Chem Blogs
Recently I was asked about my view on chemistry blogs, or chem blogs, and one of my ancient post on an ancient server was referred. But in that post my points and reasoning were not well organized, and some new thought comes when I see the issue today.
Since we can hear voices doubting the future of chem blogs from time to time, and these should not come from nothing, there seems to be a growing expectation, indeed, that the current flourish of chem blogs grow to a higher state in which the formal, serious academia can benefit from them. It is a bit strange that the doubt is much louder than the doubted. However to answer the future of chem blogs we must look into the general nature of blogs as well as the general nature of chemists, both of which are themselves controversial now. But anyway I still want to try putting my views forward here.
The blogophere
Blogging has become a pop culture today, although I cannot say everybody blogs. I knew a granny of 80 who blogged about lovely and smartly designed toys. The nature of blog as a new form of communication has set up a ‘sphere’ called ‘blogophere’ where the edges of professions are weakened, while interaction strengthened. Although chem blogs have maintained a relatively independent blogosphere, they cannot avoid being included in a larger one.
When asked about his view on Web 2.0, a quantum chemist said:
Well, this is really an issue of culture. My personal hesitancy to adopt Web 2.0 technologies is that I don’t have the time to read random thoughts by random individuals. I barely have time to keep up with the old-school (i.e., traditional journals) literature in my field. The blogosphere just seemed to me to be filled with the rantings of people who have nothing better to do with their time. Peter Murray-Rust’s blog was the first to demonstrate to me that real chemistry content could be had, that interesting and novel ideas could be found and shared and discussed.
From the above comment we can derive two reasons why some chemists stil keep away from blogs, either reading or writing.
First, as a cultural circle the blogosphere has some specific characters that not everybody likes. Surely everyone is free to blog his own way and be independent of the formed culture, but this is enough to give some outsiders a wrong image. At least scientists are less likely to relate the casual style of blogs to their serious works. Of course It should be emphasized that the interacting feature of the blogosphere is an important advantage for the society. Through blogs, different voices can be heard directly from the authors instead of the interpretation of news reporters or column writers, especially when scientists (in this post chemists) are joining in, because absence of real professional comments has caused the prevailing misunderstanding of science among the public. And some big questions which need a big discussion (e.g. climate change) will be clearer from the fog of political intentions if chemists and other scientists address their views. But these are just about what chemists can provide, not get, through blogging. They will get, indeed, a significant recognition and respect from the public by expressing their view more and rightly, but this does not efficiently or immediately reflect in, for instance, the increase of their funding.
Second, inside a blogosphere, chem blogs unexceptionally includes a lot of non-chemistry contents/thoughts, which dilute the concentration of chemical information as well as the benefit to chemists. I mean when most of the formal, peer-viewed journals are online with email alerts and RSS feeds available, subscribing an additional number of chem blogs give a chemist nothing except a large burden of inbox to clear up everyday. Most scientists are very busy. Moreover, bloggers generally write what they like to write, although they also care about the readers’ interaction to some varied extents. You cannot expect a blogger to blog always exactly what you are interested in. The purpose and content of blogging is always changing. This is totally different with chemical journals whose tenets are stable. Blogs are, indeed, just ‘random thoughts by random individuals’ as quoted above, and when the blogger has more in common with the reader, the blog starts to ‘demonstrate…that real chemistry content could be had, that interesting and novel ideas could be found and shared and discussed’. This tells us a simple relation: because the professors who write blog is rare, the professors who read blog is more rare.
The chemists
Now you may think it is ridiculous to compare blogs with journals. They serve for different purposes. Yes, that’s certainly the case. But in order to ‘create’ a chemical purpose of chem blog for chemists, we have to think over what is still missing in the current way of chemistry research and communication and where chem blogs can be of any help. I have another ancient post which talked about getting the max information from reading journal papers. Besides literature archives, chemists have other ways to communication such as conferences, seminars and lectures. Are these highly formatted way of communication enough for chemical research? In my opinion the formal science communication cannot provide the following factors which is significant in the process of doing exciting chemical research.
Share of failure Scientists face failure much more the success, and I believe chemists face failure much more than other scientists, especially in terms of synthesis. Investigating failure not only solves problems but may sometimes pave the way to new findings and understandings. However, there is not any Journal of Failed Synthsis. And in conference people always introduce succussful works, although sometimes you can obtain some personal comments from the speaker on his failure experience.
Share of protocols Many professors have problems with their ‘untalented’ students who cannot overcome the synthetic obstacles in a short time so that their research will not left far behind others. However, unlike results, protocols are less shared, sometimes even hidden for some reason, so the students have to work alone. Indeed, there is few platforms for sharing protocols (like Nature Methods), and fewer can provide detailed protocols or even lab notes (there is an opinion published on Nature talking about electronic lab note: Nature 2005, 436, 20-21. DOI: 10.1038/436020a“).
Share of inspiration I always miss the good old nineteenth century when scientists write private letters to each other to exchange their thoughts, besides results. That century has given birth to many fundamental scientific classics. When science gradually became something basic and normal to the modern society, we don’t have this old culture anymore, and inspiration of new ideas became a mysterious treasure beneath the ocean of journal papers (and shouting ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ out loud seems doesn’t work).
Although we don’t see any examples now, blogs can be of some help to remedy these missing factors in the future. Its unformatted nature provides a free platform for chatting on chemistry, where the the non-rational factors contributing to scientific research can be shared, and the dimension of scientific communication broadened. This may have some positive impact on the development of science.
The number of blogging graduate students is growing rapidly. One day when they enter their science career some of them may abandon this time-consuming habit, while some will try to continue, and find a way to incorporate blogging with their research life. Maybe we don’t need any debate, but cross our arms and watch the transition.