Talk:ScienceDaily/Archive 1

Archive 1

Boy does this article need work

It needs sections on:

1) Mission 2) Usage/readership statistics 3) More history detail 4) The founder(s) 5) Controversy (if any) 6) Drugs and alcohol

I personally love "Science Daily" but number 5) should be as important as any other section, in the spirit of Wikipedia.

Also, calling Science Daily a "source" as the article currently does, is woefully inadequate. This is like calling "Wired Magazine" or "Slate" a 'source'.

98.245.150.162 (talk) 21:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Kids, stay in school.

Criticism

As of this day, a use of the Science Daily search tool returns no hits for any of the following scientists who have published significant papers in reviewed journals calling into question the role of CO2 in climate change, supporting natural causes as being dominant: Dr. Henrik Svensmark, Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen, Dr. Nir Shaviv, Dr. Jan Veizer, all of whom have Wikipedia entries.

I cannot find any article which seriously questions the status quo represented by the summary reports of the IPCC. At least on the subject of anthropogenic global warming, Science Daily shows significant journalistic bias. I would like to see some mention in the Science_Daily page of what entity or entities are responsible for content at sciencedaily.com, and some treatment of the apparent bias on climate change reporting.

Ggoodknight (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Where is Science Daily based? 90.227.137.222 (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

In Rockville, MD. Zero Thrust (talk) 23:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not supposed to be a comprehensive Science Journal that misses nothing, it's for public consumption and highlights current discoveries and breakthroughs.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 04:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a pretty convenient way to be biased. "I'm not biased, I'm just not reporting on EVERYTHING there ever was..." 2crudedudes (talk) 02:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The site routinely publishes results and ideas that are just plain wrong, or at the very least are rejected by many experts in the field... as if they were fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:C6:4100:3EA0:C8BA:6987:A190:FF0E (talk) 16:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Objectivity at Science Daily: embracing the science of Conservatism vs conservatism

Issues regarding the Science Daily article include developing the topic of the website's objectivity and unslanted balance. This is clearly relevant to the unbiased reporting embraced by Wikipedia, some journalism and unpoliticized science at large. Respecting the innate ability of humanity's collective 'intelligence' (see note 1. below) to evolve beyond its own delusions through 'fair and balanced' (2.) reporting on scientific experiments conducted with proper objectivity and repeatability, Science Daily appears to have begun responding to criticism presented on this Talk page of not including the work of scientists holding unconventional viewpoints (for example the negatively trending notion (3.) that climate change is not due to anthropogenic -- or human-caused -- influences). Two obvious examples of this response appeared June 11 2014 (4.) and inspired this independent (5.) scientist (6.) to comment in support of Science Daily's unbiased objectivity through openly presenting work on such issues as how fast citizens should consume resources and how the internet is changing trends in corporate investment.

The article needs updating to reflect Science Daily's improving its objectivity so crucial to individual citizen’s decisions regarding our collective global resource conservatism (7.) through reductions in atmosphere-polluting fossil fuel extraction and consumption, re-use of materials toward minimizing aquifer-poisoning landfill inputs, and shifting investment away from limited fuels and resources (coal, oil, natural gas, forests mismanaged as monocultures producing pulp for paper, marine fisheries such as tuna) toward unlimited ones (wind, sun, hydroelectric, geothermal, publicizing news via internet vs printed paper, floating marine fish farms). Only through presenting arguments from supporters of each side of debates (independent science on one side, the Conservative science (8.) as noted above on the other and Liberal science on the third) can we as a group fairly decide whether debatable hypotheses — such as (a) the maximizing of rates of resource consumption being good for long-term continent-scale socioeconomic health and (b) newspaper subscription numbers not being influenced by internet news availability — are realistic and rational or laughably preposterous and counter-productive to achieving stable global security through trust-inspired peace and mutual prosperity rather than through fear-gripped, territorial-ground-pawing, state-sponsored espionage and war.

Perhaps a comment to the Science Daily staff would spur a more comprehensive edit to the Wikipedia article than this occasional reader can offer. Toward celebrating even greater fairness and balance in Science Daily reporting, other contributors to this Talk page might be aware of Left-leaning research that could be cited to support hypotheses such as ‘Illegal immigration proven to reduce climate change’ or ‘terminating pregnancy proven to reduce national debt’.

