The Weblog Awards are the world’s largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories. Nominations for 49 categories ended October 17, 2007 and voting is scheduled to begin November 1, 2007. Final results will be announced November 8, 2007 at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas.
Nominations for Best Science Blog are:
- SciGuy
- Junk Science
- In the Pipeline
- Journey By Starlight
- Paryngula
- Bad Astronomy Blog
- Invasive Species Weblog
- Sciencebase
- Climate Audit
- Bootstrap Analysis
Vote for best science weblog here; voting is permitted once every 24 hours.
Climate Audit 
134 Comments
Hmmm… where’s RealClimate? 🙂
ALL RIGHT! Congratulations, Steve M. Even if you don’t win, it is fantastic that you are listed. I’m also glad to see Junk Science in there.
Like them or hate them, realclimate should have been nominated. I don’t understand their omission.
Many of the blogs on this list are more science commentary blogs. C’mon Junk Science a science blog? give me a break. Pharyngula is an atheist blog w/ some science. Sciencebase reports on science. At least CA has some data and analysis. Call me nit-picky, but I see a distinction between blogs about hot-button scientific issues and a real science blog…blogs that talk about strictly science are pretty boring to a broad audience and therefore have no chance in a competition like this. The public at large wants either general broad overview blogs about science, and/or blogs that have heated debate/discussion. It’s like reality TV…actual reality is pretty boring.
3, According to the Weblog Awards site:
For whatever reason, more of those 525,000 votes were cast by fans of CA than RC. I don’t think there was any editorial control over it; it was purely a matter of online votes. And it is difficult, but not impossible, to cheat the system (they track IP address). RC, for whatever reason, just doesn’t have as much of a following out there among the blog nerds.
Congrats, Steve.
Re#3, RC is there – check under the “Best Fiction Blog.”
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
The secret to Climate Audit success is the army of lurkers. There are many VIP’s who are following Steve’s work.
Many have claimed Steve’s failure to publish is a problem. That is so 20th century. Steve publishes everyday.
RC should have been on the list, from my perspective. Their only failing is that the comments all
tend to descend into the same two discussions regardless of the start point ( some kinda gradient
thingy again I think)
1. Alternative enegery sources.
2. The ice is melting.
GO look at the discussion about climate uncertainity. The doubling constant is uncertian. We better
be careful. yes, look at the ice. let’s switch to alternative energy. I can name that tune in 3 notes.
In fact, it would be fun to calculate the number of comments it takes in any thread to get
to “look at the ice” and “solar power” posts.
Still the authors of articles do a good job, so go figure?
Although I typically like the main posts at RC…I rarely read the comment thread. I don’t find much value in there, as steven mosher indicates above.
Best CA commenters: I nominate Bender and willis, and sadlov cause he bribed me.
( with props to UC, Jean S, David smith, Ryan, MrPete, Geoff S. Roman)
pest of the year goes to TCO. Where is the irksome one?
And JohnA, of course.
Perhaps a shout out for some of the folks who keep things lively. Steve Milesworthy, JohnV,
Dr. Curry now and again.
RE 10, I think it would tons of fun to have ray ladbury or Timothy chase or hank roberts
join a discussion over here.I’d put the moshpit in a cage to see that happen.
In fact, nominees and winners don’t even have to be blogs to be nominated and win. For example, Zombietime isn’t a blog, and won best photojournalism blog at least once.
I blame global warming.
BTW Realclimate get nominated? What for?
RE 14. The penetrating wit and wisdom of Lynn V?
I think Pharyngula (bad speling on that awards site) will probably win. Despite being on scienceblogs with the wretched Doltoid and the just-as-wretched Denialism, Pharyngula is pretty consistently the best of the lot by quite a margin.
Of course I’d ask people to vote for Steve, but then I’m biased.
Junk Science? Ouch.
When I went to nominate CA for the award it never crossed my mind to nominate RC. It might have if they had a category for best propaganda blog.
This thing is [snipin’] rigged.
🙂
RE 20. Boris I was conflicted about where to put you. When it comes to pestering TCO
is a tick who buries his head in and won’t go away. And he gives you lyme disease which
tires your butt out. I was going to put you in with Milesworthy et al,
but you do too much dive bombing and kamakazi runs. I expect more stalingrad like stands from
you. Maybe I give you the wiley coyote award.
