publishing hypotheses and data on blog

Publishing hypotheses and data on a blog - is it going to happen on science

blogs?

What is a science blog?

I guess there are as many definitions as there are science blogs, but

in general, I see science blogs defined (by other bloggers) in two

ways: by topic-matter and by authority of the author.

Thus, a science blogs is one that always, often, or at least sometimes

covers science as a topic. Or, a science blog is one written by a

person with some expertise in science, e.g., a practicing scientist, a

student, or perhaps a science journalist.

You can sample the diversity of science blogs if you check out these

linkfests: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, so you can make up your

own mind about the definition.

So, I've been reading science blogs for quite a while now. How do they

differ from other blogs? What, if anything is missing? Are there any

trends that may predict the future of science blogging?

I was going to make a lot of links to a lot of blogs to provide the

examples, but this post will never get finished if I tried to do that.

Instead, I'll link to a few blogs where particularly relevant, provide

some examples from my own blogging because it is easy for me to find

around here, and for the rest, following the links in the linkfests

just above will have to do.

So, what kinds of posts are found on science blogs? Let's see, very

roughly in increased degrees of "professionalism", or "expertise":

Universal Fun Bloginess

Most science bloggers do stuff that all bloggers do. For instance,

there may be an occasional personal post, a post about one's kids, a

joke, some poetry, a cartoon, perhaps some memes, shout-outs to

carnivals, Top 10 lists, and some online quizzes, often with

commentary on the quizzing method. A 'Merry Christmas' post may be

less frequent than in the rest of the blogosphere, though. Anyway,

move on, nothing particularly sciency-interesting here.

Cute Animal Pictures

Friday Cat Blogging is an ubiquitious event on blogs. Science bloggers

are, of course, animal lovers and pet-owners just as much as anyone

and frequently post cute animal pictures. But, science bloggers are

more likely to forgo the cats, and highlight some much cooler animals,

like cephalopods on Pharyngula or Nudibranchs on Bouphonia.

Daily News and Events

If something newsworthy happens in the world, be it in science or

politics or popular culture, science bloggers are as likely as anyone

to chime in, linking to the media reporting and briefly commenting.

Many science bloggers write a lot about politics, both as

news-coverage and as more in-depth analysis.

Humor

Some science blogs are just plain fun. Some are snarky and raunchy all

the time, like FrinkTank, appealing to an adult lay audience. Others

are fun in a way that makes science appealing to a young lay audience,

like Inkycircus, which is, for the most part, safe for work. Of

course, if your work is not safe for FrinkTank, there is something

wrong with your work.

Life in Lab and Field

Several science blogs, usually written by students and postdocs,

detail the daily life in the laboratory or the field.

YoungFemaleScientist, Disgruntled Julie and

Penn easily come to mind. Some of the posts (and occasional posts by

other bloggers) are as good as anything on LabLit.com. Others are more

"professional", e.g., the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog.

Book Reviews

These appear on science blogs quite often. I have written a few

myself. Check, for instance, this one or this one.

Original Art

There are two outstanding examples I am aware of, Olduvai George and

Rigor Vitae, of professional nature artists showcasing their art on

their blogs, putting the subjects of their art in proper scientific

context, and explaining the technical aspects of their work as well.

There are also numerous photoblogs, with excellent amateur or

professional science/nature photography on display in each post. Some

of the best blogging nature art and photography regularly occurs on

carnivals like I And The Bird and Circus of the Spineless.

Science in the News

This is often seen on science blogs - reporting on, perhaps with brief

commentary - on new scientific findings as reported by the mainstream

media. This is often accompanied by a critique of the way the research

was portrayed by the journalist.

Science Journalism

Real analysis of the way media portray science is not easy and is thus

not as common as just airing displeasure with a particular piece of

reporting. But you should take a look at Matt Nisbett's Framing

Science for an example of good media analysis.

