Thursday, July 8, 2010

Pepsigeddon over, but damage is done

ScienceBlogs has removed Food Frontiers. Although some striking bloggers have returned, the damage has been done.

The management at SEED and the defenders of FF seem to lack the ability to see the problem, as shown in the leaked e-mail from SEED management. The claim that industry needs a seat at the table like those of academic and institutional scientists is a false equivalency. There are no blogs there bought by the University of Wisconsin or Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, with posts from scientists written as parts of their official duties. Now if a Pepsico R&D person was invited to write a blog independently, I don't see a problem. Even then we still wouldn't expect to see a completely transparent view of anything going within Pepsico, because they would be legally bound not to reveal propriety information.

In the end I fear for the long-term credibility of ScienceBlogs, but we'll see.

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