Scientopia
August 2, 2010 3:17 PM Subscribe
Scienceblogs' aborted foray into Pepsi Blue leads to mass exodus, new home for a bunch of science blogs
It looks like Food Frontiers' presence on the Scienceblogs website has been memory-holed, but it carries on valiantly on Pepsi's own servers
posted by jtron at 3:28 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by jtron at 3:28 PM on August 2, 2010
I don't see why this should be deleted. It's new information, announcing Scientopia, and the migration away from Scienceblogs.
Thank goodness migrations such as this are easy in a medium such as the Web. In the olden days, it would have required finding a new publisher, new start-up money, creating a subscriber base, etc.
I wish the new Scientopia all kinds of good things for the future. And bravo for all the bloggers who took a stand for independence and non-Blueish science information.
posted by hippybear at 3:33 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
Thank goodness migrations such as this are easy in a medium such as the Web. In the olden days, it would have required finding a new publisher, new start-up money, creating a subscriber base, etc.
I wish the new Scientopia all kinds of good things for the future. And bravo for all the bloggers who took a stand for independence and non-Blueish science information.
posted by hippybear at 3:33 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
Former ScienceBlogs paleontology writer Brian Switek left Sb for his own blog and has a pretty good post on the state of science blogging in general.
posted by waraw at 3:38 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by waraw at 3:38 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'm not voting delete on this, I had no idea there was an exodus to a new site.
posted by mathowie at 3:39 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by mathowie at 3:39 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
I read more than a few of current or past scienceblogs sites, but honestly I don't really see anything significant they gain from my point of view from being on one host. I can't help thinking they should have taken advantage of the opportunity to go their separate ways and be entirely independent in how they operate.
posted by edd at 3:47 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by edd at 3:47 PM on August 2, 2010
I thought this blew over already when they took down the offending site, but I should have known this is the internet.
posted by smackfu at 4:18 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by smackfu at 4:18 PM on August 2, 2010
I'm slightly puzzled by the exodus. I saw some of the complaints flying around when the Pepsi blog first appeared, which basically seemed to work from the assumption that a corporation cannot honestly blog about science.
Surely the course for a community of scientists and sceptics to take is to watch the blog with interest, then attack its content if they deem it to be sub-par. The simple insistence that the blog will be terrible and misleading because it's written by Pepsi just seems like a huge ad hominem, which these sorts of bloggers are supposed to be against. By all means attack poor evidence and weak reasoning -- I'll be cheering you on -- but pre-emptively dismissing a message because you dislike who's saying it is not a great position to take.
posted by metaBugs at 4:23 PM on August 2, 2010 [3 favorites]
Surely the course for a community of scientists and sceptics to take is to watch the blog with interest, then attack its content if they deem it to be sub-par. The simple insistence that the blog will be terrible and misleading because it's written by Pepsi just seems like a huge ad hominem, which these sorts of bloggers are supposed to be against. By all means attack poor evidence and weak reasoning -- I'll be cheering you on -- but pre-emptively dismissing a message because you dislike who's saying it is not a great position to take.
posted by metaBugs at 4:23 PM on August 2, 2010 [3 favorites]
aw nuts just saw this post - mods plz delete this :(
Um, please don't. It's not a double. This is a really interesting post.
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:30 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Um, please don't. It's not a double. This is a really interesting post.
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:30 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Ah, never mind ... I see mathowie has that point covered!
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2010
From the impression I got, edd, smackfu, and metabugs are all getting at different aspects of the reason people left. Basically, the bloggers thought they had a community. They didn't want the Pepsi blog, and had their ... I guess "illusion" crushed when it showed up. They realized they were just blogs in a corporate-run media conglomerate. It didn't matter that the Pepsi blog was canceled, and it didn't matter how benign the offense was. ScienceBlogs is run by the man. The magic was gone, so they had to move on and hope to recapture it elsewhere.
To be fair, it sounds like there were many other complaints about lack of communication and support from ScienceBlogs. This may have just been the last straw.
posted by Humanzee at 4:35 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
To be fair, it sounds like there were many other complaints about lack of communication and support from ScienceBlogs. This may have just been the last straw.
posted by Humanzee at 4:35 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
Jonah Lehrer (author of How We Decide) left Scienceblogs on July 21 but specifically said in his farewell post that it was not because of Pepsi. (In fact, he was sad about the exodus.) He now blogs at Wired.