Politics of Science

Several science blogs are almost entirely dedicated to the analysis of

the politics of science, both in terms of science policy and in terms

of politization of science and politically-motivated attacks on

science and scientists. Chris Mooney, after blogging about this for a

couple of years, wrote a book on the subject. Ed Brayton is also one

such blogger, as are many others.

Science And Religion

Most scientists wish this question was resolved decades ago and are

sick and tired of beating the old horse again and again. But, some -

actually A LOT of - science bloggers thrive on debunking Creationisms

of various stripes, including the Intelligent Design Creationism,

other religiously-motivated assaults on science, or even the

non-rationality and absurdity of religion itself. Do I really have to

type all those "a href"s again to link to Pharyngula here? See also

Evolutionblog, Austringer and Red State Rabble.

Skepticism

Some science bloggers specialize, and many others occasionally

indulge, in debunking pseudoscience, claims of paranormal, or urban

myths. You can find the best of such posts collected every two weeks

on the Skeptic's Circle. Check out Archy for a good examples of a mix

of science, politicsl and skeptical blogging.

Environmental Blogging

Nick Anthis of The Scientific Activist pointed me to an interesting

article on envitonmental blogging, which argues that many

environmental blogs write inaccurately about environmental science:

"We suggest the following responses, which are potentially

applicable to all scientific disciplines. Environmental scientists

should actively engage in blogging to increase the presence of

informed opinions in the blogosphere. Research supervisors should

encourage students to blog while providing training in science

communication and dissemination. Senior scientists should set

up their own high-profile weblogs to help allay fears that blogging

is somewhat disreputable. Blogging should be part of a portfolio of

public engagement activities, even to the extent of including

blogging as part of a researcher's job specification. Examples of

excellent, informative sites can readily be found (table S2), but

more are needed."

Of course, many environmental bloggers are not scientists, but

activists or lay-people. There are also many more bloggers who touch

on environmental topics, at least occasionally, than on science.

Still, the article is of interest (and suprisingly positive about

bloging) to all science bloggers.

Nature Writing

Related to Environmental Blogging, as well as Blogging form the Field,

is good nature writing. You'll find good examples of this on carnivals

like I And The Bird. My favourites:Creek Running North and Sahotra

Sarkar.

Blog Carnivals

A year ago, hosting a blog carnival was pretty easy and

straightforward. Today, hosting a topical, specialized carnival

requires expertise in the subject. I have recently hosted a number of

carnivals and, more and more I have to do something akin to

peer-review - checking with my blogging friends if a particular entry

is suitable or not.

Hosting Tangled Bank, Grand Rounds and Carnival of the Green is

becoming more and more like this. Entries get refused by editors (does

everyone every week get a rant from RepSchmuel?) much more frequently

as the carnivals are becoming more popular and more bloggers like to

use them as the opportunity to get themselves better known.

I am hosting Skeptic's Circle in ten days, and the very first entry I

got I had had to send to "peer review" (and in the end had to reject).

Are specialized blog carnivals becoming more like scientific journals?

Yet, if you look at science-related carnivals the entries are nothing

like what shows up on Philosopher's Carnival, History Carnival or

Carnivalesque. Those posts are mini-dissertations! Carnival of Bad

History also appears to be moving away from its original Skeptic's

Circle-like template and more into the History Carnival territory. I

bet hosts of those carnivals really feel like Journal Editors.

Group Blogs and Blogfarms

Having several experts in one place is an excellent idea. For

debunking Creationists, one goes to Panda's Thumb, for physics to

Cosmic Variance and for climate science to Real Climate. For a mix of

a little bit of everything, go to SEED's Scienceblogs. Being part of

such a team is a great way to blog and be noticed.

Science Education

This is an area where some science bloggers touch on Edublogging. I

keep a separate blog for just this topic. See the latestCarnival of

Education and a recent Teaching Carnival for some good examples of

good SciEduBlogging.

Biomedical Science

There is quite a lot of overlap between Sciblogging and Medblogging.

Orac of Respectful Insolence, Abel PharmBoy of Terra Sigillata and

Tara of Aetiology are good examples of blogs that successfully wed

science and medicine.

