*third if you count anti-scientific websites like WattsUpWithThat, as Wikio does.
I had not heard of these Wikio rankings, but I periodically check WattsUpWithThat for the latest in denier talking points — yes, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, and it shouldn’t have to be you! What do I see but yet another website recognizing WattsUp as a science blog, when it is the exact opposite, as evidenced by his reprinting and endorsing a broad-based attack on the integrity of the entire scientific community and by his generally pushing disinformation [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)" and links below].
Still, notwithstanding Wikio’s refusal to draw a distinction between science and antiscience, the ranking is a relatively objective, as described here:
The position of a blog in the Wikio ranking depends on the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs. These links are dynamic, which means that they are backlinks or links found within articles.
Only links found in the RSS feed are included. Blogrolls are not taken into account, and the weight of any given link increases according to how recently it was published. We thus hope to provide a classification that is more representative of the current influence levels of the blogs therein.
Moreover, the weight of a link depends on the linking blog’s position in the Wikio ranking. With our algorithm, the weight of a link from a blog that is more highly ranked is greater than that of a link from a blog that is less well ranked.
Our rankings are updated on a monthly basis and also include Top Blogs for several categories: Technology, Politics, etc. New categories will be added on a regular basis.
The rankings seem a tad strange. Not sure how I do so much better than Grist, since I’m sure they get two or three times as many readers each day. RealClimate would do a LOT better if they posted MORE — hint, hint, RC folks!
Anyway, I am interested in your thoughts as to whether this is worth sticking on CP’s front page near the top. One thing is certain — it doesn’t take up much space.
Related Posts:
- Exclusive: Watts offers ‘inanity defense’ for his effort to censor Sinclair’s video, saying he was “doing him a favor.”
- YouTube, Sinclair prove Anthony Watts knows as much about copyright laws as about climate science
- Dust Bowl-ification hits Eastern Australia “” next stop the U.S. Southwest. Anti-scientific WattsUpWithThat says it has “nothing to do with the dreaded Climate Change” and “has an unappreciated benefit”!
- Unscientific America, Part 1: From the moon-landing deniers to WattsUpWithThat
- Must-read NOAA paper smacks down the deniers: Q: “Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?” A: “None at all.”
- Like father, like son: Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn’t understand the science of global warming “” or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it.
- George Will and WattsUpWithThat embrace a proud former shill for a man convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges
- Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the “death spiral” of Arctic ice, brushes off the “breathtaking ignorance” of blogs like WattsUpWithThat
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
You were quoted on Olbermann last night. He declared George Will Bronze winner of “worst person in the world” for his 7th column denying global warming. Keith loves the baseball analogy.
[JR: Climate Progress was quoted? You have a link or remember where it was in the show?]
A ranking for a science blog should be based or at least weighted on it’s scientific content. Any enterprising blogger can abuse the logarithim which basically makes the ranking invalid in my eyes (and I would think most people as well). Therefore, I vote no on including this ranking becuase it would give the ranking more validity than it deserves.
On different but related note, the ranking on the WUWT site is a joke as you know. It would be the same as the “Colbert Nation” going en masse to vote his show as the best science show. As Colbert has repeatedly demonstrated, you can get your name on anything if you convince enough folks to vote for you, including a satellite.
I notice that Steve McIntyre’s ClimateAudit, another anti-science website, is ranked #10.
That’s all the encouragement I need to point out the latest in the hockey stick wars.
Apparently updated Yamal reconstructions, using more live-core data, were made available by Rashit Hamerintov last summer. The information comes in an email to an anonymous third party that was released by Steve McIntyre today.The Yamal hockey stick is alive and well. And McIntyre’s accusations of cherrypicking, echoed by a host ofcontrarians, are shown to be utterly specious.
Let the backpedalling begin.
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/07/let-the-backpedalling-begin/
Hi Joe-
Having spent time on Watts Up With That, just because I think such propaganda/ psuedoscience should not go unopposed, it is really hard to understand why anyone would lump it in with science blogs.
I’m convinced that there are paid “ringers” on the site, for example, who mob and shut down dissenting opinions, to the extent that they are able, with standard climate denier talking points. Certainly, any mention, however oblique, of paid deniers tends to bring a strong, and somewhat guilty response, in my opinion, and a justification that global warming “alarmists” are profiting too, which is generally not true.
