An exercise for my readers
March 15, 2010
Off the top of your head, when you think “science blog”, which specific blogs, collectives, aggregators, etc come to mind?
List up to 11 in the comments.
(I’ll moderate comments for a little while today to avoid contamination)
DrugMonkey 
March 15, 2010 at 2:35 pm
DrugMonkey, Adventures in Ethics and Science, Pharyngula, Respectful Insolence, Scientific Misconduct Blog, Obesity Panacea
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March 15, 2010 at 2:56 pm
đ
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March 15, 2010 at 3:06 pm
From scienceblogs.com: (given the amount of non-science content, I don’t generally think of scienceblogs.com as a “science blog”, I know, I’m weird)
drugmonkey
gene expression
effect measure
respectful insolence
erv
white coat underground
not exactly rocket science
from other places:
Jonathan Eisen’s tree of life (http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/)
Steven Salzberg’s genomes evolution and pseudoscience (http://genome.fieldofscience.com/)
I’m not very adventurous in my blogospheric travels đ
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March 15, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Individual (aside from monkey of the drug):
*Pharyngula *NERS *On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess *Neurotopia *Terra Sigillata *Blue lab coats *Bitesizebio *Bench Marks
Collective:
*Nature networks *science blogs *researchblogging
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March 15, 2010 at 3:36 pm
female science professor
drugmonkey
fat nutritionist
obesity panacea
isis (domestic/laboratory goddess)
gene expression
Adolescent risk behavior blog
These are the ones that i read very regularly and also think of as ‘science blogs’.
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March 15, 2010 at 3:42 pm
The two that led me to all of the other science blogs I read with any frequency are:
Female Science Professor (although that is more about “life in science” than “science”)
In the Pipeline (by Derek Lowe)
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March 15, 2010 at 3:44 pm
In addition to Scienceblogs:
Neurologica
Science Based Medicine
Marginal Revolution
Bad Astronomy
Cosmic Variance
Those are the ones on the top of my head, anywho. I’m sure I read a lot more. I use Google Reader, so I don’t often pay attention to the names of the blogs once I subscribe.
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March 15, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Here’s what I tend to think of..
Cognitive Daily
scicurious @ Neurotopia
researchblogging.org
Tetrapod Zoology
Medical Writing Editing & Grantsmanship
Neurocritic
Laelaps
Psychology Today blogs
Not Exactly Rocket Science
Deep Sea News
Science-Based Medicine
As with anyone else, my list is biased by *my* blog reading habits and also my perception of the question being asked. If I were trying to give someone a flavor of what I think of as the more serious or consistently science-focused type of blog, these come to mind.
I look over this list and it doesn’t strike me as being “representative” of scienceblogging by any means, even given that it arises from my personal biases.
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March 15, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Top-5. I check and read everyday. I also comment, on occasion (and if allowable), at those places:
The Frontal Cortex
The Primate Diaries
John Hawks Anthropology
Pharyngula
The Panda’s Thumb
Ones I read very frequently:
Science-Based Medicine
Eruptions
Living the Scientific Life
The Clade
Aggregators/publishers that I read sometimes:
The Science Insider
Live Science
Science Daily
New Scientist
Public Library of Science
Anyway, that’s more than 11 and there are, in fact, a lot, lot more… And, unlike most of the Internet surfers, I probably have more science blogs bookmarked than any other category… Even porn… đ
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March 15, 2010 at 4:27 pm
These are what I peruse regularly.
DrugMonkey
CPP
Isis
Prof-Like Substance
Prof in Training
Mike The Mad Biologist
Ambivalent Academic
DamnGoodTechnician
Janus Professor
Some Lies
Writedit
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March 15, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Well a lot of “science blogs” are more like “blogs written by people who happen to be scientists etc.”
With that in mind.
Pharyngula (PZ Myers)
Respectful Insolence (Orac)
Loom (Carl Zimmer)
NeuroLogica (Steven Novella)
Science-Based Medicine
Depleted Cranium (more of a skeptic blog)
Scienceblogs.com in general
Other mentions:
http://www.resurch.org/ – a great collection of links of science, skeptical and other various sites.
http://Fora.tv – A good resource of lectures and talks on various topics by different people.
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March 15, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I’ve actually got exactly 11 (right now) that come “immediately” to mind:
Respectful Insolence
White Coat Underground
Terra Sigillata
DrugMonkey
Thus Spake Zuska
Greg Laden’s Blog
Pharyngula
Dr.Isis (too long a title!)