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:39 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by Jaltcoh at 4:39 PM on August 2, 2010
...but pre-emptively dismissing a message because you dislike who's saying it is not a great position to take.
Scientists who work for corporations can publish papers without much in the way of screaming. But if corporations buy their way in...not so much. It isn't the what or the who but the how.
posted by DU at 4:40 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Scientists who work for corporations can publish papers without much in the way of screaming. But if corporations buy their way in...not so much. It isn't the what or the who but the how.
posted by DU at 4:40 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
waraw's link to Brian Switek is worth a read. Particularly interesting is his takedown of Virginia Heffernan's recent NYT slap at the ex-ScienceBloggers, a slap Switek politely paints as almost unbelievably stupid and misinformed:
By Heffernan's own admission, she was not very familiar with science or ScienceBlogs when she wrote her piece. It appears as if she heard about the Pepsico fiasco, snorted with contempt at bloggers leaving the site over issues which she deemed to be below the concerns of "legacy media" types (which, as Paul Raeburn has aptly noted, is a blinkered view of modern journalism), and went ahead with summarizing the site from a few cherry-picked examples. Her unfamiliarity is given away by her choice of the climate-denialist cesspool Watts Up With That? as a beacon of science-blogging excellence. Explaining why she picked it, Heffernan said:
I linked to it because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before. I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism.
So this is responsible journalism worthy of the New York Times Magazine, is it? Trolling around the web for a science blog with fancy-sounding jargon and a few pretty pictures? As others have already pointed out, WUWT? is hardly a "credible" site which "steer[s] clear of polarizing hatefests", and I am baffled as to how Heffernan could not have ever heard about climate change denialism before.
Ouch. There's more, including a nice reframing of the relationship between science bloggers and the mainstream press:
[Heffernan's] unfamiliarity with her subject caused her to entirely miss the productive cross-pollination between science bloggers and traditional (but evolving) media outlets. As many have said, what we are seeing is not collapse, but the redistribution of energy flow within the science blogging ecosystem, and (at least at the moment) it appears that multiple, smaller communities are springing up where there was once one giant collective surrounded by peripheral aggregations and individuals. If anything, I think this transformation was a long-time coming, and as stressful as the controversy over ScienceBlogs has been for me personally, I welcome the change.
It ends with Switek noting he's "quite hopeful for the future of science blogs." Well worth a read for anyone interested in this mess.
posted by mediareport at 5:11 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
By Heffernan's own admission, she was not very familiar with science or ScienceBlogs when she wrote her piece. It appears as if she heard about the Pepsico fiasco, snorted with contempt at bloggers leaving the site over issues which she deemed to be below the concerns of "legacy media" types (which, as Paul Raeburn has aptly noted, is a blinkered view of modern journalism), and went ahead with summarizing the site from a few cherry-picked examples. Her unfamiliarity is given away by her choice of the climate-denialist cesspool Watts Up With That? as a beacon of science-blogging excellence. Explaining why she picked it, Heffernan said:
I linked to it because has a lively voice; it’s detail-oriented and seemingly not snide; and, above all, it has some beautiful images I’d never seen before. I’m a stranger to the debates on science blogs, so I frankly didn’t recognize the weatherspeak on the blog as “denialist”; I didn’t even know about denialism.
So this is responsible journalism worthy of the New York Times Magazine, is it? Trolling around the web for a science blog with fancy-sounding jargon and a few pretty pictures? As others have already pointed out, WUWT? is hardly a "credible" site which "steer[s] clear of polarizing hatefests", and I am baffled as to how Heffernan could not have ever heard about climate change denialism before.
Ouch. There's more, including a nice reframing of the relationship between science bloggers and the mainstream press:
[Heffernan's] unfamiliarity with her subject caused her to entirely miss the productive cross-pollination between science bloggers and traditional (but evolving) media outlets. As many have said, what we are seeing is not collapse, but the redistribution of energy flow within the science blogging ecosystem, and (at least at the moment) it appears that multiple, smaller communities are springing up where there was once one giant collective surrounded by peripheral aggregations and individuals. If anything, I think this transformation was a long-time coming, and as stressful as the controversy over ScienceBlogs has been for me personally, I welcome the change.