I think appearance counts and the only one I found pleasant to look at other than CA was Bootstrap Analysis – and not for the layout, but nice nature pix posted. CA has best layout, hands down.
21, that’s Wyle E. Coyote [genius].
Mosher and Sadlov for Best Snarky Comedy Team. Vote early – Vote often.
Pharyngula, although very well written, is not a science blog, nor is junkscience most of the time.
Back to why RC didn’t make the cut; from the WA site:
So odds are that RC got less than 8 nominations. At least that’s how I read that.
http://2007.weblogawards.org/a-note-to-nominees.php
RC does have an attractive and relevant header as CA does, and it has a “recent comments” side bar like CA which I find useful. For a traditional blog layout, RC is pretty attractive.
Some of the nominees are limited to boring blogspot templates, which I think should disfavor them in voting.
One problem with the RC header–it visually undermines the gravamen much of its works. It looks like it would be the perfect header for a denialist site pushing solar explanations for temp changes, not AGHGs.
RE 24, sadlov certainly makes the rounds with his cash. Now he’s bribing you and David smith to
join me on stage in yet another accolade ( YAA)
The man vexes me. He vexes me. Perhaps I shall maroon him on CETI ALPHA V.
We would of course make a great comedic team, but neither of can decide whether we want to
be the eiron or the alazon. Neither of us would accept the role of Bomolochus. that is reserved for
a player to be named.
I was wrong. CA got 2 nominations, and RC got zip, zero, goose egg:
http://2007.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-science-blog.php
I do like RC’s “index” and “start here” pages … and when I do read the comment thread, which is increasingly rare (I don’t get that much out of it anymore), I like the moderator response right with the comment…avoids confusion. It seems SteveMc is doing that more, which is great (although it must be time-consuming sifting through everything).
#11
As far as CA commenters, I think you left out Steve Bloom and Boris. They are good for generating at least 10,000 comments apiece. Nothing like dissenters to generate discussion.
RE 31. Bloom is google’s breakfast. Boris actually puts brain cells in contact with each other.
Boris will make you think. Bloom makes you click a link.
Congrat’s, Steve!
I think the popularity of your weblog is due to the relationship with the participants. RealClimate, are you listening? RELATIONSHIP WITH the PARTICIPANTS. I know it’s hard to understand when you are so superior and used to condescending to the masses.
Regards
Roger
The Times they are a-changing…
Dude, you are going to lose to PZ’s blog.
Unthreaded for most entertaining thread on CA.
Congratulations for providing me with moments when the noose has been ready, where the future looked dim but then suddenly bright again and more than anything else for providing me with the hope that many more people will come here to read and find sense, neh, common sense, in bucket loads and a humour which I have loved and yet experienced at a low ebb in many other places of late in a world full of gloom on a planet full of beauty.
Re 12, 21 Steve Mosher
In case you miss him, TCO is now a regular commenter over at http://patterico.com a right-leaning political commentary site hosted by an LA Deputy District Attorney (and my neighbor). TCO is his same old self, lots of juvenile taunts and four letter words, but he somehow stops just short of getting himself banned. I’ll pass along your regards.
Steve – congrats on the weblog award nomination. I agree RC should be on the list but the nominations were tallied through online votes. A few years back the voting was corrupted by a few partisans running robots. Since then they have put in place address checking and other security measures. CA has lots of lurkers, and we voted.
I agree with steve that Real climate should have been nomited, but not in the science award. They should have been nominated for the politic award.
I’m surprise to see junkscience nominated. I like the site but I don’t see it has being scientific.
Congratulations, Mr. McIntrye!
You deserve this, if not a MacArthur Foundation grant. As a long time lurker, you and your motley crew of merry jesters have lifted the scales from my eyes. Your blog is not in the bush league as RC, rabbit, tomato, et al, because you are on a quest for reproducible scientific truth while they’re transparent evangelistas, censoring posts to dissimulate consensus, hiding behind thin aliases. There is little comparable to the refreshingly skeptical probity of your work in the climate community, other than Anthony’s work, that is. Best of luck to you!
