Via Greg Laden’s blog I heard of the Just Science 2008, an effort to get bloggers to write only about science for a week.
The idea is to get people to write only about science for one week, from February 4 – 8. They will have an RSS feed set up, and anytime someone who has signed up to blog about this makes a post, a reader can see the post. In other words, get the RSS feed and all you will see are science posts from various bloggers for one week in that feed.
I think this is an interesting idea, but I’m ambivalent. There is almost no information on the site on why they are doing this, and no info at all on who is behind it. Perhaps some bloggers who don’t post very much will be interested in signing up to blog, but that doesn’t appeal to me. Like any scientist, my interests are wide-ranging, from astronomy to political nonsense to Doctor Who. I post on science topics well over half the time (despite protestations by people who, I suspect, just don’t like it when I say something they personally disagree with), but all the time? That’s not who I am. There’s not much chance I’ll stick to pure science for my four or five posts I make every day.
Ironically, starting Monday I will be in Austin for the American Astronomical Society meeting, and I will be blogging as much as I can with astronomy and space science news (that’ll start in earnest Tuesday morning, but don’t forget the blogger meetup!), so I actually will be doing quite a bit of science posts. But if I wanna post a picture of a LOLcat, I’ll do that too.
Even more ironic: the post you’re reading right now isn’t about science.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
January 6th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Apropos, Alan Sokal raised an interesting point a while back:
The “Just Science” folks seem like they only want to hear about the first two meanings of “science” (or, at most, three out of four). Now, I’m all for blogging on those topics, naturally, but the other stuff is relevant too. If one is in a charitable mood, even the Doctor Who posts and their ilk could be considered helpful to the scientific cause, as they demonstrate that a scientist can be a person just like anybody else: they go to the movies, they bake blueberry bread and so forth.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
The rules only state that you must write at least one article on science. There are no restrictions on other stuff.
Here are some ideas in advance.
One of the NASA probes, like Cassini, the Mars rover, the two Mars orbiters, etc usually release something new at least once a week.
There’s a solar eclipse on 2/7. Jules Verne’s 180th birthday is 2/8 (He used at least some science to write his novels).
Total Lunar eclipse on 2/21 – could use it with the solar eclipse and explain the differences.
Maybe a shuttle launch – carries ESA’s science lab.
With spring approaching, maybe an article on how the seasons happen. I have always felt that the section in your book is excellent. Could through in the balance egg.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
jrkeller: The rules say:
“you may not post any non-science entries for this period so that we may offer only science on our aggregated feed.” … and you must do at least one per day. The “other stuff” is 100% forbidden.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Sorry for that. I completely misread the original post.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
[...] Just science? By The Bad Astronomer Ironically, starting Monday I will be in Austin for the American Astronomical Society meeting, and I will be blogging as much as I can with astronomy and space science news (that’ll start in earnest Tuesday morning, but don’t forget the … Bad Astronomy Blog – http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog [...]
January 6th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Awwww… Ain’t they sweet! Starting it all on my birthday! How thoughtful!
Oh well, have fun in Austin, Phil!
Say hey to Pam & Fraser for all of us!
Rich
January 6th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Since when is Dr. Who not science?
January 6th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Well I guess some people just want a break or refuge from politics, art, culture and all the other aspects of life …
Fair enough.
It doesn’t overly appeal to me but … alright.
Good science is always good.
Excusive science with nothing else strikes me as abit too limiting and fettered – but yeah I can see why some folks’d apppreciate it …
A little of this and a little break from non-pure science is probably healthy. Keeping thsi forever and forgetting that science impinges on & is impinged upon by therets of life may be …. not so good I suggest … :-~
January 6th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
CORRECTION :
A little of this and having a little break from non-pure science is probably healthy.
Keeping this up forever however and forgetting that science impinges on & is impinged upon by the rest of life may be ….
… not so good I suggest. :-~
January 6th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
# Michael Lonerganon 06 Jan 2008 at 10:21 pm asked :
“Since when is Dr. Who not science?”
Depends on your definition of science and whether said definition covers Science Fiction!
