Online comments hurt science understanding, study finds

I've often wondered how most people read comments. There's something funny you see in voting patterns if you make a comment, and then someone replies with refutation, and then the refutation is refuted, and so on.<p>Fist, you see your comment get upvoted. But, if someone replies with a refutation that uses the word because[1], or is otherwise convincing, and calls you an idiot, you'll start to get downvoted (downvotes are rarer if there's no invective). That happens even if the 'refutation' consists purely of blatant logical fallacies. I tend not to reply to those, because it seems like a waste of time, so I'll often get downvoted to or below 0 before someone replies to the reply, at which point my comment score will start climbing upwards again.<p>This is the only site I regularly comment on, because I don't know of any public forum that has a similarly high level of discussion. I'm not sure the level of reading is the same, though. Skimming is dangerous. I do it, too, unfortunately.<p>There's actually been a set of studies that have shown that people are more likely to be convinced by nonsense they've read if they're distracted. The dangerous part here is that once you've been convinced by something, you don't tag that information as being unreliable because you didn't think critically about it when you first saw it. I'll sometimes catch myself, in a friendly debate, repeating something I've read, and then immediately saying "nevermind; that doesn't make any sense", because I'd absorbed the information unconsciously without thinking about it, but the act of saying it reveals that it's not logically sound.<p>[1] <a href="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/01/would-you-give-way-at-photocopier.html" rel="nofollow">http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/01/would-you-gi...</a>

This has nothing to do with comments. The emphasis on comments is little more than an attempt to get on the "social media is harmful" bandwagon.<p>As the principal researcher herself acknowledges:<p>&#62; Brossard admitted she was "bothered" by the study results but not particularly surprised. "In a discussion, when you see people frowning, it influences how you feel about the discussion," she said. "So how does that translate to the online community?"<p>Imagine that you were introduced to a product while visiting a web page that was full of blinking text and full-page Flash ads. Compare that to a product you were introduced to while visiting a clean and well-formatted web page. Which product do you think will leave you with a favorable impression of it? It's a matter of basic human psychology. We respond to the whole experience, not just the propositional content of an article.<p>Rude comments ruin your first impression of a technology. Huh, nothing surprising about it. You could probably achieve the same result by replacing those manufactured comments with super annoying ads, horrible web design, or any of the million other ways in which you can spoil a person's browsing experience. But as it happens, complaining about the harmful effect of pop-up ads on news sites is much less sexy than complaining about the purportedly ill effects of participatory online discussion.

I agree that it depends on the community. It's not science related, but I recently moved to Los Angeles and started using Yelp. The LA Yelp Talk forums are filled with the most horrific comments and interactions I've ever seen. I was so taken aback that I went to my hometown's Yelp Talk to see if all of it was like that, and the difference was night and day. In fact, my hometown's Yelp Talk forum talked about what frightening and unbelievably rude people participated in Yelp Talk LA. This particular community has no sense of netiquette and it is basically a free-for-all. In my experience, it is interesting how this is very indicative of the popular/mainstream culture in Los Angeles, as well.

The comments on the article itself are especially interesting when considered in the context of the article.

Any serious news source should have something like a professional "comment moderator" and division of "top comments" selected by the editor and the general discussion only below. "Crowd wisdom" only works for groups of knowledgeable people that are also skilled in online communication - take HN or SO. <i>It doesn't work with things like science popularization articles because 99% of readers lack not only scientific/technical education (and this is ok, because the articles are written for them to understand) but also basic reasoning skills and common sense factual communication skills</i> (eg. most people are taught to <i>make themselves heard and promote their opinion</i> and not to STFU when they have no idea of the topic). And then you automatically have the ones distorting the facts to promote their interests - and these people are actively drawn to "science for the public" kind of places!

This is what I enjoy about reading HackerNews. The comments are insightful and usually contribute to the discussion, often in a meritorious fashion that spawns interesting conversation. A strong community which makes informed comments clearly can be effective at helping scientific understanding. Good job on everyone here for that.

Gak!<p>Reaching the conclusion that the article-writer wants you to reach should not count as "Science understanding". What should count is a knowledge of math, science foundations and statistics sufficient to critically evaluate articles and comments.<p>Uh, and an article about "nanotechnology"? This is science that barely exists. What is a "balanced" article on this??

&#62; realizing how potent online comments can be in undermining a factual report may help publications to better manage comments on their websites<p>I think this is the wrong thing to take away from this. If you are indeed writing a 'factual report', nothing should be disputable. The problem comes with dumbed-down or poorly written news reports where the 'facts' aren't presented, or are heavily mixed with opinion...<p>The solution is less to 'manage comments' as the article says and more to write better articles, and encourage a good culture of news where readers and commenters are critical and contribute to the conversation (like HN does - sometimes).

I think that's why these guys are trying something different - <a href="http://blog.functionspace.org/news/2013/1/3/making-more-sense-of-online-discussions" rel="nofollow">http://blog.functionspace.org/news/2013/1/3/making-more-sens...</a>

What a strange and strategic conclusion. Obviously it depends on the community.

When I went into the comment section of the article, all I can see is namecalling of liberals, conservatives, scientists and newspaper writers.<p>I am not really sure if the comments are meant as irony or not.<p>My brain is melting.

Isn't science reporting misleading in general? Fact is hiding the actual science behind journal pay walls makes it even worse. Of course if you gather a bunch of people in the room and make an announcement, individuals will be affected by the reaction of the other people in the room. Thus opinion setting agendas become funded.

Total garbage, never heard anything more stupid in my life.<p>&#60;/experiment&#62;