1. if the word 'intelligence' can still be meaningfully used after being transformed into its own opposite by the xenophobic espionage community: spying on the entire world-wide web to achieve free and fair competition and trusting global peace suggests hypocrisy, paranoia and ignorance rather than intelligence in light of this nation’s parents teaching their children “you don’t spy on your friends” as counsels the animated PBSkids turtle Franklin.

2. if the words 'fair and balanced' can still be meaningfully used after being transformed into their own opposites due to over-use by some corporate news media: trusted sources in any peer-to-peer or mass communication medium don’t typically repeat over and over any off-topic catch-phrase effectively meaning “I’m not trying to mislead you — don’t you trust me unconditionally?” which only inspires scientifically skeptical listeners to suspect the opposite.

3. It is taken for granted, and thus not open to debate, that polls of professional politically independent scientists involved with teaching and research at prominent universities in the world’s leading industrial nations show a clear pattern over recent decades of increasing frequency among scientists of support for the hypothesis that human industrial activities are a major cause among the many potential causes of climate change.

4. 'A life well-spent: consume now (in case you die early)' http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140610122014.htm 'Internet not responsible for dying newspapers, new study finds' http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140610121904.htm

5. not financially supported by or professionally associated with any particular research, educational, publishing or political entity.

6. transcripts at https://app.box.com/s/xm12vmqli450wb65bgi7; BS Mathematical Sciences (Honors) 1987 Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering; Peace Corps Aquaculture Construction Consultant, 1990-94, Cameroon W. Africa; MS Fisheries and Aquaculture 1997 Auburn U; 3/4 PhD Marine Science 1997-2000 U Texas Austin (interrupted by detached retina and denial of insurance, further details at https://www.facebook.com/100005430934331/posts/231751360349227)

7. The non-political term 'conservatism' is used here to mean ‘saving for later’. By minimizing consumption of limited resources, society achieves long-term gain by not exhausting them. In contrast, the political term 'Conservatism' is typically associated with maximizing consumption of limited resources (“drill, baby, drill”) which favors short-term corporate and investor profit while relying on invisible free-market forces to maintain economic stability. These invisible forces — such as Adam Smith’s reference to a unicorn-like invisible hand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand) — are imagined to be capable of correcting whatever problems might eventually be encountered in the economy caused by long-term resource exhaustion and food shortages due to climate change and associated destruction of cities and farms caused by obvious recent increases in the frequency and intensity of storms, droughts, forest fires, floods, coastal erosion and subsidence, and in some areas earthquakes.

8. The two articles noted in (4.) above describe work by researchers funded by Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (‘Consume Now’) and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (‘Internet Not Responsible For Dying Newspapers’). The political and corporate activities of these institutions’ professors and notable alumni listed on the Wilson and Booth schools’ Wikipedia pages suggest similar support of Conservative ideology on the part of the institutions’ researchers underlying their experimental designs, methods, data collection and interpretations of results, thereby leaning them toward the right of the political spectrum as clearly displayed in the article titles. Thus it appears legitimate to applaud Science Daily’s Wikipedia page for displaying fairness and balance in presenting the Conservative side of socioeconomic debates.

Kevinbootes (talk) 12:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Edits today

User:83.54.140.34 this edit today a) added unsourced content; b) added WP:SPS-sourced promotional content; and c) mushified the very clear consensus among science journalists that science daily is churnalism. These edits violated almost every policy we have. If you want to propose independently sourced, neutral content I will be glad to review it. Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Statement about churnalism does not give the right to delete other info. Comparison with Eurekalert is not accurate, because it is a paid PR distribution service and not a news website. Your sources include links to personal blogs expressing personal opinions of the authors. Removed content included links to editorials info and visitors stats and ranking. The content was deleted (twice: rev 17 July 2017 and rev 7 June 2017 ) without engaging in any discussions, you simply reverted to your own version (Edit_warring) 83.54.140.34 (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2017 (UTC) SP

