Links for 2010-08-02

“Martial arts are my hobby and explaining science is my job, so the recent appearance of “How karate chops break concrete blocks” on io9.com naturally caught my eye. Unfortunately, not only did it fall far short of my hopes of offering a lucid explanation, it parroted misleading statements from an article on exactly this same subject that has been annoying me every time I remembered it for 10 years. (Oh wonderful Web, is there no old error you can’t make new again?) Indulge me while I try belatedly to set the record straight.”

“Here’s the point that perhaps I could have made more clear – we all know someone took an unfair shot at the science blogging community. Science bloggers have a choice – they can call that person stupid, or they can view this unfair shot as a fabulous PR opportunity.

What would happen, for example, if Heffernan were invited as a speaker at ScienceOnline2011? Would science bloggers throw tomatoes at her? Or would they take the time and demonstrate the patience to calmly, rationally, educate her on their community and what it offers? Isn’t that a better strategy and wouldn’t that create a better outcome? And wouldn’t that encourage more people to read science blogs?”

“I received several emails from people asking me about this paper this past week (and honestly, the type-setting was so off-putting I wouldn’t have considered reading it otherwise), so I’ve prepared some remarks as to why I think it isn’t worth suffering through the type-setting.”