I’ve also seen such tactics as snipping all the criticism of the site from posts, while keeping anything that sounds remotely like praise. I’ve had attacks from name calling critics occur, in which the attack was ignored, but the polite defense snipped, too. Critics of the WUWT stories also go on automatic delay, so that responding to criticism or making debating points becomes difficult, with replies appearing hours after the discussion moves on, far up the page.
So, spending time there is a kind of lose/lose game, sad to say. It takes up time that could more productively be used elsewhere, but if some of us don’t spend time there, the psuedoscience and cherry-picked stories go unopposed.
Keep up the good work, with Climate Progress. :)
Joe,
I have a question but not on the anti-science plank but the pro-hydrogen vehicle. A certain gentleman rebutted my claim on another blogsite that hydrogen fuel’s real cost, per Dan Neil auto correspondent at the LA Times, is $50.00/kg. This person claims that hydrogen consumed on site (?) presumable where it is produced costs 71¢, he claims, according to the DOE and that delivered hydrogen to the fuel tank of a car costs $2.20/kg to $3.10/kg. That doesn’t sound right to me so how did he reach his conclusions?
[JR: Lots of studies are done as to how cheap things might be if you skip the "then a miracle occurs" phase and go straight to a completely built out, several hundred billion dollar infrastructure and millions of cars on the road. For a long, long time before that, hydrogen fuel will be incredibly expensive because the system utilization will be low. You can make on site hydrogen with natural gas in quantity at a moderate price, but that is a complete and utter waste of money. It doesn't make any sense to build out an infrastructure for any alternative fuel that isn't zero-carbon. Renewable hydrogen is incredibly expensive now and would be for a long time under any plausible scenario for hydrogen car introduction.]
I wouldn’t post this award notice — not as long as it calls itself a ranking of science blogs. I notice Tierneylab is #8 (and of course WUWT and ClimateAudit have been mentioned.) These invalidate the claim that Wikio is looking at science blogs.
Also, they include Dispatches from the Culture Wars. It’s a great blog, but it seldom covers science; it’s mostly about politics.
> You were quoted on Olbermann last night.
It was Brad Johnson on Think Progress who was quoted.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/02/will-seven-strikes/
How do they decide what is a “science” blog? Because a blogger claims to be discussing science? Why not include FlatEarthSociety.org on that list? Just because legions of deniers think a blog is about science doesn’t mean it is.
“RealClimate would do a LOT better if they posted MORE ”
That’s very true, although I’m not sure that would improve the quality of their blog. They focus mainly on science issues, and not on the day-to-day happenings. Their posts are usually long, detailed, and of very high quality. So someone might spend a half hour reading a single post each week without providing more than 1 or 2 clicks to the website. While a somewhat higher post rate, perhaps involving more frequent contributions by other contributors of the blog (scientists tend to be pretty busy) would do them good, having a few posts a day would be overkill, and take away from the good discussion of the existing quality posts.
Many readers of WattsUp are obsessive individuals looking for the latest talking points that can re-inforce their denialist tendencies, which are provided for them faithfully. Popularity of a site doesn’t imply quality.
Also, nice work DeepClimate. Your post alone appears to exceed all WattsUp posts ever written in quality. Someone inform Revkin of this. When I questioned him why he’s even reporting on the attention-seekers at all, he replied that he feels it’s substantive because scientists (Briffa, RC, Crowley) responded to it. Wow. I guess they shouldn’t have taken the bait and let the lies and slander go unchecked. I guarantee that without the assertions or insinuations of fraud, “hiding” data or what not – something needed to hype up an issue of little to no scientific implications, Revkin wouldn’t have covered it. It only goes to show you that lack of scientific rigor or relevance exhibited by “skeptics” can easily be made up for with shrill rhetoric and constant repetition. There are plenty of journalists to help in the process, intentionally or not.
As soon as I wrote my last comment I found that Revkin today included DeepClimate’s update. Fair enough, although most readers have moved on from the thread. The denialist propaganda served its purpose.
Joe Romm — It looks to be as a non-scietific popularity ranking. I recommend, then, ignoring it.