Then it depends how strictly you define science fiction and how strong you feel on whether plausibility is asceincritific facotr and inwhat ways – ie. is time travel allowed, are aliens allowed tobe indistinguishable (almost) from humans, are planets full of wobbling carboard props scientifically valid propositions etc …
… But don’t get me wrong, I love Dr Who too!
Awesome show. I grew up on it esp. Tom Baker’s Dr & the luscious Leela of the Sevateem! (plus Romana later & all the rest …)
January 6th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
” is asceincritific facotr ” SIGH.
Worst typos yet?
I meant :
Then it depends how strictly you define science fiction and how strong you feel on whether plausibility is a scientific factor and in what ways – ie. is time travel allowed, is FTL and thus galactic empires, are aliens allowed to be indistinguishable (almost) from humans, are planets full of wobbling carboard props scientifically valid propositions etc …
… But don’t get me wrong, I love Dr Who too!
Awesome show. I grew up on it esp. Tom Baker’s Dr & the luscious Leela of the Sevateem! (plus Romana later & all the rest …)
Fave Doctor : Tom Baker
Fave Companion : Perpegilliam Brown betetrr known as Peri (Okay I’m a shallow male … sue me! * )
Fave villaisn : Daleks
—-
* Oops forgot for a minute this is an Amercian board – no, please don’t sue me … Actually is there any litigation-worthy of being a male with a weakness for well .. well-proportioned women? ..
January 7th, 2008 at 12:30 am
StevoR, the keys on your keyboard are *labelled*, aren’t they?
January 7th, 2008 at 1:08 am
*sigh*
jesus christ, but this is just like last year, people get all irritated by the implications that they scry. a few quick points
1) the people “behind” it are a couple of the people on the scienceblogs.com network. mostly myself & chris of mixing memory & RPM of evolgen (though RPM is not likely to have the marginal time to participate this year, that’s OK, we won’t stone him).
2) this is 5 days. really, let’s keep a little perspective on the constraint here, OK?
3) it’s not like we’re evangelizing via mass mailings, taking out adverts or sending out notifications to people we think might be interested. the only people i have emailed are those who signed up last year telling them what was up. those are the only people who i plan on emailing. i encourage people who sign up and are interested to post about it, but obviously there’s not stiff directions on that. i will post a reminder once a week on my blog.
4) the key is that we are being very harsh about any non-science content. but again, it’s only 5 days, it’s totally voluntary.
5) posting on non-science is important & fun. but there’s a big blogosphere out there, so if i don’t post my predictions for the feb 5th primary i think the world will survive. my own perception is that science blogs post a lot more non-science than non-science blogs post on science.
6) we have 20 blogs signed up already, so really, it’s OK if it’s not for you. the feed will be pretty thick. last year we had 65 sign ups and the feed was overwhelming (in a good way). even if we have only 20 blogs signed up that’s 100 posts, and if last year is to judge there’s going to be some heavy stuff coming down the pipe.
7) one of the main reasons ‘just science’ started was that some of us noticed that our scienceblogs.com feed was basically overwhelmed by non-science content over time so that it was rendered useless if you wanted to just find science and didn’t have time to check constantly (the topic channel feeds are still OK of course).
several people at the end of the week noted that posting on science only was exhausting. they were scientists professionally but had previous devoted their blogs to non-scientific interests. they also stated that they felt encouraged to post more science because it was rewarding. so that is probably the best thing that came out of ‘just science,’ more science bloggers.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:59 am
There is almost no information on the site on why they are doing this, and no info at all on who is behind it.
btw, just out of curiosity, why does this matter to you? i mean seriously, if i was a russia neo-nazi bent on republishing all the just science posts in the local supremacist newsletter i suppose that would be objectionable, but it would be pretty weird (seriously, there were some intense posts about fluid dynamics last year, i can’t see that stuff being applied for nefarious ends). i suppose one could imagine i could steal the content and publish it, but i can do that now. i guess it could be a front for easier aggregation.