Re: #38
Actually, there were TWO TCOs who would alternate in turning up at this site. The before-dinner TCO, and the after-dinner TCO. Both were fractious, but the after-dinner TCO was more entertaining!
True, I suspect, for others of us, which might explain at least some of the more adventurous comments from time to time.
CA is in the top 10 by consensus. That’s settled.
Congrats, Steve and (what’s the word, not Team ah! Thinkers!)
Geoff.
Talk about dodgy statistics!
I just voted on the awards and so far climate audit has 546.2% of the vote!
Out of the 13 votes cast, CA has 71 of them.
I believe RC’s habit of blocking posts and banning posters who disagree too strongly with the opinions of the editors is what did them in. People who get blocked tend not to stick around. This also causes a lack of real debate, which also causes people to visit for a short time, then leave.
If RC were to change their debate policy, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them up there next year. If they don’t, they will always remain an also ran.
I don’t bother even reading any of the replies on RC anymore. I occasionally go over there to see what thoughts leaked out of Gavin’s head that day and invariably all the responses are “Great post Gavin” and “You tell ’em!”. Bunch of nutsack swingers over there….
re: 42 Terry,
I found if you refresh the page that fixes the wacky numbers.
Don’t forget to vote! to look at the current standings: current vote count CA has 17 of 30 votes cast as I post this.
#42
Even if Real Climate was not nominated, they will win once the votes are tallied, a Principal Components analysis is applied …
… yes, after ‘homogeneity adjustments’ are taken into account, RC will come out top!
Re: #3 “Like them or hate them, realclimate should have been nominated. I dont understand their omission.”
Respect your courtesy, but I think there is a clear reason why they didn’t deserve to be nominated. They are a science blog and they stifle, block, censor, ignore, avoid (…) open scientific debate and inquiry. They are condescending, superior and hostile to those who question their theories. The rule of the thumb is to distrust those who avoid and censor open debate.
For a science blog, it is inexcusable.
I looked at last year’s results and realclimate was nominated and finished 7th in the polling. Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy were in a close race, with Pharyngula winning.
Well done!
Climate Audit: 93 of 137 votes cast. 67.9%. But this begs the question; Is this due to all the lurkers, or is this the first site to provide a link to the polls?
Some lurkers might drop hints elsewhere. (scroll up from bottom a bit)
Reciprocity is not a “bad thing”, is it?
I predict CA will win the best Science blog, kinda the way Ron Paul always outperforms in web polls.
RE 52. Boris. Just when I credit you with more wit and wisdom than the Bloom, you pop
off with yet another inane comment ( YAIC). Consensus is a fickle mistress. Do not trust
her, she will sleep with anyone.
RE 25. They don’t care about consensus
RE 40. Patterco’s outing of glenn greenwalds sock puppetry was a hoot. After that I stopped
reading. Perhaps I shall go tussle with the tick. He really is an amusing fellow
and not beyond redemption.
It would be pretty surprising to me if CA won – although it’s way in front of the other nominated science blogs in terms of comment volume – that’s for sure. But there are a lot of active internet people who won’t want CA to win and my guess is that voters will start showing up for Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy in size pretty soon. Given that Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy were in a near dead heat last year, if their votes this year are concentrated (Pharyngula is running well ahead of Bad Astronomy right now), it might indicate anti-CA tactical voting. So I’d be surprised if CA’s early lead holds up, but you never know.
Also although the science blogs are a specialty category, the number of votes so far for CA are high even compared to very popular general-purpose blogs.
43:
And this is why it is also not a SCIENTIFIC blog. It’s an evangelistic blog. I disagree that it should be nominated.
Certainly CA would not have been as noted or effective without the sterling help of Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt.
Long time lurker who will vote early and vote often. I am a hydro engineer with over 40 years
experience developing hydropower projects around the world. So not a climate expert, but I’m pretty
knowledgeable about climate and obsessed with hydrometeorology for longer than I can remember.
Keep up the good work, Steve!
