Popular Science ends reader comments

[Rusty Shackleford]

I'm in favor of this, for exactly the reasons stated. The internet caters to the mental lowest-common-denominators of humanity's lowest-common-denominators. Ending the BS discussions of scientific stories is fine by me, and I applaud this move:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/popular-science-ends-reader-comments--says-practice-is-bad-for-science-002245622.html

 

[LongTimeListener]

But pageviews! Racists buy timeshares too.

Good move. I look forward to the Internet constitutional scholars/scientists explaining why Popular Science is just afraid of real discussion.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Glad Poynter chimed in. How is Poynter still relevant these days?

 

[lantaur]

A counter point:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/25/popular_science_says_comments_bad_for_science_shuts_them_off_bad_move.html

 

[H.L. Mencken]

Why Slate sucks my taint, by Slate. #slatepitches

 

[Starman]

Any article related to space exploration in any way is guaranteed to get moon-landing-conspiracy comments within the first dozen or so posts.

 

[HejiraHenry]

The line about "(eroding) the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics." made me uneasy.

There was, for instance, a strong popular consensus in the scientific community for a long time about eugenics. Now, not so much.