In an age of blogging,why science blogs in China are soscarce? Known and unkown reasons abound, finds Zhou Xinyu Zhou Xinyu China YouthDaily staff writer Li Miao boots his computer, gets a warming cup ofcoffee, and then he sits by the computer working on hisblog. Every two days a week, hespends several hours updating his blog, and replies to his readers’ comments. .....
In an age of blogging,why science blogs in China are soscarce? Known and unkown reasons abound, finds Zhou Xinyu
Zhou Xinyu China YouthDaily staff writer
Li Miao boots his computer, gets a warming cup ofcoffee, and then he sits by the computer working on hisblog. Every two days a week, hespends several hours updating his blog, and replies to his readers’ comments. Thisis already a staple of his ordinary life.
As a researcher at theInstitute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Li has blogged about his discipline on PhysicsRamblings (http://limiao.net)with a username “Science-Gossiper”. Since June 1st, 2005.Physical Ramblings has more than 150,000 hits in just oneyear.
On Physics Ramblings, Li posts about hislatest research updates and his musings. Also he keeps tracks ofwhat's going on in the science academia. Dispersed on his blog aresome abstruse jargons like string theory,darkmatter, supersymmetry,anthropicprinciple.
However, Li’s posts tellstories about the obscurity in a way that make his readers feelrather relaxed, which doesn’t keep the readers away from theblog. In a recent article titled“the beauty out of the weaker and darker”, Listroked up his conversation with Lin Daiyu’s debilitated beautifulness(Lin Daiyu is one heroine in "The Dream of Red Chamber", one of the most classicfiction in China), entertaining histhoughts that “gravity is the weakest force on theplanet.”
“When you read aboutthesis, do remember to pick a pretty lengthy one, you definitelyspend one week reading till the end of introduction, at least 100students are scared. Some of them are frightened by the thesis,others recoiled from the theory, and you would probably be inembarrassment if you feel trembling at the introductory theory. Sowe have the super string mantra that we seek the longest, not thebest.” He is frequently quoted as saying with punch-lines from"A big shot’s funeral" (a low budget blockbuster in 2005 inChina)
Li once dreamed aboutwriting "Super StringOrchestra: An Alternative History". Till now, he only got a beginning paragraph likethis. “Many years ago, a 16-year-old guy with beard dreamed aboutwhat the light looked like if it stopped traveling; at 25, he cameto understand what the space-time relativity means to him, theysaid he was wheeling a baby on a Bohr’s road. Through his life, hewas struggling to give everyone a spoon of his affluent quantumtheory stuff.”
Li almost replied toevery reader. Sometimes, a reply could turn into a debate. Theother day, he interpreted with a lengthy piece to high schoolstudent when he asked about “how do you think replacing the bigbang theory with changing light velocity”.
Just after a short time,the blogging has endeared him as astar physicist to students, colleagues and sciencefans. Li has changed the way people talk about theoretical physics.Before blogging, ITP is virtually synonymous with He Zuoxiu, a famous Chinese physicist. Now, a blogging Li is the tag of ITP and theoretical physics.
However, scienceblogs like the Li’s Physics Ramblings almost remain marginalized in the gigantic blogosphere in China.
And the fact matters, anewspaper reporter wanted to go through some Chinese scientists’blogs to know about what was going onwith them, say, their life, thoughts, hobbies, what he finally gotwere only two blogs—PhysicsRamblings, the other was the weblogof Chang Weiyu, a CAE (ChineseAcademy of Engineering) member and the ex- vice-director of theMinistry of Education of China. Seeing this, the journalist sighed,wistfully with a say: the bloggingscientists are much precious than the Chinesepandas.
Looking further abroad,the picture is in no way better, Technorati, a blogsearch engine tracked and counted the linked sites in 6 monthsbefore June 3, the data suggests that there are only 5 scienceblogs in the Top 3500 blogs, according to the June 3 issue of Nature
Then, what exactly couldbe defined as a “science blog”? Ablog, authored by a workingscientist, relates to real science stuff, in stead of thescientist’s pet.
Among the Top 3500blogs, Pharyngula, written byPaul Myers, a biologist at Minnesota University, is in the179th slot. On his blog,Paul, who turns his expert opinions into the cool blog posts, is obsessed about talking aboutliberalism and atheism, his blasting words on the downside ofAmerican culture.
“Sometimes, I just sayabout my points, like I do in the class, if you don’t’ do it as if you writes for the publications, it surely will not work”, he says.blogging is very much like “hitting the pub after a symposium”.
The blogs from 2nd to 4thplaces go to Panda’s thumb (www.pandasthumb.org)- ablog group where anti-creaturism is pervasive, and the evolutionism isdebated, the blog (http://www.realclimate.org) ofStefan Rahmstorf, a meteorologist andthe cosmic evolution at Cosmic Variance (http://cosmisvariance.com),hosted by 5 physicists.