Besides, it doesn’t look so good to advertise “we’re only number 3″. :-)
#1: I erred, Olbermann quoted Think Progress on Monday night. He did a roast of George Will’s latest, and 7 columns dissing global warming. Will depends on right wing blog info and doesn’t know how to contact any of the real climate warming scientists who live nearby.
I don’t think that this ranking is of particular value. It seems to me to rate popularity high (via the number of links to a blog). Popularity is not necessarily equivalent to quality.
By analogy, consider your local papers ‘Best of” feature. This feature often operates by inviting people to vote on what local business is the ‘best’. I think this ends up being a self-fulfilling list of popular venues.
There are other recognition systems, also fraught with problems, such as ‘webby awards’. (If I remember that name correctly.
So, I think other accolades are better measures of quality.
Enough said, I don’t think I value the wiki list. I will study it a bit, however, to be sure.
My question is, why spend time trying to convince deniers that GW is real and time–critical?
It is a waste of time and energy, and besides giving momentary personal satisfaction, achieves nothing.
Scientific studies shows that people basically remain in their own comfort zones and do not change. In the case of GW it is quite understandable since the danger to our globe is high and it is easier to deny this very harsh reality. Most are not “bad” people, they are either fearful or unable to grasp the danger.
Even if they respond positively to your “education,” most drift back to their past position.
This was also proven in extensive field work on liberal issues. I spent nine years developing national grassroots pressure on Congress to reduce nuclear weapons. My staff and I spent thousands of hours talking to all kind of people. Only people who already were liberals and leaning at our direction, listened.
They listened but did not act, since most of the time knowledge does not lead to action.
The essential problem we are facing nationally is that despite the fact that millions of liberal people, including true blue environmentalists, are grasping that GW is dangerous to the global climate, they are doing nothing effective to impact the situation. They may feel good by reducing their energy use, they may talk/read a lot about the subject, they may be members of liberal/environmental organizations, but that has an insignificant impact on GW!
These good people do not create any noticeable pressure on their members of Congress, and only Congress can make a national difference. Everything else is self-pleasing window dressing. The occasional preformatted emails some send are useless too.
So, I suggest that the time we spent should be directed to move people already with us to create pressure on their three Congress members.
To do it effectively is not simple, nor easy, but without effective grassroots pressure what Congress does on GW will be marginal at best.
I personally would not consider you a science blog, but more a policy blog.
Actually, the power of the blogsphere to foment change is often underestimated, IMO.
I think that Climate Progress has a significant impact.
Reporters, Congressional Staffers, and even maybe Congresspersons appear to read it, certainly you hear people at the Congressional hearings using phrases from the stories on Climate Progress.
Communication is important, information is important.
Nothing can bring a feedback system that is going out of control (like the climate appears to be doing) back into control except the feedback of true information into the system, and subsequent appropriate corrective action.
First comes diagnosis, then comes cure.
And the Obama Administration is taking action, which may be too little, perhaps too late, but better than nothing. China is taking what may be effective action, and a lot of the impetus for that may in fact come indirectly from the blogsphere, which is also accessible in China, I think. Some European countries have been ahead of us in alternative energy solutions for years, of course.
Telling the truth is progress, IMO.
#13
It’s not a question of convincing “deniers”. It’s a question of getting the popular press to get the science right and of exposing the machinations of the anti-science disinformation spinmeisters.
Otherwise popular support for action will erode and doubts will increase.
CP would be number one, if only Joe`s weak point, nuclear, be corrected, like Jim Hansen has done.
It might be a setup. You start using it and then wallah they drop you to 13th or something.
If it is reasonably reputable, this site looks OK (from a quick google), then you should link to it as it will increase your ratings overall and also bring in new readers.
No to the wikio widget. Use the space for something much more important, like a CO2 Now widget, and a countdown to Copenhagen ticker, etc:
http://co2now.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=29&Itemid=33
I never understand why TV news stations have stock tickers, but no environmental indicator tickers. Profit matters, but a liveable planet doesn’t? We need to fight back by getting these widgets into the mainstream…
Denialist – somebody who denies the presence of Medieval Warm Period and/or Little Ice Age despite latest scientific findings.
Did I get it right???
[JR: The "presence"? You mean, we're still in both of those?]