It ends with Switek noting he's "quite hopeful for the future of science blogs." Well worth a read for anyone interested in this mess.
posted by mediareport at 5:11 PM on August 2, 2010 [4 favorites]
Surely the course for a community of scientists and sceptics
You're missing one of the main points: it wasn't a community. A handful of SEED folks at the top made the decision without asking anyone else in the "community" what they thought about it, then started the blog without giving any of their fellow "community" members a heads up before it went live.
It's no surprise the Scientopia mission statement/code/whatever goes on a bit about respect.
posted by mediareport at 5:14 PM on August 2, 2010
You're missing one of the main points: it wasn't a community. A handful of SEED folks at the top made the decision without asking anyone else in the "community" what they thought about it, then started the blog without giving any of their fellow "community" members a heads up before it went live.
It's no surprise the Scientopia mission statement/code/whatever goes on a bit about respect.
posted by mediareport at 5:14 PM on August 2, 2010
Don't miss the new Heffernan-inspired bumper sticker, either. :)
posted by mediareport at 5:19 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by mediareport at 5:19 PM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]
> The simple insistence that the blog will be terrible and misleading because it's written by Pepsi just seems like a huge ad hominem
Are you serious? What a bizarre attitude. I suppose if the head of Pepsi ran for president, you'd say we should give him a chance and wait to see if he made a good president before objecting.
posted by languagehat at 5:24 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Are you serious? What a bizarre attitude. I suppose if the head of Pepsi ran for president, you'd say we should give him a chance and wait to see if he made a good president before objecting.
posted by languagehat at 5:24 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
I suppose if the head of Pepsi ran for president, you'd say we should give him a chance and wait to see if he made a good president before objecting.
Is your position really that we can only consider an argument on its own merits if we would also support the maker of that argument in a presidential bid? You might be saying something else, but since you have not convinced me that you are qualified to be president, I cannot consider your argument any further.
posted by Pyry at 6:49 PM on August 2, 2010
Is your position really that we can only consider an argument on its own merits if we would also support the maker of that argument in a presidential bid? You might be saying something else, but since you have not convinced me that you are qualified to be president, I cannot consider your argument any further.
posted by Pyry at 6:49 PM on August 2, 2010
If Pepsi sponsored a blog on some other area of science as a PR move, I could maybe see waiting before jumping ship. A nutrition blog? They make Cheetos. And Pepsi.
That NYT article really depresses me. It's like they're trying to prove that newspapers aren't worth saving.
posted by snofoam at 7:14 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
That NYT article really depresses me. It's like they're trying to prove that newspapers aren't worth saving.
posted by snofoam at 7:14 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
A nutrition blog? They make Cheetos. And Pepsi.
Exactly.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:16 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Exactly.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:16 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]
Is your position really that we can only consider an argument on its own merits if we would also support the maker of that argument in a presidential bid?
Not in my reading. The claim I saw is that someone who was simultaneously the CEO of Pepsico and president of the United States would necessarily have a conflict of interest. See also 'What's good for General Motors is good for the country'.
posted by amery at 7:23 PM on August 2, 2010
Not in my reading. The claim I saw is that someone who was simultaneously the CEO of Pepsico and president of the United States would necessarily have a conflict of interest. See also 'What's good for General Motors is good for the country'.
posted by amery at 7:23 PM on August 2, 2010
Yes, I got that. My point was that writing a blog and being president of the United States are vastly different, and to apply the same standard for conflicts of interest to both is a tad hyperbolic.
posted by Pyry at 8:10 PM on August 2, 2010
posted by Pyry at 8:10 PM on August 2, 2010
If Pepsi sponsored a blog on some other area of science as a PR move, I could maybe see waiting before jumping ship. A nutrition blog? They make Cheetos. And Pepsi.
I think PepsiCo's got something to say about nutrition. And possibly something interesting. Yes, they do own Frito-Lay, and yes they do make various sugary drinks. To me, this is like saying that an oil major can't say anything interesting about solar power or wind power.*
Some years back, the then head of PepsiCo, Steve Reinemund made an interesting announcement to senior management of the company: 50% of all product development had to go on healthy products. His call was met with some consternation in the company, but that was in 2004 or 2005, I think. Since then, the company is actively moving away from fatty and sugary products. It has to: it's what its customers are demanding.