the main reason i didn’t put too much information about why we are doing ‘just science’ and who is setting it up is that i don’t think that’s the point of it. the point is pure scientific blogging. we don’t care about your motive for why you blog science or why you subscribe to the feed. we also don’t care who you are. if you’re a person who is suspicious of the motive of the principals and the intent of the enterprise well no need to be involved, right? there were enough people who expressed unbridled prima facie enthusiasm for the enterprise (and different people had different spins on it i might add) that i figured it would be best to just shut up, set up the software, and let the chips fall where they may.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:29 am
[...] Just science? [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 3:15 am
On the Doctor Who issue:
I read a study several years ago, that said that people who read/watch Science Fiction as their main form of entertainment tend to be more optimistic than people who read/watch other forms. Perhaps this is due to the fact that most Sci-Fi takes place in the future, which assumes that there will BE a future.
*Anecdote alert*
I knew a woman whose main ‘entertainment’ was reading the “Left Behind” books – this was one gloomy, bitter woman! (Of course, the correlation/causation argument comes into play here – was she bitter because she read those books, or did she read those books because she was gloomy?)
*Side note: I never understood why so many people got sooooo into reading a series of books about some guy’s sinister (as opposed to dexeter) gluteus maximus…*
January 7th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Feb 5th is “Super Duper Tuesday” in the US, when 24 states will be conducting their presidental election primaries or caucuses (according to Wikipedia). It might be pretty hard to avoid talking politics that week.
January 7th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Here’s some science… a reversed polarity (relative to the last 11 years) sunspot has appeared at high solar latitude, which signifies the start of solar cycle 24. This is good news for ham radio operators, and probably not-so-good for satellite owners as with a new cycle of sunspots comes a new cycle of stormy space weather.
The conspiracy minded might view this as the sun flip-flopping on nearly a decade of Republican rule.
January 7th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Sounds like a challenge. What are ya, Doctor… chicken?
January 7th, 2008 at 9:11 am
> There is almost no information on the site on why they are doing this, and no info at all on who is behind it.
[channeling StevoR] Must be the Five Jew Bankers and the worldwide capital concentration conspiracy. [/channeling]
I mean, I’m sort of pinko too in some ways, but come on… oh, and get Firefox. I think it has a spellcheck-as-you-type add-in.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Won’t help a lot of folks in some parts of the world.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080107195154.zz47kw4z&show_article=1
January 7th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
*Feb 5th is “Super Duper Tuesday” in the US, when 24 states will be conducting their presidental election primaries or caucuses (according to Wikipedia). It might be pretty hard to avoid talking politics that week.*
That may just be the whole idea behind this.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:58 am
# Crux Australison 07 Jan 2008 at 12:30 am wrote :
“StevoR, the keys on your keyboard are *labelled*, aren’t they?”
Hang on I’ll check …
…. Yup.
Yeah, I know I just keep hitting the wrong ones … Sigh.
Just the way I work I guess but I usually do a rough first draft .. then check thro’ make some corrections, click submit, then notice all the typos I hadn’t seen and honestly didn’t think were there … I’d really *LOVE* an editing capability here for that reason .. I may have mentioned that on rare occassions too!
Firefox eh? Thanks ‘Centipede’, I may have to look into that.
As for :
[channeling StevoR] Must be the Five Jew Bankers and the worldwide capital concentration conspiracy. [/channeling]
There’s more proof pyschic channeling is ..uh .. BS!
Come on, I’m NOT that bad.
Pointing out the vastly disproportionate influence of the Israeli lobby on your nations affairs when Jews and Muslims are _each_ a mere 5 % of teh USA’s population is a very, *very* different thing to unplugging one’s brains and shrieking “heil Hitler!” I’m all about the former NOT the latter.
In no way do I endorse the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ or other such ridiculous and offensive tracts. 5 bankers, no, five bansk maybe ..
