outrage - even in those cases where I agree with the view of the writers. Blogs, however, are a free product of the writers and any person who doesn’t like the content is free to not read them. Many well-known science bloggers who like to write heavily about politics and religion have said just this. It’s a perfectly true and perfectly valid policy.
I wonder, however, why so many science writers make that particular decision at the risk of losing part of their audience who otherwise would love to read about science. I have a guess. In some sense, writing about science simply serves to make the readers a tiny bit more familiar with some interesting piece of the natural world. It’s good for public awareness of science and good to spread ideas and perspectives, but it’s an epiphenomenon of scientists, not science. Science would go on unimpeded if every science blog vanished tomorrow. After all, it went on just fine in the centuries before blogging was invented. Politics on the other hand involves the entire population, and in a democracy the direction of public policy is directly influenced by what the people are voting for. Writing to try to promote your politics views feels like directly Making A Difference in a way that writing about research does not. Every mind changed, changes the body politic. I think that, not traffic, is probably the motivation for political writing. (Swans on Tea has some thoughts along these lines as well.)
But does it actually make a difference, or does it just feel that way? I find it hard to imagine anyone is going to read this recent Cosmic Variance post and change their minds about war crimes charges for the Bush administration. A part of the audience will nod in agreement, the other part will roll its eyes in disagreement and possibly not return, and no one will leave knowing anything more about physics.
You may be able to tell I’m not a huge fan of the “I’ll write about politics anyway and if you don’t like it you can leave” school of science blogging (Though I have nothing personal against those with that policy!). So for this site, I’m going to try a different tactic at least for the time being.
I myself have strong opinions about politics and religion. It’s probable I may even write about them here from time to time. But I will do my best to keep my writings on those topics to a minimum. When I do write about them, I’ll try to see that they’re at least partially related to the putative subject of this site. And just for good measure I think I’ll put them under a link with a disclaimer urging you not to click it. I think you are smart enough to make up your own minds without me haranguing you.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Tom // Jun 30, 2008 at 10:46 am
Controversy sell, just like in the real world. Slicing into anything with the scalpel of skepticism has this potential, but things like quality creationism disembowelments are blogging gold and subject matter is in no short supply.
Even outside of that, anything controversial enough will attract an audience, and even those that disagree may stick around, just to keep reminding you they disagree. But as you seem to agree here, it’s probably not going to change any minds.
2 Super Jesus // Jun 30, 2008 at 11:31 am
There is no God…vote Obama.
Yes there is…vote McCain
No there isn’t.
Is too.
Obama!
McCain!
CLINTON!
BUSH!
…what were we talking about again?
3 Phil Plait // Jun 30, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Well, in my case, the Bad Astronomy website has always been about skepticism, with a focus on astronomy. In fact, the whole website is predicated on critical thinking as it relates to astronomy. I never made any bones about the fact that I would blog about personal opinions, or politics, or religion, or anything else (and I’ll note, as I have before, that those who complain about my “off-topic” posts always talk about religion and politics, and never when I post cartoons or Doctor Who stuff).
Critical thinking applies everywhere, not just in science. R&P are not only good topics for its use, they are, well critical topics where it can be applied.
So I will continue to post about science, just as I will continue to keeping up with those who would attack it.
4 vvl // Jun 30, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Amen! Bring on the physics! :D
5 Nick // Jun 30, 2008 at 2:23 pm
To a degree I understand the focus on a particular topic. But I don’t think occasionally writing for yourself rather than strictly for your audience necessarily drives readers away. All I have to do is close the window if I don’t care to read, after all.
6 Old Geezer // Jun 30, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I have always thought that blogs are basically like those guys in London who stand on soap boxes and rant away. Some have no audience at all, while others attract a crowd. It is their prerogative to choose the subject and say what they want about it. People like Phil and PZ attract comments about religion because people who read their blogs are interested in the conflicts between pure science and pure religion. Yes, there are flamers and one-message commenters, but they are part of the show.
7 Carl Brannen // Jun 30, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I don’t think it actually increases readership. All it does is invite a lot of comments.
Feynman had something to say about this. It is only on the subjects that no one knows crap about, that everyone can feel free to talk about.
By the way, I just finished a biography of R. L. Moore, and will probably blog a book report eventually.
He had an unusual teaching strategy. He let his students discover all the proofs for themselves. A similar way of teaching graduate physics would be to show the students the experimental data and let them figure out a theory that matched it. One of the consequences of Moore’s method is that new mathematics ended up being discovered in his graduate classrooms.
His students were first class mathematics researchers but they were unfamiliar with the literature. He is famous for having produced an unsually high percentage of the important mathematicians of the mid 20th century.
And getting back to the subject, Moore was famous for deliberately angering his students by bringing up off topic subjects like religion, race, and politics. Maybe it increased attention in the classroom for other things.
8 andy.s // Jun 30, 2008 at 6:12 pm
A weeks worth of Cosmic Variance:
Do Atheists Exist? (Religion) 102 Comments
Academics and Religions (Academia, Religion) 74 comments
Books of Our Time (Words) 53
War Crimes (Civil Rights - Politics, really) 50
George Carlin (Miscellany) 23
Another Argument for Quality Science Journalism (Science, Media) 18
Is the LHC too busy to Blog? (Blogosphere, Science) 16
If It’s Not Disturbing, You’re Not Doing It Right
(Philosophy, Science) 15
3 of the top four posts are Politics and Religion,
3 of the bottom four are Science.
This is on a Science blog maintained by 7 scientists.
Recommendation for Sean, Mark et. al., add a horoscope and some celebrity gossip; ditch the science crap and you’ve got yourself a blog.
9 Tom // Jul 1, 2008 at 5:43 am
@ andy.s
You’ve equated number of comments with being a “top post” and I’m not convinced that that’s necessarily the right metric. Are we talking readership or reaction?
10 Chad Orzel // Jul 1, 2008 at 5:55 am
This I agree with, except the possible traffic motivation. Do those kinds of posts actually drive up traffic?
Yes.
I’ve looked at this several times, and posts about politics consistently bring in more immediate traffic, and generate more comments, than posts about science. There are exceptions– the highest-traffic post of all time on my blog is still the one where I discussed the Many-Worlds Interpretation with my dog– but as a general matter, the average political post generates more traffic than the average science post.
The last time I blogged about this, there was some question as to whether the science posts might catch up over time, being less ephemeral than the political stuff. I haven’t looked closely at that, but I may give it a shot this week, if I find myself in need of cat-vacuuming.
11 CCPhysicist // Jul 1, 2008 at 3:23 pm
It is really quite simple. There are a lot more people who think they know something about politics or religion than think they know something about science.
But as to what is appropriate: A weBlog is just what it is, and nothing more. If it had a charter that said it was only about science - rather than about whatever the creator wants to talk about that day - any politics other than science politics would be out of order. But it doesn’t, so write about whatever bugs you or interests you.
If you were on enough people’s radar screens, a posting about crank science might also drive up the comments.
12 Anonymous // Jul 1, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I’d comment about the religious question of “the principal challenge of moving about in space - there’s nothing to push against” if it weren’t for the fact that something is broken. I get a 404 when I click on the article or the comment link.
13 Tom // Jul 2, 2008 at 5:59 am
I think perhaps this sums it up nicely.
14 wokka // Jul 3, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I never claimed that any of my blogs are “science blogs”, but I have to add to this discussion that the post that has most page loads of any on my Swedish blog is the one where I explain the concept of dark matter. (This is on a blog where the main topic is not science, but google gets me readers.)
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