But it's fair to say it's going to be a long transition: people who like eating potato chips or drinking cola aren't just going to stop if PepsiCo pulled its products. But PepsiCo does have a massive R&D budget and, compared to general investment in nutrition PepsiCo's R&D spend is large. A similar case could be made for Nestlé, which also has its detractors. Nestlé unequivocally does spend huge sums on nutrition R&D, and has a clinical nutrition arm. It certainly has some interesting things to say on nutritional developments.
Disclaimer: PepsiCo and Nestlé are clients of mine; I do not work in any PR or corporate comms related field.
*I'm aware of the irony in the wake of the BP scandal, and other nefarious practices in places like the Niger Delta. Nonetheless, the facts remain - these companies are putting R&D resources into more ethical products as a commercial imperative. If you're interested in scientific developments, whether they are doing so because they are ethical or realist is arguably immaterial.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:36 AM on August 3, 2010
I think PepsiCo's got something to say about nutrition. And possibly something interesting. Yes, they do own Frito-Lay, and yes they do make various sugary drinks. To me, this is like saying that an oil major can't say anything interesting about solar power or wind power.*
Some years back, the then head of PepsiCo, Steve Reinemund made an interesting announcement to senior management of the company: 50% of all product development had to go on healthy products. His call was met with some consternation in the company, but that was in 2004 or 2005, I think. Since then, the company is actively moving away from fatty and sugary products. It has to: it's what its customers are demanding.
But it's fair to say it's going to be a long transition: people who like eating potato chips or drinking cola aren't just going to stop if PepsiCo pulled its products. But PepsiCo does have a massive R&D budget and, compared to general investment in nutrition PepsiCo's R&D spend is large. A similar case could be made for Nestlé, which also has its detractors. Nestlé unequivocally does spend huge sums on nutrition R&D, and has a clinical nutrition arm. It certainly has some interesting things to say on nutritional developments.
Disclaimer: PepsiCo and Nestlé are clients of mine; I do not work in any PR or corporate comms related field.
*I'm aware of the irony in the wake of the BP scandal, and other nefarious practices in places like the Niger Delta. Nonetheless, the facts remain - these companies are putting R&D resources into more ethical products as a commercial imperative. If you're interested in scientific developments, whether they are doing so because they are ethical or realist is arguably immaterial.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:36 AM on August 3, 2010
Surely the course for a community of scientists and sceptics to take is to watch the blog with interest, then attack its content if they deem it to be sub-par. The simple insistence that the blog will be terrible and misleading because it's written by Pepsi just seems like a huge ad hominem, which these sorts of bloggers are supposed to be against.
I'm afraid that this reflects a very naive view of the relationship between scientists and the public. Ultimately we have to take most scientific statements on trust, and that trust is based on a track record of honesty and integrity. Now you might wish to fantasize about a world where all scientific statements are rigorously tested by every reader, but that simply won't work because we don't have the time or subject matter expertise.
I have a physics degree and a master's degree in cosmology, which makes me better qualified to read and interpret scientific news than the vast majority of the population. Guess what? When I read about climate science or about nutrition, I am 100% at the mercy of the writers.
If I wanted to be able to understand and criticize a statement made by a scientist outside of a narrow subfield, it would take me several months of reading the relevant literature, textbooks, developing some simple models of my own, and so on to be able to realistically do that. How is someone who doesn't already have years of scientific training supposed to do it?
The only way it works is trust, and trust networks. If I see a fact about the nutritional value of Coca-Cola that seems dubious to me, the fact that P.Z. Myers, an actual scientist at an actual university has his blog on the same website would encourage me to take it more seriously. Even though he is not an expert on nutrition.
That is what made some bloggers so angry, they saw this as a hijacking of their reputation.
posted by atrazine at 2:26 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
I'm afraid that this reflects a very naive view of the relationship between scientists and the public. Ultimately we have to take most scientific statements on trust, and that trust is based on a track record of honesty and integrity. Now you might wish to fantasize about a world where all scientific statements are rigorously tested by every reader, but that simply won't work because we don't have the time or subject matter expertise.
I have a physics degree and a master's degree in cosmology, which makes me better qualified to read and interpret scientific news than the vast majority of the population. Guess what? When I read about climate science or about nutrition, I am 100% at the mercy of the writers.