You are the first to question the changes; the reasons given for them initially were in the edit notes. Again if you want to propose content that is a) sourced and b) independently sourced, am very open to reviewing that. The edits you made are dead and are not coming back - they violated policy. WP articles are based on what independent sources say. Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

do you consider 3 blog posts you've added as an 'independently sourced'? 83.54.140.34 (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC) SP

and what was wrong with references to Quantcast stats, editorial info? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.54.140.34 (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Blogs are OK if the authors are authorities. Yes they are independent of the subject of the article. The quantcast thing was a datapoint (and a 6 year old one at that) and is not encyclopedic. Jytdog (talk) 20:09, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request :

I think the best course here lies someone between these two approaches. WP:ABOUTSELF is quite clear that we can use self-published sources as information about themselves, with a few provisos. The only things we need t be careful of here is that the material from Science Daily isn’t unduly self-serving and that the article isn’t primarily based on the Science Daily material. So we certainly need to include some of the material from the Science Daily website, but it can’t make up ¾ of the article as has been proposed by editor 83.54.140.34. The Quantcast material seems relevant and I don’t think anybody is actually challenging it as RS. The blogs are marginal RS, but we need to adhere to WP:NEWSBLOG' specifically we need to attribute the statements to the authors, not present it as fact. I don’t think that the use of the jargon term churnalism in the first sentence is particularly helpful. So my opinion is that the article should look something like this: Science Daily is an American website that publishes press releases on science subjects. The articles are selected from news releases submitted by universities and other research institutions. Science Daily publishes press releases on a wide variety of science topics. The website was founded in 1995 by science writer Dan Hogan. In 2011, Quantcast listed it as a top 653 site with 2,000,000+ U.S. people visiting per month and this being 60% of all visitors. Science Daily, and similar websites such as Phys.org and EurekAlert!, have come under criticism from scientists and science journalists including (insert names) for masquerading as journalism when their primary role is churnalism: disseminating press releases with no journalistic enquiry. Wrap that up with the appropriate references and I think it will be about right. Mark Marathon (talk) 00:14, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. About the statement So we certainly need to include some of the material from the Science Daily website. For something trivial we can use it, but we absolutely do not "need" to use it. I cannot take your proposal as a whole seriously as long as that is in there, because that is so wrong. (It is otherwise not unreasonable). The issue with the Quantcast datapoint is that this is an indiscriminate factoid - a datapoint, trivia. See WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. Jytdog (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

A third opinion was requested and been provided. The 3O process is non-binding so you are quite free to not take it seriously. If so, you will just need to take this to another resolution forum. FWIW, I contend that we do indeed need to use the self published material because it's the only material we have that actually describes what the organisation does in any detail. Providing that information to the reader is, IMO, vital for any article. But as already noted, this is a non-binding opinion and you are perfectly free to find some other way to resolve this.Mark Marathon (talk) 00:56, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

OK, I appreciate the time you took to consider things. I spent more time looking for independent sources and found another one. They are hard to dig up since google searches turn up so many results from this site. People spam these republished press releases all over the place. And wow I am really, really blown away on the claim that we need to to rely on the site itself to say what it does!! That is a recipe for horrible self-promoting content that may well be dead wrong. See the content I just added for example. In 2010 the site implied it had staff world wide, when it was just the 2 founders working out of their house. Jytdog (talk) 01:09, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I totally agree that the jargon term `churnalism` shouldn't be in the first sentence. It is opinion based fact and should better be placed in the Controversies section. Comparison with Eurekalert is incorrect because it is a PR distirbution site and not a news outlet. Secondly, I also agree that self-published sources as information are fine if they adhere to WP:ABOUTSELF guidelines 83.54.140.34 (talk) 07:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC) SP

Requested move 11 November 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved (page mover nac) Flooded with them hundreds 10:18, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

---

Science Daily → ScienceDaily – The publication's actual title is ScienceDaily, including in plain text; it isn't just graphical logo stylization. See, e.g., three occurrences of "ScienceDaily" and zero of "Science Daily" in the legal boilerplate at the bottom of its homepage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:42, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support for reasons SMcCandlish mentions above. --Woofboy (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Muck

The Gary M. Stern article is hillarious! He is a reliable source. But the technique.. the edge of satire. -- GreenC 15:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Pte

Susma gautam ptepractice 27.34.31.81 (talk) 03:45, 28 March 2023 (UTC)