I’m not anti-Jewish; I fully accept that the ‘Shoah’ or Jewish Holocaust happened and that Hitler murdered about 5 million Jews (plus Blacks, Gypsies, Russians, dissenting Germans, the mentally ill and physically disabled ad nauseam) – although I would point out that it has been politically exploited and over-emphasised relative to other comparable or worse genocides. (Eg. those against the Native Americans whose cultures were largely wiped out or the Maoist genocide whichwasnumerically far worse. Or the on-going attempted genocideof the Palestineans, Tibetans, Chechens, Darfurians etc ..which we shoudlbe acting against now.) Despite how they make things sound the Jews were not the ONLY group in history to suffer persecution, oppression and genocide – in fact in some cases & at some times, the Jewish peoples have actually been the perpretarteurs rather tahn victims of such injustices and atrocities. (Eg. Canaanites, Moabites, Amalekites, Samaritans, Palestineans, Lebanese, … quite arguably Iraqi’s too nowdays.)
In saying this let me state firmly that I do NOT call for Israel’s total destruction (its removal to NewYork sometimes, tongue-in-cheek but not its annhiliation altogether) nor would I ever call for the persecution of any ethnic -religio-cultural group.
I’ve studied the issue at university very closely; looked at both sides and my conclusion basedon years of study and hundreds of different books and evidence is that, distilled down, the Palestineans while imperfect, are the goodies in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict and that the creation of Israel to salve European consciences was a huge mistake for everybody involved not least the Jews. Apart from anything else it gave Hitler what he wanted – Jews out of Europe and into another place. For another, it has increasingly termed the Jews into intolerant, brutalised, thuggish, uber-patriots and exclusivist religious fanatics – an ironic & depressing twist.
The Isreali lobby is, in stark relaity, behind tehNeo-Conservative movemntand atleastpartially repponsible fortheillegal and we’ve now sen disasterous and counter-productive invasionand occupationof Iraq plus Palestine and has been the aggressor in SouthWest Asia (or the Muslim World) for decades.
I strongly and vocally oppose that.
Moreover, I think the only reason most intelligent and rational people do not also oppose it is through the Israeli lobbies vastly disproportionate media and political influence.
I hardly think that counts as conspiracy theory, unfortunately its just the reality.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Sigh ..and there we go again – CORRECTED :
The Isreali lobby is, in stark truth, behind the Neo-Conservative movement (the two are in many cases identical) and – at least partially – responsible for the illegal and, as we’ve now seen, disasterously counter-productive invasion and occupation of Iraq plus tehcontinued occupation and repression of Palestine. Isreal and through Isreal the USA has salso generally been the aggressor in South-West Asia (or the Muslim World) for decades.
I strongly and vocally oppose that.
Moreover, I think the only reason most intelligent and rational people do not also oppose it is through the Israeli lobbies vastly disproportionate media and political influence and their massive media disinformation and propganda spinning in favour of Israel.
I suggest that you (& everyone else) read some of Noam Chomsky and Edward Said’s works among others yourself for a better understanding of this whole issue.
I hardly think that counts as conspiracy theory, unfortunately its just the reality.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Stevo writes:
[[the Palestineans while imperfect, are the goodies in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict ]]
Let’s see, the Palestinians have hijacked planes, kidnapped and murdered Olympic athletes, taken over a kibbutz and bashed toddlers’ brains out by swinging them by the legs into walls, torn captured soldiers to pieces, and blown up restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, marketplaces, buses, and hotels. They constantly repeat anti-Semitic propaganda in their news broadcasts, books, and popular literature — even their elementary school textbooks talk about the Jews mixing the blood of Christian and Muslim babies in the passover matzoh, Jews poisoning wells, and the Holocaust being made up to generate sympathy for the Jews.
By contrast, the Israelis have occupied Jordanian territory after Jordan repeatedly attacked them, fired rubber bullets into rioting crowds, bulldozed houses of people who have made bombs, and tortured prisoners, though the ones who did the latter are now in jail, something which has never happened to soldiers in Palestine or in an Arab country.
This must be some strange new definition of “goodies” I never heard before.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Bad Astronomy and Pharyngula are my two favorite blogs. But I don’t read either for the scientific content. Mr. BA and PeeZed are among the best social and political commentators of the day, as I see it.
But when the talk turns to highly technical issues in astronomy or biology, it usually just goes over my head.
Sometimes these writers’ enthusiasm can make it interesting enough that I’ll try to follow what they’re saying, but a steady flow of just that stuff would leave me with nothing to read.
Oh, yeah… I really like the pictures.
John