If I wanted to be able to understand and criticize a statement made by a scientist outside of a narrow subfield, it would take me several months of reading the relevant literature, textbooks, developing some simple models of my own, and so on to be able to realistically do that. How is someone who doesn't already have years of scientific training supposed to do it?
The only way it works is trust, and trust networks. If I see a fact about the nutritional value of Coca-Cola that seems dubious to me, the fact that P.Z. Myers, an actual scientist at an actual university has his blog on the same website would encourage me to take it more seriously. Even though he is not an expert on nutrition.
That is what made some bloggers so angry, they saw this as a hijacking of their reputation.
posted by atrazine at 2:26 AM on August 3, 2010 [3 favorites]
> Is your position really that we can only consider an argument on its own merits if we would also support the maker of that argument in a presidential bid?
No, my position is that it's either disingenuous or stupid to claim that we should treat Pepsi as we would any research organization. This is not a court of law, and "innocent until proved guilty" does not apply. I appreciate MuffinMan's disclaimer, which certainly sheds light on his approach, and I wonder if metaBugs should be making a similar one.
posted by languagehat at 7:09 AM on August 3, 2010
No, my position is that it's either disingenuous or stupid to claim that we should treat Pepsi as we would any research organization. This is not a court of law, and "innocent until proved guilty" does not apply. I appreciate MuffinMan's disclaimer, which certainly sheds light on his approach, and I wonder if metaBugs should be making a similar one.
posted by languagehat at 7:09 AM on August 3, 2010
The "ad hominem" charge is off-base.
The ad hominem fallacy is when you take a specific argument that might have merit on its face, and you refute it by saying "Look who said it." That's a bad thing, because rather than take the trouble to think rationally about what's being said, you're focusing on a superficial, non-substantive fact about how it was said.
Complaining about Pepsi writing a nutrition blog is not making the ad hominem fallacy. In fact, it's not a fallacy at all.
A nutrition blog is not the same thing as a specific argument that we can choose to judge on its face. Very few readers of a general-audience nutrition blog are going to have the expertise necessary to judge most of the claims being made. (In fact, nutrition itself contains so much uncertainty that I don't know if anyone, even a professional nutritionist or dietician, is an ideal judge of such claims.) If you're a layperson who has a nutrition blog bookmarked, the fact is you're probably going to see it as an authority on nutrition.
It's quite sensible not to want Pepsi to take on the role of that kind of authority, given its severe conflict of interest as a peddler of un-nutritious products. Since this is sensible, it's not a fallacy. In particular, it's not wrong in the way that the ad hominem fallacy is wrong: refusing to read a Pepsi-written nutrition blog might be the most rational reaction.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:40 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
The ad hominem fallacy is when you take a specific argument that might have merit on its face, and you refute it by saying "Look who said it." That's a bad thing, because rather than take the trouble to think rationally about what's being said, you're focusing on a superficial, non-substantive fact about how it was said.
Complaining about Pepsi writing a nutrition blog is not making the ad hominem fallacy. In fact, it's not a fallacy at all.
A nutrition blog is not the same thing as a specific argument that we can choose to judge on its face. Very few readers of a general-audience nutrition blog are going to have the expertise necessary to judge most of the claims being made. (In fact, nutrition itself contains so much uncertainty that I don't know if anyone, even a professional nutritionist or dietician, is an ideal judge of such claims.) If you're a layperson who has a nutrition blog bookmarked, the fact is you're probably going to see it as an authority on nutrition.
It's quite sensible not to want Pepsi to take on the role of that kind of authority, given its severe conflict of interest as a peddler of un-nutritious products. Since this is sensible, it's not a fallacy. In particular, it's not wrong in the way that the ad hominem fallacy is wrong: refusing to read a Pepsi-written nutrition blog might be the most rational reaction.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:40 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
atrazine - You make a good point about trust networks. I suppose it comes down to how much the site structure makes it appear that the bloggers approve of each other, or to what extent they've had to earn their place on the site. While I'm not familiar with that site, I'd be willing to bet that bloggers there ignore, disagree or argue with each other pretty frequently. Seeing an endorsement by or link from a respected blogger to the pepsi blog might make me more inclined to trust it, but the fact that it's simply one of "upwards of 120" blogs on that domain wouldn't mean anything to me, especially as it's a corporate-sponsored site. However, perhaps you're right that I'm expecting more scepticism from the readers than is warranted.
languagehat - I suppose if the head of Pepsi ran for president, you'd say we should give him a chance and wait to see if he made a good president before objecting.