Steve McIntyre says:
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 am
“It would be pretty surprising to me if CA won – although its way in front of the other nominated science blogs in terms of comment volume – thats for sure. But there are a lot of active internet people who wont want CA to win and my guess is that voters will start showing up for Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy in size pretty soon. Given that Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy were in a near dead heat last year, if their votes this year are concentrated (Pharyngula is running well ahead of Bad Astronomy right now), it might indicate anti-CA tactical voting. So Id be surprised if CAs early lead holds up, but you never know.”
This is my first tim eon this site and I was trying to decide if this was legitimate or the work of a paranoid denialist crank. Yeah, liberals are out to get you and have decided in their secret cabal to vote for pharyngula en masse. Give me a break. I never cease to be amazed by the paranoia of denialists.
Jason:
Without a doubt this is the most data driven, statistically sophisticated climate science site out there. True it is frequented principally by skeptics – but are not skeptics people too? As for denialists, in my experience they are few and far between on this site. Most are interested in insuring that major public policy decisions are based on “audited” data, not on data that cannot be accessed by those equipped to analyze it.
As for your claim that this is the first time on this site – you seem awfully definitive on the basis of limited amount of data. Perhaps you should hang around a bit, and then make a pronouncement.
As to the orchestration of votes in these kind of popularity competitions – you are not arguing that such “gamesmanship” does not happen are you?
Fair enough. I have not evaluated this site in any detail whatsoever. That bit of conspiracy failed the smell-test, but yours was a very reasonable response. Skepticism is an extremely valuable part of science, [snip of off-limit words] You are right that I should not lump this site into that category without taking the time to investigate.
Congratulations Steve.
I’ve been following your efforts for the past 2 years (and have posted oncet or twicet), and laud your achievements.
On a personal note, not sure which way I’ll vote since I also respect Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, but whether you win or not, I believe this accolade puts you in very rare (and highly respected) company.
Typical non-sequiter type of comment; we wonder if voting is motivated by dislike (a stronger motivation to vote IMO and it happens all the time) and now we’re paranoid delusional. Don’t bother explaining denial vs scepticism, they’re probably the same thing to Jason.
Or I could be wrong…. 😀
Re #62
Jason Eyink,
Call me cynical, even skeptical, but I doubt that it is worth your effort. It appears that the conclusion has been reached on your part and only data that supports your conclusion will be seen as valid. Come now, inflating a statement of “anti-CA tactical voting” into an elaborate conspiracy reflects your pre-conceptions.
I’d love to be proven wrong. Perhaps there’s the possibility that you’ve developed a testable hypothesis and are actively looking for ways to falsify it. Be careful though, if you go down this road you may find that your smell test is biased and unreliable.
“pharyngula”…random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal? Wow. … they should win then , who in their right mind could pass somethin’ like that up? 😉
Pharyngula has now overtaken CA’s early lead. Realistically I expect Pharyngula to finish well ahead of us, probably massively so.
Last year the votes were Pharyngula 9417, Bad Astronomy 9190, realclimate 458, Deltoid 200.
A realistic goal for CA would be to finish ahead of realclimate’s 2006 total, which looks possible. In a few hours of voting we’re gone ahead of Deltoid’s 2006 total.
Pharyngula is way ahead of Bad Astronomy this year. Jason, I take your point that it’s a bit chippy to attribute this to anything tactical. I’ve never looked at one of these polls before – but statistically, I was surprised at the huge spread between Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy this year, when they were essentially in a dead heat last year. I don’t follow either of these blogs – is there any reason within the blogs themselves to account for the change in voting pattern?
68, as I said, these polls are difficult to cheat, but not impossible for a reasonably competent code monkey. If the results this year are dramatically different from last year, I’d say the most likely explanation is one or a handful of individuals trying to show their buddies what they can do.
Re. 68 – It’s still very early. Pharyngula has announced it on his blog, but the BA hasn’t. I’m sure it will get closer when he does.
Since in the past pharyngula has received way more votes than this one, why is “conpirational” to expect that this will happen again?
I note that Pharyngula is “a bit disturbed by the company I’m keeping over there, though: I’m in the running with a couple of conservative junk science blogs. Go vote for one of the other people”
So that is this site told then…..
I only visited this site, after you proved in August with the Hansen Y2K thing, what I had already thought, that the whole of Science Academia can often get it wildly wrong, and make incompetence a kind description.