Science News

Birds In The News is an excellent example of a regularly occuring

science-news round-up. It serves as a mini-science-magazine in itself,

with loyal readers coming back for more every week. It covers quite a

lot of news on various aspects of science (and politics) touching

birds in some way or another, always accompanied by commentary by an

expert blogger - an avian biologist. Others may not do this as

regularly, but when they are excited by a new paper, they will go into

great detail explaining the paper to the lay audience.

It is especially cool, when the blogger explaining the paper is the

author of the paper him/herself. For instance, Martin Brazeau wrote a

blog post about his own paper in Nature on the early evolution of the

tetrapod ear. Likewise, Ricardo Azevedo wrote about his own paper in

Nature on the evolution of sex and later provided some more background

information on how the paper came about. Although, I am not sure if he

ever wrote about another paper of his on Ontogenetic Depth, but the

rundown by PZ Myers (that is where the link is going to) is an

excellent example of the genre in this category.

Placing Science News Into Context

This is much harder to do, but some bloggers are excellent at doing

this - using recent papers to teach the audience about a broader area

of scientific research. I have tried to do this several times, with

mixed results (some are listed here).

Science Reviews and Tutorials

I do not see this nearly as much as I think it should be out there:

writing blog posts that explain the basics to the lay audience.

Nothing brand-new or cuttin edge, just textbook stuff, but explained

in a lively bloggy language. I have written a whole series of those

but this post by David Ng is probably the best example to be emulated

in the future.

Transitions is a blog designed as a repository of posts useful for

teaching, and DarkSyde's Science Fridays on DailyKos are often in this

format.

At a more advanced level, a blog post can be a good summary of

literature. See Mixing Memory for many good examples of this.

Philosophy and Sociology of Science

There are a number of excellent blogs written by philosophers of

science. Let me just highlight Adventures in Ethics and Science, hpb

etc., Evloving Thoughts, Philosophy of Biology and What is it like to

be a blog?. However, many science bloggers sometimes dig deep into

philosophy, or at least dabble in it.

History of Science

Where, oh, where are the historians of science!?!? We laymen sometimes

try our hand at it, but having a professional around as a shining

example would be great. Can we persuade a science historian to start

blogging?

Using a blog as a teaching tool

This is an area where natural scientists appear to be lagging behind

social scientists. It is pretty easy to find a teaching blog of, for

instance, a sociologist. But as far as natural science goes - and

please tell me if I am wrong - I could only find PZ Myers' blogs for

his courses in Neurobiology, Human Physiology and Genetics. I am

thinking of using one next month, when my next class begins (Life

Science for adults).

If you are interested in using online technologies (blogging,

podcasting, vlogging, etc) in the classroom, your obligation is to

peruse David Warlick's website, blog, podcast and book.

Using a blog as a scientific tool

Have you seen Casual Fridays on Cognitive Daily? Every Friday, Dave

and Greta give their readers a test or a questionnaire (usually

limited to the first 250 responders). Next Friday, they post the

analysis with pretty graphs, possible explanations, some background

literature summary, etc. What a nifty way to do pilot studies!

Blogging Scientific Hypotheses

I have not really seen a science blogger post an original hypothesis.

Social scientists constantly post drafts of their papers, sometimes

just sketches of idea, on their blogs, encourage commetning and

discussion, and end up publishing the final refined version in

journals. I do nto see natural scientists do the same. Why? Is social

science unscoopable, in the sense that similar works, written by

different people in different styles and with different emphasis still

count as distinct pieces of work, while in natural science a

simultaneous discovery of something by two people is still counted as

a single piece of work (though the two papers are often published

together in the same journal, or simultanously in two journals, the

way two versions of the Human Genome were published simultaneously one

in Science one in Nature)?

Every Discussion section in every paper contains seeds of hypotheses.

Review papers are full of opinions that can be reworded as hypotheses.

