Denyse O’Leary told me about this yesterday (and noted that “the publication is not called Academic Science, it is called Popular Science. That, presumably, means dealing with the public (republic?) of regular readers …”)
Ed Driscoll writes:
Popular Science (…) has shut off its comment system. Having comments on a Website is a personal (or in this case management) choice; but in shutting their previously-enabled comments off, Popular Science wants to return to when publishing for them was a one-way street, even at the risk of making both halves of their imprimatur rather paradoxical sounding. (…)
On the other hand, have some pity on the staff and management of Popular Science. It can’t be easy getting to sleep every night, knowing in your heart of hearts, that they world is rapidly coming to an end. And what do you tell your kids about their own rapidly diminishing future? But if the magazine’s brass truly believed their own rhetoric and wasn’t just using it as a tool to play politics and punish the heathens, Popular Science wouldn’t just shut down their comment section, they’d shut down their entire Website.
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Of course, I don’t allow comments either and never will.