Nope. I see your point, but blogging is a much lower-stakes game. My -- perhaps pitifully optimistic -- feeling is that a PepsiCo-branded blog won't suddenly be treated with much more credence simply because they're hosted on the same domain as a bunch of well-known science bloggers. Installing a PepsiCo cheif as president is giving them a lot more power and isn't easily reversed; letting them blog on that domain gives them access to a (relatively) small, sceptical audience who're probably also reading the exact science and sceptic blogs that are best placed to debunk them.
PepsiCo is undoubtedly one of the world's biggest knowledge bases on nutrition, food science (chemistry, health and psychology of food), manufacturing processes, etc. I am explicitly not saying that they use any of this knowledge to act as a force for good, but they must be an active centre of research simply to survive in the world of mass food development, production, advertising and sales. Modern food design and production are complex and tremendously important subjects, and a blog from them could be a fascinating window into this world. Of course it might instead be nothing more than a stream of shoddy, biased research to further their PR goals. I'm just saying that it's better to wait and see how they behave -- debunking and protesting as necessary -- than to assume that nothing they produce could possibly have any positive value.
No, my position is that it's either disingenuous or stupid to claim that we should treat Pepsi as we would any research organization.
I'm not suggesting that we treat them as any other research organisation (although I do expect research organisations to make their commercial interests public, just as PepsiCo's are). I'm suggesting that we see whether they have anything interesting to contribute, rather than immediately assume bad faith on their part.
I appreciate MuffinMan's disclaimer, which certainly sheds light on his approach...
MuffinMan clearly states that PepsiCo are clients of his, but that he doesn't work for them in any PR capacity; he has nothing to gain by anonymously defending them on the internet. Even if he had, the fact that he has a financial relationship does not automatically mean that he no longer has anything to say on the subject. It should certainly be treated with scepticism and examined for bias, but soundly-argued points don't cease to be worth considering just because you don't like the source.
...and I wonder if metaBugs should be making a similar one.
Nope. I work for an academic research institute and my funding comes from a mixture of charities and the government. While it's possible that PepsiCo has some sort of relationship with someone in the wider university, my institute doesn't work on anything that I can imagine PepsiCo having an interest in and there's no relationship -- or potential for one -- that I'm aware of.
posted by metaBugs at 8:42 AM on August 3, 2010
languagehat - I suppose if the head of Pepsi ran for president, you'd say we should give him a chance and wait to see if he made a good president before objecting.
Nope. I see your point, but blogging is a much lower-stakes game. My -- perhaps pitifully optimistic -- feeling is that a PepsiCo-branded blog won't suddenly be treated with much more credence simply because they're hosted on the same domain as a bunch of well-known science bloggers. Installing a PepsiCo cheif as president is giving them a lot more power and isn't easily reversed; letting them blog on that domain gives them access to a (relatively) small, sceptical audience who're probably also reading the exact science and sceptic blogs that are best placed to debunk them.
PepsiCo is undoubtedly one of the world's biggest knowledge bases on nutrition, food science (chemistry, health and psychology of food), manufacturing processes, etc. I am explicitly not saying that they use any of this knowledge to act as a force for good, but they must be an active centre of research simply to survive in the world of mass food development, production, advertising and sales. Modern food design and production are complex and tremendously important subjects, and a blog from them could be a fascinating window into this world. Of course it might instead be nothing more than a stream of shoddy, biased research to further their PR goals. I'm just saying that it's better to wait and see how they behave -- debunking and protesting as necessary -- than to assume that nothing they produce could possibly have any positive value.
No, my position is that it's either disingenuous or stupid to claim that we should treat Pepsi as we would any research organization.
I'm not suggesting that we treat them as any other research organisation (although I do expect research organisations to make their commercial interests public, just as PepsiCo's are). I'm suggesting that we see whether they have anything interesting to contribute, rather than immediately assume bad faith on their part.
I appreciate MuffinMan's disclaimer, which certainly sheds light on his approach...