OnSeptember 2nd, 2005, 5 scientists posted about “theobvious frequency of typhoon and tsunami is related to the climatechange and global warming on RealClimate. They discussedabout HurricaneKatrina and beyond and did a lot works on research, analyses,charts, notes and book references. The final conclusion was like awake-up call that global warming will strengthen tsunami in thefuture. After the article was published, many people respondedquickly and talked, it has so far got totally 304responses.
Nick Anthis has his blog at5th place. In January this year, he began blogging, in February, he quickly rose to fameshortly after he unlocked that a top NASA official lied before thegraduation.
On the same day when Nickhad the story, there were totally 2277 website links followingNick’s blog as the Nature new storycame out. Meanwhile, the No 1 belongs to the Xu Jinglei, aChinese actress.
Technorati has no accuratenumber of science blogs in the 4670blogs across the globe. Still, you can feel one thing: those pioneering scientists show noaffections for the state-of-art blog.
“Science isbasically about adopting, and discovering and utilizing newknowledge and new technologies. As the biggest revolution on theweb, blogging is passing by us.” Onescientist was quoted as saying in a featured news story titled “thescience in the Internet Age” exploring the interaction between scienceand blog—in lastDecember issue of Nature
“Scientists arestill conservative about blogging interms of the way to blog, not whatthey can blog”, says a laughing Li,when asked about why the science blogs are so few.
Scientists arealways tight-lipped about what they can do and they want to say.And you know, they are concerned ifthey can be tracked as to what they’re doing, thinking about, thiscould possibly put them in the bad scenario, suggestsLi.
In many institutes,it’s a high-voltage act to talk about work with others in public,let alone blogging. Because if youblog, you will be stolen thethunder.” says a biologist with complaint.
In China, there arestill other reasons why scientists are reluctant to blog. Xing Zhizhong, a professor at High-Energy PhysicsInstitute of CSA, blogged at a site about quantuam physics for a while when he was assignedto participate in activities by Fermi Labs to commemorate the WorldPhysical Year. Now, the bloghas been the history.
“There is no need tohave some coverage about the latest updates about ChineseHigh-Energy Physics studies. And I can not write about somescientists because I don’t want to touch the tabooin the academia. But I’m stuck in deciding to blog, for one thing: I’m afraid that theblog could keep my readers away if Iblog with jargons; and I willalienate myself from my work if I’m too focused on my personallife.” Xing wrote in a farewell post.
Moreover, whatfurther has many Chinese scientists steer clear away fromblogging is an academic bar—ascientist is judged by what he has in an academic publication orperiodical or two, not what he has in hisblog.
A science thesis isa formal, archived, irreplaceable document which takes a major partof a scientist’s work. But it’s static, you can not add more in it,admits the top science bloggerMeyers.
“If you make a short description of your thesis,wait for some time, something different will be there. Some peopleyou don’t know begin thinking about the topic in your thesis, theyoften come up with some interesting points”, hesays.
Feng Yan is theproponent of Meyers’ point. A young scientist working in EuropeanSouth Observatory, Feng Yan says in a story titled the pros and cons of a researcher’s blog that “if you put your thought inyour blog, probably some readers mayhelp you pick out some errors you don’t know. And you follow somequite enlightening viewpoints; then you might find a possiblepartner.”
Li knows whyblogging is good for his life. InJanuary, he learned some latest updates about String Theory, thenhe called her students and work on them quickly to see if they canpush the study forward, To his satisfaction, the students had 3thesis published already.
A blog, the way Li Miao see it with a reader’s view, is muchtrendier than when you are sitting chewing hot-spicy chickenhamburg in a McDonald's. The moreimportant thing, Li thinks, is that his blog can bring a kind of interaction with hisstudents; he can help his students to think much better, and knowhow they deal with study life.
Scienceblogs can have the “massdistribution” functionality, notes Feng Yan. Anarticle in a publication just gets about several or some readers toread about, and ordinary people don’t like to flip some bigreference books to know the new knowledge. So you can bring yourdisciplinary knowledge together and use them to serve up somepeople who also share the same interests if you have some postsabout your research, say, politics, economy, public health,meteorology and others, on your blog,it’s very likely you will make it big, says Feng Yan.
In the US, someepidemiologists post one story or two about public health on“EffectMeasure” on a daily basis. The blog has a big readership now. “There are 1500visits everyday”, says one Effect Measure editor. “If someone tellsme I can voice my opinions in a lecture hall, I’ll very pleased,1500 is a surprising number that’s twice big as the academicmagazine subscriptions.”
For many scientists, blogging still has no enough gravity that candistract them from their research for several seconds—a possiblereason why there are quite few science blogs to buzz about, especially inChina.【本文翻译仅为外语学习及阅读目的，原文作者个人观点与译者及译言网无关】
