A New Science Blogging Collective

Caption: The Albert Einstein Memorial, erected by the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, DC.

Image credit: wallyg/Flickr


As any of you who also read Pharyngula probably already know, a new scientific blogging collective, Scientopia, has been formed to promote science blogging. It includes a number of former Scienceblogs denizens, including:

• Thus Spake Zuska


• White Coat Underground


• This Scientific Life

There are several blogs there that I hadn't heard of before, and I'm sure at least some of them came from Scienceblogs, too.

Its purpose, as stated on its "Our Vision" page:

Scientopia is a collective of people who write about science because they love to do so. It is a community, held together by mutual respect and operated by consensus, in which people can write, educate, discuss, and learn about science and the process of doing science. In this we explore the interplay between scientific issues and other parts of our lives with the shared goal of making science more accessible.

As a community, we strive to be welcoming of anyone with an interest in science and its place in our world, regardless of any feature, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, which may act or have historically acted as a barrier to full participation in science or discourses about science.

The Scientopia Vision

Internet-savvy readers will note that it has a .org address, which is the domain for non-profit organizations. Let's hope that makes the likelihood of selling blogs the way Scienceblogs tried to sell a blog to Pepsico a non-starter. In any case, it will make the collective easier to keep running, since they won't need either profit or an overpaid, egomaniacal CEO to manage it.

PalMD of White Coat Underground, a former Scienceblogs blogger, filled in a little more of the history in his introductory post at Scientopia:

Many of us in the online science writing community know each other, or are at least familiar with each other’s work. Through these networks, several of us came together to form a new online science writing community run by and for writers and readers. We are not a monolithic group, as you can see if you browse though who’s here, and many of us may disagree on some pretty fundamental issues. But we have used our commonalities and differences to put together this new community with a great deal of thought and effort, and hopefully success.

Another introduction to White Coat Underground

I wish them luck. One thing the recent Scienceblogs fiasco made clear is that there aren't enough of this sort of collective.