Enough is enough. I quit.

It’s time to unplug from the ScienceBorg.


I’ve had enough of the oppressive editorial control, constraining my voice as a blogger. That “voice of reason” script I’m known for was assigned to me by our editors. And it’s the same story for the personae of other Sb bloggers. PZ Myers as fire-breathing atheist, Zuska as puke-spewing feminist, Nisbet as aloof communications professor, revere(s) as leftist(s), Wilkins as agnostic, Lynch as Irish — all scripted. We might as well be The Monkees for all the authenticity we display here. Heck, Razib doesn’t even have a cat.
I am bone-tired of the list of topics we’re assigned to blog each week. While Jake gets Britney, Tara gets bikini waxes, and Abel gets the vasectomy, I’m always stuck with the tribe of science crap. I’d much rather write about elucidating the mechanisms of chemical oscillators, but the overlords tell me it’s off limits — the traffic just wouldn’t be there.
I’m sick of the compulsory intra-ScienceBlogs linking. Yes, we are contractually obligated to link our “SciBlings” a set number of times per month. And, we’re cautioned against linking too many bloggers out of the network. (I’ve heard from Bora that there are fines if this exo-linkage crosses a certain threshold.)
I’ve had it with the manufactured blogwars. Yes, they are orchestrated. Why do you think they happen with such stunning regularity? Like we really disagree about the wisdom of communicating effectively? Please.
And then there’s PZ. Most people know that his traffic dwarfs that of nearly all the other ScienceBloggers. Fewer people know that he has major influence with our editors — and, as a result, a huge say in which bloggers get the plum assignments each week. Plus, he demands what amounts to a kick-back from Sb bloggers who want Pharyngulinkage.
I can no longer handle the demands of this job (especially the necessity of the performance enhancing drugs; the Molecule of the Day guy is making a killing supplying the rest of us). And I can’t do it in service of the larger societal goals driving the ScienceBlogs project: making sure scientists who are not atheists have their research de-funded and their tenure denied; normalizing both animal research and the broad use of puppies, kitties, and bunnies as snack food; and the glorious return of Canadian entertainer Alan Thicke.
I’m done being Adam Bly’s fool. I’m out of here.

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Posted in Blogospheric science, Passing thoughts, Personal.

47 Comments

  1. Can I just say that I am heartily sick of having to hide my rabid atheism under a veneer of agnostic tolerance? It’s PZ’s turn to be an agnostic. I want to hate God in public!

  2. And you’re also running away with Bill D. and having Sal C’s child and .. aw hell … even given the date I can’t even bring myself to pretend that’s true.
    Well done But is it ethical? How would you frame that?

  3. Ack! I thought it was a ferreal “goodbye, cruel world!” post and was going to beg, on bended knee, that you not go.
    But then I read further, noticed the date, and decided my arthritic knee doesn’t need to bend, after all.

  4. Actually, PZ pays the majority of his readers to repeatedly visit his site at least 100 times per day. Basically, the deal is, after 3 solid years, he’ll link once to our blogs. I think there’s maybe 30 of us in reality. (But you can’t tell anyone I told you. PZ has been known to sneak into places he’s not wanted, with criminal intentions of just sitting and watching. Creepy.)

  5. Splendid exposé! And nicely understated so our creationist friends won’t be able to quote-mine it.
    There’s a lot more dirt, as all us insiders know, and I’m sure it’ll come out soon as the conspiracy unravels. Stoat being a 200lb radical feminist, Neurophilosophy being 8 years old, plus of course Orac being a bot, though the rumours have been flying for years.
    It’s time for God’s Truth to come out and shine!

  6. DID you just suggest the Monkees weren’t authentic????
    It is one thing to spoof on your fellow bloggers, but to slam on the authenticity of the Monkees? AUUUGH!!! Are you suggesting that The Monkees didn’t really apply for jobs in a computerized toy factory or that they didn’t really have to spend the night in a haunted house to collect an inheritance. My god woman, and you call yourself an ethicist?? ?

  7. Smart – slipping in the “signal” about PZ’s kickbacks in amongst all the other calendrically-appropriate “noise”.

  8. I am bone-tired of the list of topics we’re assigned to blog each week. While Jake gets Britney, Tara gets bikini waxes, and Abel gets the vasectomy, I’m always stuck with the tribe of science crap.

    Hell, these Seed bastards even made me make the co-pay out of my own pocket. To hell with this “field work.”
    Then again, I shouldn’t complain. They could’ve made Tara get the vasectomy and me get the bikini wax.

