Top Science Blogs Named

Nature has compiled a list of the 50 most important science blogs - e.g. blogs written by working scientists that are about science. They also profile five blogs written by scientists and highlighted the following facts:

* Five of the top ten science blogs are written not by individuals but by groups of scientists.
* As of July 5, 2, 277 sites linked to their top ranked science blog, Pharyngula
* Scienceblogs.com has been recruiting star science bloggers: 22 of the top 50 science blogs, including Pharyngula, now live on its site. Scienceblogs pays its bloggers $70 a month for 50,000 to 250,000 page views, and $300 for 250,000 to 1 million, according to Nature

Technorati Tags: Science

Comments

[Deepak]

The strange thing is that while I read some of the blogs in that top 50 list, many of the ones I read regularly, do not reside there. Perhaps I am not very political when it comes to science, since a lot of the blogs at the top have a healthy dose of politics involved. Also the whole creationism/evolution debate is so American, I don't even bother to follow it anymore, another topic that the top blogs tend to spend too much time on. "In the Pipeline" though, down a little bit from the top is a GREAT blog, focused on an industry and more in line with my interests.

[Declan Butler]

Nothing "strange" surely Deepak in the fact that others' interest in specific science blogs don't concur with your own personal blog preferences??

Your own blog ranking, 176,616 (29 links from 19 sites), suggests that you yourself represent, as you say, a particular niche among science blogs.

And isn't it a bit judgemental to assert that evolution is "another topic that the top blogs tend to spend too much time on." Who says they spend too much time on it? You; but apparently not their readers who seem interested in the topic, which is presumably why they are visiting these blogs, and also linking to them, and not yours.

The ethos of the blogosphere is that readers and fellow bloggers decide for themselves what they are interested in. So despite the numerous shortcomings of current blog metrics, including those used by Technorati, they do at least attempt to reflect the reality of what bloggers in practice think are important to them. OK, the metrics are far from perfect, but at least they attempt a rough approximation of the reality, which is better than subjective assertions as to what one individual feels is more important ;->.

Declan
Author of the Nature articles

[Deepak]

Declan,

Perhaps strange was a poor choice of words. I should have used "curious" or "interesting" instead. Definitely, my choice of reading is not exactly in line with the most read science blogs, which is fine and not an issue at all.

I have no disagreements with the metrics. They are what they are. My criticism of the blogosphere is that there is a lot more to science than evolution, and (the often political) commentary related to that subject, e.g. your own blog which is more interesting (to at least this reader).

[Grammar Police]

e.g. != i.e.