Confessions…Librarian (too long too)
Adventures in Ethics…(*sigh*)
Mike the Mad…(yeah. Another long one.)
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March 15, 2010 at 5:21 pm
In no particular order (and only stopping at 11 because those were the instructions):
1. Female Science Professor
2. Young Female Scientist
3. Pharyngula
4. Cosmic Variance
5. Drugmonkey
6. Not Exactly Rocket Science
7. Urban Science Adventures
8. Aetiology
9. Terra Sigillata
10. Blue Lab Coats
11. On Being a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess
Eleven just isn’t very many, is it?
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March 15, 2010 at 5:24 pm
FlowingData
InThePipeline
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference and Social Science
Revolutions
Neoformix
These are the science ones I read.
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March 15, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Isis the Scientist
Physioprof
Drugmonkey
writedit
Fuckers with no legs
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March 15, 2010 at 5:41 pm
scienceblogs, drugmonkey, femalescienceprofessor, professorintraining, natureblogs, proflikesubstance, drisis, ambivalentacademic
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March 15, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Scienceblogs.de
Scienceblogs.com
Loom
Bad Astronomy
Effect Measure
Respectful Insolence
Pharyngula
Not exactly rocket science
Neurotopia
Neuroskeptic
In the pipeline
FemaleScienceProfessor
Neurologica – Steve Novella
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March 15, 2010 at 7:05 pm
When I read the phrase “science blog” my first thought is blogs about doing science — discussions about the “tribe of science” as you call it and the lives of its practitioners. I’m sure that’s partly because those are the blogs that interest me most. Specific examples I would think of include this place, FSP, Zuska, Isis, Dr. Stemwedel, Professor in Training, Massimo (over at Exponential Book), Rudbeckia Hirta at Learning Curves, maybe Chad at Uncertain Principles.
(These are by no means the only blogs I would count as “science blogs,” of course!)
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March 15, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Blogs: Backreaction, Not even Wrong, Cosmic Variance, Cocktail Party Physics, The Frontal Cortex, Neurophilosophy, Candid Engineer in Academia, On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess, Female Science Professor and of course DrugMonkey.
‘Collectives’: Discovery Blogs, Scienceblogs and Nature Network.
Will be interesting to see what other people read!
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March 15, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Drugmonkey
Obesity Panacea
White Coat Underground
Effect Measure
The Science of Sport
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March 15, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I’m surprised more of you don’t read “effect measure”, you should!
My list (although it varies month to month):
Effect Measure
Not exactly rocket science
DrugMonkey
Dr. Isis’
Adventures in ethics, etc.
Applied Statistics
A blog around the clock
Pharyngula
FlowingData (maybe not quite sciency enough)
The Loom
Science Insider
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March 15, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Missed this when you posted it. I didn’t read any blogs yesterday.
Why 11?
Tried not to read other comments. Mine are:
White Coat Underground
Respectful Insolence
Neurotopia
Adventures in Ethics and Science
In The Pipeline
Pharmagossip (I consider drug marketing to be science)
Chemical Bilology
Blue Lab Coats
Female Science Professor
Not Exactly Rocket Science
DrugMonkey
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March 15, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Assuming you mean specifically from the ScienceBlogs, in alphabetic order, and leaving out about as many as are listed, because of the stated limit:
1.Aardvarchaeology
2.Adventures in Ethics
3.Dispatches from the Culture Wars
4.DrugMonkey
5.Effect Measure
6.Gene Expression
7.Laelaps
8.Neurotopia
9.Not Exactly Rocket Science
10.Pharyngula
11.Uncertain Principles
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March 15, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Sci writing:
Carl Zimmer’s The Loom and Tom Levenson’s Inverse Square.
Evo:
Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula.
Climate:
RealClimate of course.
Great Beyond from Nature and ScienceNow
I found this blog and follow various others (NERS, tetrapod zoology, neurotopia etc.) via the Peer Review RSS feed.
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March 15, 2010 at 10:44 pm
In no particular order, just the ones I read most often.
1 – Uncertain Principles
2 – Swans on Tea
3 – Female Science Professor
4 – Bad Astronomy
5 – Cocktail Party Physics
6 – The Mind of Dr. Pion
7 – Thus Spake Zuska
8 – Slacker Astronomy
9 – Mommy/Prof
10 – Flying Flux (so it’s an engineering blog…sue me)
11 – Exponential Book
Yeah, there’s a bit of a skew toward physics…
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March 15, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Aww! You people love me!!!
