> I don't believe that for a minute.
> Real scientists expect to be challenged at every turn
Sure, but the minimum price of admission is an advanced degree in an
appropriate field, and the appropriate place for such challenges is in the
refereed journals, or in quiet face-to-face conversation.
So, Christina's absolutely right.
Many institutions, both schools and companies, have policies that prohibit
R&D employees from posting on internet forums. This started almost the
moment that AOL provided access to USENET to the general public back in Sept
1993. (That date is still called "the Endless September" or "the September
that never ended". You can read about it... on the internet.)
Back then, the fastest link speed anyone had at home was 14.4kbps, but the
exodus from public online discussions started, and people started
cultivating informal lists of addresses and even reviving the old BBS system
software of the early 1980s. These days, small groups use Google Groups
circles, and long "cc" and "bcc" lists. Invitation only. I am a member of
two different physics "pre-print discussion lists", and those messages are
signed with PGP keys and encrypted with PGP encryption. Often, preprints
can have big-money implications.
But even if no money is at issue, if you think it through, any internet
forum can be a hazard to one's career.
First, there are PR people who want to review ever word, and do not like
anyone except them acting as a "voice" for the institution. Everyone else
is effectively muzzled.
Second, online forums set up the employee for the sort of no-win situation I
see here on a regular basis - arguments and statements that evince a lack of
comprehension of wide swaths of various sciences, but are difficult to
address without taking significant time to educate. Then there is the
problem of trying to educate someone who is arguing without seeming
condescending. Difficult. There is even the occasional personal taunts
from a few beekeepers who apparently feel that "discussion" is a scored
event.
We even recently had a first-time use of the word "asinine". In all the
years Bee-L has been around, no one ever needed to resort to such language
before. Not exactly the sort of environment where people who want to keep a
career intact would want to be seen.
So, when someone in an R&D position posts here, it is to announce something
that has been pre-approved, or it is to correct only the most egregious
misstatements with a carefully worded correction. Most recently, we had a
missive from Baton Rouge of this sort.
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