Peer review just doesn’t work, consensus overwhelms any peer review.
I will vote for you.
delurking to say congrats and that I read this site with great interest, daily. Please keep up the good work.
How do cranks get nominated for a “science” blog award?
BA might have lost a bit as a result of joining the forum with Universe Today forum (bautforum). The BA has gotten a bit more preachy in recent years, IMO, too.
Mark
Adding to Mosher’s nominations, I go for Sam Urbinto: he’s one urbinto heat island!
#66 is beautiful satire.
And of course I’ve voted. But just the once; we English don’t follow the Irish “vote early vote often” maxim (it *was* an Irishman who introduced me to that one).
Rich.
Took a look at Pharyngula’s blog. It seems to be a middle-aged man who writes about
[snip – any mention of these topics is not allowed, even by reference]
Bad Astronomy is starting to get its votes now. I guess that its slow start was just inertia. I take back my earlier comment about tactical voting. CA is now firmly behind Pharyngula and Bad Astronomy will probably overtake us in due course. These three are now well separated from the other seven.
As a frequenter of many blogs going back further than most, I can say that I have learned more from CA than all other science related blogs put together. The quality of posts and comments here is truly remarkable, and you have yet to fall into the usual blog trap of running out of new and interesting things to say.
#28 kate who I think nominated Climate Audit is also running for best “Canadian blog,”
Feel free to throw her a vote as SmallDeadAnimals.com links here often.
RE 77. Sam U is a favorite of mine as he well knows. As a satirist I hate the competition as
you and he can well understand.
I will also add our odd moose from Sweden, steffan. Who is as incomprehensible as the aureaul borealis.
( can I get a spell check on Isle 3)
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I luv ya all! Well, everyone I agree with at least 🙂
Maybe I should start calling myself an urbinto heat island heh heh cool
For future reference: Which topics are not allowed (even in general threads)?
I used to believe in AGW, but doubts started to creep in when I heard that the clever scientists said the MWP didn’t happen, well I have read Chaucer and seen the old vinyards in UK.
I have also trudged across the top of a very bleak cold Dartmoor (the Army do survival training there in the present day!) only to find clusters of Bronze Age huts and farming settlements, you cannot farm there now.
I had no knowledge of Steve, but did write long, probably boring, questions to the UK Met Office about how they worked such things out, they were occasionally offhand, but usually patient, but I had no way of working out whether I was right or wrong.
I did try desperately, even blogging RC, to try to find the paper Steve keeps asking for on how the CO2 thing actually causes the 2.5 deg warming, and like Steve found none. Some kindly old soul at the American Institute of Physics did send some old references to papers in the 50’s, but these only concluded the reaction was almost negligble, however my contact did ask that if I ever succeeded in my quest be sure to let him know.
I then quite by accident discovered that the UK Met office were not fully giving out facts, they kept declaring record temperatures without saying that this always corresponded with record hours of sunshine. I challenged this via a formal complaint, and eventually my complaint was upheld, but as it was only me complaining it did no good whatsoever.
So then I heard about Hansen and Y2K and you, and you got something done.
Polls will be what they will be, but I doubt any other scientific blog can claim they have done as thorough a job of challenging scientific conventional wisdom, as this one has with specific areas of climate science.
If there is any doubt that some would attempt to circumvent the rules I suggest you look here
RC will simply declare themselves the winners after updating the proxy votes.
Who needs to be nominated when you’ve got overwhelming scientific consensus on your side.
@89 Robert in Calgary
And who needs votes when “the debate is over”?
Keep up the fine work.
#82 Mosher, I’m in from the moosehunt…They
didn’t hit me too badly…Incomprehensible??
Moi? I assume it’s partly a positive judgement?
Raise your hand if you have 10 or more email accounts….
RE 91. I figured you must have an Rss feed that alerts you when your name is mentioned.
To comprehend means to be able to hold in one’s hand. To get a grasp. To control.
So yes, you are incomprehensible. In a good way, as you know dear friend.
mercurial would be another word I would use.