Here are mine, in no particular order:
1)Blue Lab Coats
2)Zuska
3)Ecce Medicus
4)Candid Engineer
5)Neurotopia
6)Thoughtful Animal
7) Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde
9)Chemical Bilology
10)PalMD
11)Deep Sea News
12) The Intersection
I’m not listing DM because that douche didnt list me. Heh.
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March 15, 2010 at 11:05 pm
In no order, biased by my gender, field, and rampant secular humanism:
Effect Measure
Whitecoat Underground
A Blog Around the Clock
Applied Statistics
On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess
Terra Sig
DrugMonkey
Pharyngula
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Zuska
The Pump Handle (which cross-posts some with Effect Measure)
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March 15, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Real Climate
Skeptical Science
Open Mind
Dr. Isis
Respectful Insolence
Uncertain Principles
Bad Astronomy
The Loom
Highly Allochthonous
Not Exactly Rocket Science
Laelaps
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March 16, 2010 at 1:10 am
Drugmonkey
FemaleScienceProfessor
Chemicalbilology
Prof-likeSubstance
Prof.inTraining
IncoherentlyScatteredPonderings
Insingulo
biocurious
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March 16, 2010 at 1:48 am
1. Female Science Professor
2. Young female scientist
3. Living the scientific life
4. Drugmonkey
5. Abel Pharmboy
6. Adventures in Science and Ethics
7. Neurotopia
8. Dot physics
9. Obesity panacea
10. White coat underground
11. Scientific misconduct blog
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March 16, 2010 at 7:36 am
In the Pipeline
DrugMonkey
Now, what was I doing?
Tales of a Genomic Repairman
Female Science Professor
Young Female Scientist
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March 16, 2010 at 7:58 am
Bad Astronomy
Language Log
Science-Based Medicine
Scienceblogs
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March 16, 2010 at 9:07 am
DrugMonkey
TerraSig
Isis he Scientist
Neurotopia
PhysioProf
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March 16, 2010 at 11:42 am
Hahah judging by these responses Kouper’s 11 choices were probably pretty representative, and number of blogs studied probably sufficient. You certainly wouldn’t know based on this thread that there were thousands of science blogs.
What I can’t understand is how serious scientists can stand reading Lying Isis’ drivel. Really, doesn’t it get old? Or do you all also like to imagine you are princesses who can order everyone to worship you? After about age four it’s just not cute anymore. Must be a privilege thing, like the crippling, expensive footwear.
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March 16, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Well, Isabel, I suppose the point here is not obvious to everyone.
You certainly wouldn’t know based on this thread that there were thousands of science blogs.
Exactly. Nor would you know this from Kouper’s paper. However, at least from this thread you come up with more than 11, even when you only get a couple of dozen readers of one specific blog, on one specific aggregation/collective to come up with their choices.
Kouper could have improved her sampling just by sending an email around her campus’ general list serv or something like that.
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March 16, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Around this here campus, no one would ADMIT to reading science blogs on an email (email isn’t privacy protected!).
đ
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March 17, 2010 at 3:17 pm
“Well, Isabel, I suppose the point here is not obvious to everyone. ”
Well I was being silly, but I will concede there are more 1’s than I realized.
How how many of those 1000’s are actually being read by non-scientists? That seemed to be one of the author’s questions. Especially if even scientists cluster their reading so much, so that even for scientists most science blogs are obscure?
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March 17, 2010 at 3:36 pm
how many of those 1000’s are actually being read by non-scientists?
agreed it is an important question. As I mentioned, first you have to get past the measurement of who is *reading*. Comments are, as I’ve claimed, something on the order of 5% or less of unique page views. De-lurking threads can pull out several-fold higher numbers of apparent readers than you would estimate from comments, btw. Whenever I’ve run polls, the response numbers are in considerable excess of the usual comment numbers but are still far less frequent than unique page-views.
This latter, as typically measured (if i have it right) resets daily so asking about the long-tail of a post after the first day is tricky. Monthly rates may give an over-impression since some fraction of that audience comes back on a daily basis, every few days, etc.
Over time, a careful reader (such as the blogger) can get an idea of how many people self-identify in comments as nonscientists. My impression supports the rough ratios identified in the de-lurker threads I’ve run twice now. So if I was trying to do this I’d start with those posts from various blogs (which Kouper did but apparently just from one blog? DM possibly? who knows?).