Talks and posters at conferences often involve publicizing one's

hypothesis. There is even a journal called "Medical Hypotheses" which

publishes data-free papers specifying hypotheses that people are

interested in testing in the future. So why not on a blog?

I have often written opinions in my science posts that can be

reformulated as hypotheses (e.g., this, this, this and this). More

recently, I openly started stating hypotheses in the proper form of

hypotheses (e.g., this, this and this).

What does publishing a hypothesis mean? I guess there are two

possibilities:

A) "This is my hypothesis and I am staking the territory here. I

intend to test this hypothesis in the near future and you BETTER NOT

try to scoop me!"

B) "This is my hypothesis, but I have no intention to follow it up

with actual research. However, I'd love to see it tested. Please

someone test it! And if you do, you will have to cite me in the list

of references as your source for this hypothesis"

And yes, a blog post can be cited in the List Of References of a

science paper.

I have quite openly stated the B) version applies to everything I

posted so far. Do I have the guts to write an A) type instead of

keeping mum, actually doing the work and publishing it in a real paper

first?

Have you ever seen a hypotesis on a science blog? Please let me know

if you have. It will be very interesting to know.

Blogging Data

I have not seen anyone post unpublished data on a blog. That is,

except me, (see this and this). Why is it so? Fear of being scooped?

But, putting data on a blog is a fast way of getting the data out with

a date/time stamp on it. It is a way to scoop the competition. Once

the data are published in a real Journal, you can refer back to your

blog post and, by doing that, establish your primacy.

On the other hand, not seeing anyone else blog data, I am taking very

small and careful first steps so far. I am not getting anywhere near

my Dissertation stuff. That has to be defended and published before I

mention it on the blog. The data I posted so far are from studies that

nobody involved in is likely to follow up any time soon. It is not

good enough or big enough data-set for the real publication yet, but I

felt (and the students who did it with me agree) that the world should

see it anyway, and hopefully replicate and follow up on. In a sense,

these unpublished data serve as bloggable hypotheses with some data

serving as pilot studies.

Bill Hooker wrote:

"Bora helps to usher in a new era of scientific publishing. I'm

serious."

and in a comment to one of my posts writes:

"I particularly like the idea of blog post as scientific

publication. I have been saying for some time that if we could get

the competition down to a reasonable level in science, lab blogs

(lablogs?) would be an obvious way to keep in touch with what's

happening at relevant benches around the world. If ever I make PI,

I plan to keep a lablog and use it to reach out to potential

collaborators."

I'd like to see more bloggers post hypotheses and pilot (unpublished,

negative or unpublishable) data. When is it going to happen?

Not even PZ Myers, who is master of every category listed here except

the last two (which explains why he is the best and most popular

science blogger), publishes hypotheses and data. Some people are

specialists - they are really good at one or two of the above

categories. Others are generalists, doing a little bit of everything.

Each approach is equally valid and good. PZ does everything well. I

keep trying, but I post as much good stuff in two years as he does in

a month!

More than a year ago I wrote a starry-eyed vision of the future of

science blogging, but, are we going in that direction at all? Shall we

meet at a Science BloggerCon to hash this out?

Update: Ahistoricality and Terra Sigilata have posted responses to

this post.

Also, I forgot to include blogs by editors of science magazines, e.g.,

Scientific American, or such unique blogs as Confessions of a Science

Librarian.

In the comments, Ralph Luker points out some blogs by historians of

science, some of which are excellent blogs, but none is what I was

thinking of when I wrote that category, something more akin to serious

essays often seen on other history and philosophy blogs.

Update 2: More responses, from Aetiology and Open Reading Frame.

Also: Confessions of a Science Librarian and The Greenbelt

Even more: Scientific Activist and Pharyngula.

Update 4: Cyberspace Rendezvous chimes in and Rigor Vitae thinks I

need Ritalin. Also, I have more here and here.

And there is more: The discussion about science blogging continues on

Terra Sigillata, Archy, Neurofuture, Nanopolitan, Jenna's MySpace