MuffinMan clearly states that PepsiCo are clients of his, but that he doesn't work for them in any PR capacity; he has nothing to gain by anonymously defending them on the internet. Even if he had, the fact that he has a financial relationship does not automatically mean that he no longer has anything to say on the subject. It should certainly be treated with scepticism and examined for bias, but soundly-argued points don't cease to be worth considering just because you don't like the source.
...and I wonder if metaBugs should be making a similar one.
Nope. I work for an academic research institute and my funding comes from a mixture of charities and the government. While it's possible that PepsiCo has some sort of relationship with someone in the wider university, my institute doesn't work on anything that I can imagine PepsiCo having an interest in and there's no relationship -- or potential for one -- that I'm aware of.
posted by metaBugs at 8:42 AM on August 3, 2010
Scientopia was created by Mark Chu-Carroll, the author of (the only Sb I ever read) Good Math, Bad Math.
More here and here.
posted by Eideteker at 8:48 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
More here and here.
posted by Eideteker at 8:48 AM on August 3, 2010 [1 favorite]
I appreciate MuffinMan's disclaimer, which certainly sheds light on his approach
And it's probably worth clarifying where I come from: I interact intermittently with R&D teams in various organizations. They too, are scientists. In my view this isn't as simple as white hat or black hat scientists.
If you take an example in the food industry, there's a whole bunch of new legislation coming into Europe, regulated by a body called EFSA. In short it means that for companies to claim that some new whizz bang product prevents disease x they're going to need some proper clinical data. That data is hugely expensive to come by, but it's also interesting to the scientific community. It also means that bigger companies like PepsiCo are going to be held to account by real scientists with no vested interest in what PepsiCo thinks.
It also means that in time there may well be a bunch of interesting nutritional developments that come straight from the food industry. Already, most of the multinationals are already engaging in open innovation - i.e. colloborating with disparate scientists from various fields - to get a leg up. Leaving aside blogging, they clearly want much more interaction with the scientific community, albeit for overtly commercial reasons.
Or another example is recycling: PepsiCo, like Coca-Cola have massive vested interests in making their plastics more environmentally friendly, or using less plastic, or finding plastic alternatives. Without question, they're either doing or funding some of the leading edge research in this area. They pitch it as an ethical challenge - and like every other company waxes lyrical about social responsibility at the heart of their business - but from a scientific perspective it doesn't really matter. If you're interested in lightweighting plastics they have some interesting things to say.
Now, I don't know if PepsiCo planned to use its blog to advertise. Maybe. But the charge that because they make some nutritionally poor products, or because they have strong commercial interests in certain directions automatically disqualifies them from blogging on science blog network strikes me as premature.
On one of the links in the OP some commenters say something similar. And if anything, one of the bloggers who has quit seems to be indicating that he did so because he wasn't consulted, which is subtly different. And understandable - if you help build a community you want a say in what happens to it.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2010
And it's probably worth clarifying where I come from: I interact intermittently with R&D teams in various organizations. They too, are scientists. In my view this isn't as simple as white hat or black hat scientists.
If you take an example in the food industry, there's a whole bunch of new legislation coming into Europe, regulated by a body called EFSA. In short it means that for companies to claim that some new whizz bang product prevents disease x they're going to need some proper clinical data. That data is hugely expensive to come by, but it's also interesting to the scientific community. It also means that bigger companies like PepsiCo are going to be held to account by real scientists with no vested interest in what PepsiCo thinks.
It also means that in time there may well be a bunch of interesting nutritional developments that come straight from the food industry. Already, most of the multinationals are already engaging in open innovation - i.e. colloborating with disparate scientists from various fields - to get a leg up. Leaving aside blogging, they clearly want much more interaction with the scientific community, albeit for overtly commercial reasons.
Or another example is recycling: PepsiCo, like Coca-Cola have massive vested interests in making their plastics more environmentally friendly, or using less plastic, or finding plastic alternatives. Without question, they're either doing or funding some of the leading edge research in this area. They pitch it as an ethical challenge - and like every other company waxes lyrical about social responsibility at the heart of their business - but from a scientific perspective it doesn't really matter. If you're interested in lightweighting plastics they have some interesting things to say.
Now, I don't know if PepsiCo planned to use its blog to advertise. Maybe. But the charge that because they make some nutritionally poor products, or because they have strong commercial interests in certain directions automatically disqualifies them from blogging on science blog network strikes me as premature.