Speaking of awards, congratulations, Steve, on your Nobel Peace Prize! As one of the Official Reviewers of AR4, you should get some fraction of the prize money. Let’s see — $1.5 million, half to Al, the rest to the 800-some coauthors + reviewers, not counting overlaps, = about $940? (US, that is — in real (Canadian) dollars maybe $900 … ?)
#93 The rss-feed is in my head and it’s called intuition…
Greenlanders call it..you fill in….I’ll have a radiator
control in my flat Nov 27, so I was out to the bin for USED papers
BIN-LADEN as we anglo-saxons call it…! Moosher, sorry, halloween
is all over me and it was SNOWING and STICKING to the ground!!
last winter Nov 1, this year perhaps some minutes before
midnight so Nov 2 possibly. Latest FSOS was in 2000 late boxing
day afternoon…Last year we heard from some assorted people in
the Swedish CAMPUS AGW that autumns were becoming warmer and later
and that is simply a damned lie for me, not for them, they have not
a clue about it…In WAF I voted for CA and then “we” had a lead by 62
percent …2nd the ej…12%…
SciGuy has published good reading with a restatement of the “30 Worst Predictions” — 10-15 years from now, at least one of those 30 quotes will be displaced by a quote from former VP Gore, Dr Mann, Dr Hansen or Dr Pachauri.
Funniest one sentence I’ve read in ages. Thx Hu!
[For non-North Americans, Canadians used to joke about their money not being “real” dollars like the American…of late the tide has turned]
Not quite. They’ll declare themselves the winners by using LAST YEARS VOTES!!!
Yes I voted. Once! Many Times!!! JK 🙂
Voted for CA as it is the best scientific site around.
Now I have commented, as a lurker I have to point out you may have competition from the Guardian, whilst I love it (Ben Goldacre is great on medical issues) it put this up as “terrifying” evidence of climate change:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/2007/11/most_terrifying_video_youll_ev.html#comments
I managed at last to get in a vote. Found out my old Netscape won’t work for it (all I get is a big gray box with a blue line near the top. So I had to copy the link to IE.
Should have not said about my last link “evidence of climate change” but it is more a proposed statistical approach to dealing with the assessments of threats.
Jason Eyink,
We’ll let you off the hook this time, as it would be unfair to expect someone of your sheer incompetence to have any understanding of Game Theory. But go pick up a book, Avinash Dixit writes well enough for those without any economics background, and if you keep your mind open you will realize that Steve McIntryre has properly identified the roll back equilibrium if CA is in contention to win.
Steve: But Bad Astronomy was just off to a slow start. So the tactical voting, while a theoretical possibility, isn’t what’s going on. Bad Astronomy voteres are voting for Bad Astronomy and it’ now competing with Pharyngula as it did last year. So no one’s being tactical. However CA’s running an impressive 3rd and has already exceeded 2006 realclimate votes.
Re #85 “I have also trudged across the top of a very bleak cold Dartmoor (the Army do survival training there in the present day!) only to find clusters of Bronze Age huts and farming settlements, you cannot farm there now.”
We live and farm on Dartmoor, and at above 900 ft, the prison at Princetown has an extensive farm. Dartmoor supports thousands of sheep and cattle.
IMO, a major reason for CA’s excellent performance is Steve’s ability to choose and summarise subjects of real and substantial interest, in a measured manner, with examples at the cutting edge. Simple as that. It’s called “science”, not voodoo.
I wish I knew how to post here an .avi file of a MB or more from Australia, showing in animated cartoon form OFFICIALLY how the temperature will change over the years to 2010. That’s voodoo.
Re: 103 – The Wikipedia entry suggests it was hotter in the bronze age than today. I can’t find the details at the moment but I remember watching a programme of an archeological dig on Dartmoor where they found the remains of certain seeds from the bronze age that would require warmer temperatures than today.
Off topic Re: 85, 105 Here you go :prehistoric factsheet
By the middle of the Bronze Age, most of the trees had been cleared from high Dartmoor and the land had become farmland. Some time around 1700 BC people began to create what we would today call fields; these were long strips of land bounded by low, stoney banks known as reaves. Inside these banks animals were grazed and crops possibly grown. The crops would have been viable due to a warmer and drier climate than today.
BTW thanks for your story UK John.