  9. Funny. It doesn’t read like a prank to me. Well maybe some of it. But I have wondered for a long time about the relative lack of science or science-related content to general musing about pretty much anything that happens to enter the conciousness of any one of the science bloggers…it sometimes seems as though you all feel compelled to write a certain number of items, a certain number of words…there are occasional gems (I am partial to Zimmer’s Loom for high ratio of science-related content to “other”) but most of the time, it seems as though the zeitgeist is “no dead air, ever! Fill it with something, anything!”

  10. Really? They tell you what to write about? That severely decreases my respect for the site. I’ve liked a lot of the entries on sb, but if they are assigned….ummm…that just sucks. I thought the premise of science blogs was to have a collection of bloggers with different viewpoints (and make some money too). Not have a collection of people all writing what they are told to say with forced viewpoints. I kind of hope this is a joke.

  11. re: szqc -Ha! I do not believe that Janet would run away with Bill Dembski! ??!! EEEWWWW!! If you’re gonna celebrate the first day of April, it’s at least got to have a solid grounding in the physical and metaphysical worlds.

  12. Eh, I knew it! I knew one of us was going to buckle under pressure and reveal all the secrets, sooner or later. It is living hell, after all. I just never expected it to be you to be the first. I am soooo disappointed! 😉

  13. Bugger! You had me going there at first. But at least I was thinking “Wow, this seems really out of character for Dr. Free-Ride.”
    Thanks for the fun, now I’ll be on my guard today. 😉

  14. Plus, he demands what amounts to a kick-back from Sb bloggers who want Pharyngulinkage.

    Ah, that explains why it’s impossible to post links to ayton-bray’s blog in Pharyngula comments. Ed wouldn’t pony up. Go ahead, try it for yourself.

  15. Oh Noes! Eric didn’t get it.

    Be nice, April Fool’s isn’t celebrated in every country, ya know.
    That was cute, Janet. Not enough Sciencebloggers took advantage of this special day.

  16. Well… I heard that the sprogs were actually PZ’s kids, but the SEED overlords thought cute kids didn’t fit the “bomb-throwing atheist” label that PZ picked out of the hat when SB first went up. Janet, who picked last, ended up with the “den mother/ethicist” assignment, so PZ was forced to sign over custody.

  17. Yes, we are contractually obligated to link our “SciBlings” a set number of times per month. And, we’re cautioned against linking too many bloggers out of the network. (I’ve heard from Bora that there are fines if this exo-linkage crosses a certain threshold.)

    Fines, my ass.
    Last time I got caught out-linking too much, Katherine and Ginny took turns publicly flogging me on the steps of SEED’s main office.

  18. –Now that April Fool’s Day is over, maybe we can get back
    to some science back-ground–! As evolutionists quickly
    comtemplated their “Creation of the Universe”–proven by
    their science,hundreds of professors were all satisfied-“It
    all started with a “BIG-BANG”!
    ——————————————–
    Evolutionists may be dismayed that their favorite “Big Bang”
    just got a torpedo in it’s mid-section, and has been “SUNK”
    as a “Scientific Theory!!” According to an Associated Press
    article by Seth Borenstein, Aug 24, .2007–“Astronomers
    Discover Immense Hole in the Universe”-He explains,.”It is
    1 BILLION LIGHT-YEARS across of NOTHING-..an expanse of
    nearly 6 billion trillion miles of EMPTINESS!!” (Those who
    ‘understand’ the effects of an ‘Explosion in a Vacuum’-,
    whereas, it is like a balloon with equal-pressure radii-at
    all points on the inside surface of the balloon.) Which now,
    we need to point out-“If you have a bucket, with no bottom
    in it-It will NEVER HOLD WATER!” Likewise, with an immense
    HOLE on one side of the Universe-that size, you can NOT HOPE
    to satisfy the scientific LAWS of equal-pressure GASES, using your pressures equally to ALL sides in the Vacuum of
    Space! The “BIG BANG” Theory cannot Hold neither’WATER’,nor
    ‘GAS’-(The “TIRE” just had a “Big BLOW-OUT!)Good-bye to the
    Big-Bang Theory!…(It it had “Only” been a ‘Billion Miles’,
    It might have “had a chance”-!!) —————
    (I’ve also heard of many College Professors–that even
    have written books–‘which upon agreement with others’ have
    asserted–that this explains “how it ALL Started-“) Would
    you like to check it out?!–“experts are supposed to know!”

  19. Pingback: Ethics and the First of April. | Adventures in Ethics and Science

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