What if anti-Science didn’t exist? In other words, what if public outreach by scientists didn’t have to allocate a significant fraction of resources to combating pseudo-science and conspiracy theories? That’s the world that the Just Science Challenge wants to create, if only for a week, starting February 5th (monday). During that week, the challenge to science bloggers is thus:
Bloggers who self-identify as scientists and science writers should post on:
1. Published, peer-reviewed research and their own research.
2. Their expert opinion on actual scientific debates – think review articles.
3. Descriptions of natural phenomena (e.g., why slugs dissolve when you put salt on them, or what causes sun flares; scientific knowledge that has reached the level of fact)
We at Reference Scan will be participating in the Just Science Challenge. In fact if you registered as a user here at RefScan you might find that I’ve already upgraded your account to be able to post to the front page, because I can use the help!
There’s already an extensive list of participating science blogs. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a field that is uniquely abused by anti-science and one that I think needs to be represented in the online scientific community. So let’s plant our flag and meet the challenge. Should be fun!