Comments on: Skeptical blogging

By: It’s the Thought that Counts » Blog Archive » Skeptical blogging brainstorm #1

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:17:48 +0000

[...] said in an earlier post that I planned to do a bit of brainstorming on what we as skeptical and/or atheist bloggers ought [...]

By: miller

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:16:15 +0000

Ha! I feel the same way. I have a hard time writing about “standard” skeptical topics because it’s all been said before. In fact, if it hadn’t been said before, I wouldn’t know anything about it. I feel kind of silly just looking through the Skeptic’s Dictionary and other resources, only to rewrite the information on my blog. I might as well just link to the Skeptic’s Dictionary, since it’s probably better written.

But you can get an audience! My most popular page (more popular than my front page) is a post ridiculing a crackpot physicist. Lots of people–not necessarily skeptics–come in from google. Er, I guess it helps that the crackpot advertises in SciAm and Discover. But still, if you try something much more specific than homeopathy, you might find an audience. These topics are also more interesting to research and write about.

But otherwise, my “skeptical” blogging mainly consists of examining common skeptical themes and ideas (one of which might be education of the public, as you suggest). You know, commentary that might be at least a little controversial amongst a skeptical audience. We don’t always have to talk about stuff we already know and agree upon.

By: Z

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:09:11 +0000

Yeah, I’m not saying your site does this all the time. There’s a lot of good stuff there. I just found that one post a particularly good example of a phenomenon I’ve noticed on many different blogs.

By: Tyler

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:53:50 +0000

Very interesting post. I completely agree with you that we should be brainstorming ways to go about educating the public and not just rambling about irrational things. When creating Edger we had this in mind, and that’s why our site looks so nice…we want it to be appealing. Aside from that homeopathy post, if you read around the site some more, you’ll notice that many of our posts discuss the atheist movement itself and how to go about properly disseminating a skeptical outlook. Refer to these posts:

http://theedger.org/2008/08/22/you-too-may-be-a-technocrat/

http://theedger.org/2008/08/26/artistically-challenged/

http://theedger.org/2008/08/14/feminism/

http://theedger.org/2008/08/23/why-atheism-is-a-rich-man%E2%80%99s-world-and-why-it-doesnt-matter/

Thanks,

Tyler