What got your goat, mosh? My prediction? Or comparing you guys to an irrelevant candidate?
I think the passion of the auditors will win the day. If your fans will drive miles out of their way to snap candids of climate stations, then why wouldn’t they recruit family and friends to vote CA best science blog? You can do it sitting down even.
RE 107.
Junk science is an agregator. Phewwy on that. No comments. No chance for Boris and the Moshpit to have fun.
The comparison didnt get my goat. As I noted, I pay you compliment, then you undermine it’s
basis. I expect more of you and actually enjoy the tussle.
To be sure, if I put my black hat back on, the ballot box would be overflowing. But that
would be creating a hockey stick out of thin air. CA is a good site, and your role
in that is not inconsequential. No matter how much that fact grates on you.
Steve,
You got my vote, of course. Congrats again for all your work (still wondering how you find the time!…).
OTOH, for those really interested in paleoanthropology, and related topics (including some which I may not reference here…), there is John Hawks’ blog. Lots of science, seriously discussed, but never without humor and wit. Very little politics. No comments allowed, though, but that’s probably a good thing.
The contenders (phyringulla and bad astronomy) do not impress me much.
Keep voting, folks, CA is doing very well!
#103 “We live and farm on Dartmoor, and at above 900 ft, the prison at Princetown has an extensive farm. Dartmoor supports thousands of sheep and cattle.”
As a local I am surprised you didn’t know the Prison Farm had closed down! Yes Dartmoor does have sheep and hardy cattle as well as Ponies. However the Bronze age farmers did things you couldn’t do!
re: #109
I went to Bad Astronomy just now and also wasn’t impressed. The science level is rather low and the politics horrid from my point of view but overdone no matter what your political perspective. I looked at the messages from one thread which was on global warming and boy! There may be a few posters here as bad as the best of the posters there, but the quality of this blog is so much greater that any comparison is rather unnecessary.
To illustrate the difference, there was a discussion in that thread about hurricane count numbers for 2007. A number of posters pointed to the current named storm numbers thinking it proved something, but as far as I got in the thread I didn’t see anyone pointing out the actual reasons the numbers are so high and what that means. Here if anyone goes to a thread on hurricanes s/he quickly learns any number of things which put the official number in context.
Junkscience led me here, so it does serve a valuable purpose.
A lot of the blogs on this list are popular because of the perspective either put out by explicitly by the author and/or by the community of commenters. Your comment above is much more easily applied to Junkscience, in my opinion. Regardless of BA’s opinions (which is clearly part of these popularity contests), there’s some great stuff de-bunking misconceptions in popular culture regarding astronomy/space, and de-bunking the moon landing conspiracy theories. Yes, CA sticks to hard data way better than a lot of science blogs. Which makes me wonder about the distinction between “blogs about science” and “blogs by scientists”. The latter tend to contain more of a mix of content (i.e., the freedom of self-publishing and expressing views). Maybe i’m cynical, but I never really vote or pay attention to these kinds of popularity contests.
Re #111, yes the prison farm has closed – but not, afaik, for weather reasons.
I bet they didn’t grow tomatoes very successfully on a outdoor S facing wall at 900 ft up in the bronze age like we did ’07… but, tell me, what did they grow back then we can’t now?
RE 95. Steffann. Dr Mann in the movies:
TCO makes and appearence as well:
I like dorthy’s question: where do you want to be oiled first.
And finally ELI
Ref:115 Dartmoor Prison It went on holiday to the Chateau D’If
#115 You seem to not believe the Historical Proxy that the Climate was warmer on Dartmoor in the Bronze age. If you Google “Bronze Age Dartmoor Agriculture” you will get hundreds of hits to well researched references that say this.
You must be a Climate Change Denier, how can you not believe all this scientific evidence !
#115 PH How could you grow tomatoes in the bronze age
when it was the evil conquistadors who got them to
Europe…No evil that doesn’t also bring some good things…
#116 Mosho! Let’s see if I get your saturday night tube-riddle
right?? Dr Mann wishes he had a brain (who doesn’t?) but
apparently the jackdaw has got the brains and flies away with
all the proxies, after all Mann is just one oily dandelion…
Well I have to cut here for some snake-oil work, so you’re
next tube-clip is Midnight Oil …L—-O—-L
#119 Finally, he made the same linguistic mistake as so many
others, even EE native speakers…”..snake-oil work,
so YOUR next…” CORRECTION SUSTAINED!