Trouble is, there are all those page views from people who are not identified in any good way. Are they “readers”? Are they being impacted even if they only ever read that one post that they happened upon via Google search? When a post gets boing-boinged or linked in the NYT or buzzed up in some way..what is the random click and leave ratio versus the one-hit readers versus the bookmarkers? Hard to quantify…
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March 17, 2010 at 7:57 pm
There is no evidence that the readers here cluster their reading in any way. Brother Drug asked for 11 blogs. The top 10-20 results are not surprising considering the amount of sharing of content and commenters on those blogs.
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March 18, 2010 at 12:23 am
In no particular order:
Effect Measure
Respectful Insolence
The Primate Diaries
Lab Goddess (Isis)
DrugMonkey
Guilty Planet
Causabon’s Book
Pharyngula
EvolutionBlog
Tomorrow’s Table
Applied Statistics
Good Math, Bad Math
Eruptions
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March 18, 2010 at 12:38 am
Well it is true isis that that evil widget on DM’s site has some sort of virus in it that causes it to relentlessly spit out links to your most vile posts, so you may have something there. Perhaps that is steering some traffic. (I’m struggling for an explanation here).
Aww…thirteen little muffins! Isn’t that a baker’s dozen?
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March 18, 2010 at 1:42 am
“Trouble is, there are all those page views from people who are not identified in any good way.”
I guess I don’t know very much about how much information about viewers/readers/commenters blog owners have access to. It seems to vary.
“.what is the random click and leave ratio versus the one-hit readers versus the bookmarkers? Hard to quantify…”
Can you see, and record, the IP addresses? I know that you can tell when there is activity from a university, and I know that IP addresses can identify specific university departments as well as businesses. In the daytime at least might this not give you some very rough indication of your readership?
Sorry for the stupid questions. Is there a FAQ somewhere?? đ
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March 18, 2010 at 1:52 am
Even if one wanted to get serious about IP snooping there are lots of hits coming from local service providers. Even during daylight hours, yes. But even for those that you track back to the University level, could be a non scientist reading. An undergrad or staff member or, gasp, a Dean. I don’t see it as an easy way to tell anythng about scientst ratio in the audience
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March 18, 2010 at 4:33 am
In no particular order…
Collectives:
sciblogs.co.nz (where my blog is hosted)
Nature Network
scienceblogs.com
Individual blogs:
bioblog (sciblogs.co.nz)
science-based medicine
Mind the Gap (Nature network)
bioemphemera (scienceblogs)
Mystery rays from outer space
Sandwalk
Adventures in Science and Ethics (scienceblogs)
A very wide cast of others I visit less often,
and:
Code for life. I write it. I’m not cheating, it does come to mind when I think of science blogs đ You never did say to exclude your own… đ
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March 18, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Isabel, you’re obsessed. I very rarely see my own posts in the widget. Maybe, as DM previously suggests, it’s suggesting posts based on your reading habits. Clear your cookies, little muffin.
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March 18, 2010 at 12:37 pm
It’s all wiped clean every time I go on-line. That may have had some influence on the earlier “redneck” problem, but I fixed that long ago. It turned out my preferences had reverted to defaults. After about a week of clearing my cookies every time I finally stopped seeing that incredibly offensive post title every time I logged on to DM’s site, don’t know if it had anything to do with the changes. (If you had any class you would never have posted it in the first place, knowing full well how many of DM’s own readers would be hurt and offended).
It seems the problem is that only a few bloggers are using the widget, and it only shows their posts.
It’s showing you right now, for once an actually related post.
* One a Day: Smiths Earrings (Sense of Fashion)
* A survey on “science blogs” : DrugMonkey (this site)
* Science blogs and public engagement with science: practices, challenges, and talking out of your ass : On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess (this site)
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March 18, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Also, obviously you are not seeing the same links that I am seeing.
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March 18, 2010 at 1:17 pm
How many of DM’s own readers? It’s DM’s job to entertain his readers. Not mine.
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March 18, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I don’t think it’s his job to entertain anyone.
And the conversation was started here by Bikemonkey, and you linked here to your post, which was a response to the conversation here.
It was clearly offensive, and intended to be, and you should apologize and take it down.
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March 18, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I don’t think it’s his job to entertain anyone.
so long as we mean a certain colloquial nonspecific sense of “job”, what exactly is this if not entertainment in large part?
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March 18, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Well you said yourself that your main goal is ego gratification and persuading others to your point of view didn’t you? I guess you do need to keep people coming back to the site, but I don’t consider it just entertainment. Although it is more entertaining than most I guess, partially thanks to your fantastic commenters.
And what does you keeping your readers interested have to do with anything anyway?
You’re obviously just defending Isis.
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