On one of the links in the OP some commenters say something similar. And if anything, one of the bloggers who has quit seems to be indicating that he did so because he wasn't consulted, which is subtly different. And understandable - if you help build a community you want a say in what happens to it.
posted by MuffinMan at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2010
A nutrition blog? They make Cheetos. And Pepsi.
Exactly.
PepsiCo also makes Quaker Oats and Tropicana.
posted by iviken at 10:36 AM on August 3, 2010
Exactly.
PepsiCo also makes Quaker Oats and Tropicana.
posted by iviken at 10:36 AM on August 3, 2010
> Even if he had, the fact that he has a financial relationship does not automatically mean that he no longer has anything to say on the subject.
No, of course not, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to what he has to say. But there's a reason people are supposed to disclose financial relationships, and I'm glad he did. Context is useful.
> It also means that in time there may well be a bunch of interesting nutritional developments that come straight from the food industry.
That's fine. Let people from outside the food industry discuss and evaluate them. I don't trust anything said by anyone who takes paychecks from the food industry.
posted by languagehat at 12:53 PM on August 3, 2010
No, of course not, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to what he has to say. But there's a reason people are supposed to disclose financial relationships, and I'm glad he did. Context is useful.
> It also means that in time there may well be a bunch of interesting nutritional developments that come straight from the food industry.
That's fine. Let people from outside the food industry discuss and evaluate them. I don't trust anything said by anyone who takes paychecks from the food industry.
posted by languagehat at 12:53 PM on August 3, 2010
That's fine. Let people from outside the food industry discuss and evaluate them. I don't trust anything said by anyone who takes paychecks from the food industry.
Isn't that partly the point of them wanting to blog at Scienceblogs?
posted by MuffinMan at 1:05 PM on August 3, 2010
Isn't that partly the point of them wanting to blog at Scienceblogs?
posted by MuffinMan at 1:05 PM on August 3, 2010
Surely the course for a community of scientists and sceptics to take is to watch the blog with interest, then attack its content if they deem it to be sub-par.
They did that, too. Pepsi's blog already existed, and they were buying space to *also* host it on Scienceblogs. So it was easy to skip on over to its other site and see...that all the existing posts on that very same blog were pretty much made by a marketing team.
Another of the major objections that the science bloggers had was that there was *no* notice on Pepsi's blog or individual posts that it was a paid advertisement (it was), and further that the posts on that blog were going out in the Scienceblogs feed (ie, to search engines) as if they were normal blog posts. Instant devaluation of Scienceblogs: letting paid advertisements go out on their feed as if they were genuine posts.
I saw "I haven't gotten paid in months" in a couple of places as people were itemizing their discontents with SEED. It sounds like SEED has been screwing up/screwing over for a while now, and this was just the final straw for a number of posters.
posted by galadriel at 9:24 PM on August 3, 2010
They did that, too. Pepsi's blog already existed, and they were buying space to *also* host it on Scienceblogs. So it was easy to skip on over to its other site and see...that all the existing posts on that very same blog were pretty much made by a marketing team.
Another of the major objections that the science bloggers had was that there was *no* notice on Pepsi's blog or individual posts that it was a paid advertisement (it was), and further that the posts on that blog were going out in the Scienceblogs feed (ie, to search engines) as if they were normal blog posts. Instant devaluation of Scienceblogs: letting paid advertisements go out on their feed as if they were genuine posts.
I saw "I haven't gotten paid in months" in a couple of places as people were itemizing their discontents with SEED. It sounds like SEED has been screwing up/screwing over for a while now, and this was just the final straw for a number of posters.
posted by galadriel at 9:24 PM on August 3, 2010
A nutrition blog? They make Cheetos. And Pepsi.
Exactly.
PepsiCo also makes Quaker Oats and Tropicana.
How healthy is Tropicana? How healthy are the flavored Quaker Oats that take up more space in my supermarket than the nonflavored kind? How healthy are Quaker Chewy Dipps Granola Bars?
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:31 PM on August 3, 2010
Exactly.
PepsiCo also makes Quaker Oats and Tropicana.
How healthy is Tropicana? How healthy are the flavored Quaker Oats that take up more space in my supermarket than the nonflavored kind? How healthy are Quaker Chewy Dipps Granola Bars?
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:31 PM on August 3, 2010
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