"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Monday, January 12, 2009

Who Reads About Science?



There are about a dozen RSS feeds out of the New York Times. Science is, by a factor of more than two, the least popular of them. This would be less discouraging perhaps if it weren't for the fact that the Times has the best newspaper science reporting in North America by far.

Or maybe science readers just don't understand the internet? That would be discouraging too.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess you mean a factor of 100 (or two orders of magnitude)?

But indeed, science doesn't seem to be in the forefront of most people's minds. That has implications for what sort of communication is needed to get some action going.

Anonymous said...

Dude, that IS the NYT you're talking about. Climate change doesn't exist, and the scientists who say it does are evil. Remember?

John Fleck said...

When the NSF survey folks ask people what they're interested in, they say "science" in large numbers, because that's what they think surveyors want to hear. But when you look at actual data on what people are interested in? Ah, the fallacy of self-reporting.

Anonymous said...

@eco101: Dude, that IS the NYT you're talking about. Climate change doesn't exist, and the scientists who say it does are evil. Remember?

Andy Revkin, for as much crap as some of us give him, is one of if not the best reporters on climate change. Tierney on the other hand...

Dano said...

"Thinking is the hardest work there is. Which is probably the reason why so few engage in it." -- Henry Ford

Best,

D

Michael Tobis said...

Huh. I think thinking is, like, a vacation from work and stuff... 0-

Jason Delso said...

I don't subscribe to any RSS feeds at all, which has little to do with me not understanding the WWTubes, and much more to do with the fact that I like clicking through my bookmarks and following links. The sense of interaction I get with my reading seems important to me.

Michael Tobis said...

zc, try Google Reader for a little while. Your description sounds like what I might have said before I started using RSS. It doesn;t really work the way you describe it.