The New York Times weighed in on this

Yes, and as the science blog Phrayngula noted Could Virginia Heffernan possibly be more wrong?:

” it isn’t just that she doesn’t like many of the scienceblogs (including yours truly), but that she gets the facts wrong.

This was just bizarre.

I was nonplussed by the high dudgeon of the so-called SciBlings. The bloggers evidently write often enough for ad-free academic journals that they still fume about adjacencies, advertorial and infomercials. Most writers for “legacy” media like newspapers, magazines and TV see brush fires over business-editorial crossings as an occupational hazard. They don’t quit anytime there’s an ad that looks so much like an article it has to be marked “this is an advertisement.”

Errm, many of the early departures in the wake of Pepsico were science journalist/bloggers — and the impression I got was that they were more concerned about the ethics of advertorials than the pure science bloggers. And the problem with the Pepsico blog was that it was an ad that looked much like an article but wasn’t marked “this is an advertisement”.

There is much in her rant that is clearly outrage that some of us (uh, yours truly again) have no sympathy for religious excuses, or indulge in “religion-baiting” as she calls it, but I’ll pass over that — atheist-haters are dime-a-dozen, and it’s not even particularly notable. But this final bit is absurd and discredits her completely: she lists some blogs she favors for her version of ‘science’.”

And she goes on to list “Watts Up With That?”, a climate science denier!

Yup. that Heffernan surely “weighed in” on the matter of science blogs.

Where are the “valid points” you may well ask after that show of non comprehension and ant-science. So do I; please point them out.

I endorse completely Carl and Brian’s comments about the science blogosphere. But, oddly enough, The New York Times weighed in on this in last Sunday’s magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/magazine/01FOB-medium-t.html?_r=3

While I agree with Brian and Carl’s assesment regarding the importance of Brian’s original blog post on Darwinius, I believe The New York Times writer has raised some valid points which should not be dismissed, especially since many of the blogs at Science Blogs are those who deserve such harsh crticism.

That comes across as patronizing.

As you said, I expect that we will see the likes of Darwinius again (be it in the form of an exceptionally-preserved dinosaur, a hominin fossil, or something else), but even if blogs can’t prevent such media missteps from happening, what you did here at the Loom illustrates how science blogs can play a pivotal role in both correcting misinformation and motivating scientists to take action. Given what I constantly hear about how science blogs have stagnated and are just havens of angry atheism not worth paying attention to, I thought the Darwinius saga was a powerful counterexample of how blogs can provide a platform for scientists, journalists, and science enthusiasts to get together and make a significant difference in both academic and popular settings. Keep up the great work!