BA was extremely a-political and the postings were almost purely scientific due to plenty of really smart astronomy and physics types. Then Phil decided it was best to merge with Universe Today and things went downhill. Even Phil started wearing his political view point on his shirt sleeve.
Mark
re:#121
Which shows why Steve Mc is wise not to allow politics to intrude (at least as far as he can spare time to police it.)
Ok, I voted four or five times today (I have access to servers around the world) and now I have to stop myself. I’m feeling a bit too much like a Florida democrat hanging chad counter.
After reading the comments on the voting, I checked out the Pharyngula Blog. Paging down on the Latest Posts page I came across this “Random Quote” from Bertrand Russell:
“If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless and will therefore result to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called ‘education’.”
Pharyngula has a section containing hundreds of quotes, most of which apparently have to do with religious beliefs and athiesm, which I am sure is why Pharyngula likes the above quote. But what are the chances that, on first examining the site, a random choice among hundreds whould be so apt for the present AGW discussion?
I don’t get why Pharyngula is considered science blog. There’s more politics than genetics.
When somebody of this topic should have been nominated, then Gene Expression. Here they discuss the recent genetical topics. Of course, they don’t avoid the taboo themes like IQ, it’s heritability and IQ differences among human populations, which is why Pharyngula (a.k.a. PZ Myers) can’t stand them.
[snip – c-word isn’t allowed here even by reference.]
In an odd sort of way, there’s a similarity between genetics and climate in that both have a strong political intersection. In both cases, the politics often drives the science, and the science, in turn, reaps the cash.
I apologize, but, to be honest, I don’t even know what ‘c’ word I referred to in that comment? Can someone clue me in…I don’t want to use it again if it’s not allowed. Thanks.
The non-Darwinian one …
fFreddy…oh, okay thanks…but, we were discussing what Pharyngula’s blog was about, I thought? RichinAZ #124 would have to be clipped to…as with a lot of other comments in this thread that talk about Pharyngula. Sorry, but I think that’s an unfair snip, but it’s your blog.
BAck from the week-end. CA doing very well in this poll. We’re within 100 votes of Pharyngula right now for 2nd and within 300 votes of Bad Astronomy who are now in 1st. We’ve done much better than realclimate 2006 (who only got 458 votes in total).
I had never heard of pharynx, or phenacitin, or phlogiston, or whatever the name of that site is. And now that I’ve had the chance to look at it, it’s just as well. Neither the style nor writing appeals to me — someone who doesn’t know the difference between “there” and “their” is someone I tend to avoid.
Bad Astronomy, on the other hand, is a place I’ve been known to visit. There’s a bit of chaff, but some good things can be found.
SteveMc. Not sure if you’ve seen the new USHCN methodology. Looks like Some new refrences
to change point analysis. There is a bunch of stuff. I’ll start with this and shut up
if you’ve seen it already
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/hcntmptrends.php
Been a pretty sporadic lurker lately – plate runneth over – but looks like I stopped by just in time to cast a few votes for CA, which I will do every 24 hours for as long as I can. As of about 10 minutes ago, CA was just a few points out of first place. No matter where CA places once the dust settles, I choose to believe this portends well for skepticism and sanity.
BTW, I agree w/ Buddenbrook, ca: #48: While it was uncommonly civil for Steve to “nominate” RC, their condescending, censoring ways are not science – they’re anti-science.
To all at CA.
10pm UK time and its looking close now – but I think you might just pip it.
I’ve been a non-contributing lurker here for ages now and most who’ve contributed – whatever side they’re on – should be congratulated for having an open, honest exchange of views to the benefit of science.
Not quite the Nobel that Gore-Al (Jor El) got, but still, well deserved.
Lets hope this makes Steve’s excellent work become more prominent and helps bring about more honest and diligent research when undertaking poxy – sorry, proxy – reconstructions with fancy al-gore-rithms. Sorry, couldn’t resist that.
Whatever the final result, well done.
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