Good in Blog #2 – Homoblogous Logs – A Meta-tastic Look at a Student’s Skeptical Blogging

Meta, meta on the wall, who is the fairest skeptical blogger of them all? Clearly not me (unless you’re referring to skin and hair colour, in which case I might have a chance), but I’m still going to talk about myself like I’m somehow important.

In this post I’ll be taking a look at why I set up a blog, how I chose the name “Homologous Legs”, why I think blogging is important in the skeptical movement, and what I think bloggers should aim to do in order to become better. Hopefully I have some insights that might be helpful for people thinking of starting a skeptical blog of their own, especially if they’re students. The Internet needs more serious student bloggers! Get to it, peer group!

Why did I create Homologous Legs, and what has it become?

This blog came into existence in April of 2008, two years ago this month. After making videos debunking the claims of various creationists on YouTube, I decided to set up a blog after thinking… well, in the beginning, this is what I thought:

This blog is primarily for me to share information about the state of creationism vs. evolution on YouTube, plus any biological awesomeness I come across whilst reading science journals…

If you’ve read the blog at all before, you’d know that the focus of Homologous Legs has changed over the years. I drifted from YouTube after I found myself lacking in motivation to make more videos, as well as realising that it was a pointless exercise in many respects – the only people who watch your videos are either people who strongly disagree or wholeheartedly agree with you, there is no middle ground of people wanting to get the facts and make up their own mind about either side. Because of this, there wass basically no point to what I was doing – I wasn’t educating anyone.

Slowly, I came to the conclusion that you should only blog if there is a message that you want to get out. For me, and for a lot of skeptical bloggers, this message is about critical thinking and helping people who might buy into a claim for which there is no evidence, but supplying them with the tools in order for them to dig themselves out of the hole they’ve found themselves in. Of course, my message has a twist on it that many skeptical bloggers’ doesn’t – I primarily talk about evolutionary biology, creationism and intelligent design on Homologous Legs, so I’m more focused on countering the public’s ignorance of evolution and the active attempts made by others to keep that ignorance persisting.

I started off trying to get this message out by attacking and refuting the claims made by a few of the largest creationist organisations on Internet, such Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research and Creation Ministries International, but it slowly became apparent that this wasn’t a great strategy – the people who visit such websites already have a substantial religious faith that supports their creationist views, and the only way to get them to see reason about topics such as evolution is to weaken or remove that faith completely. Such a task is, well, not one I wanted to get bogged down in, as you almost have to engage people on a one-to-one basis in order to truly deal with their personal misconceptions about the science. Since religious belief, overall, is not a cohesive system of beliefs, you can’t lump all of its believers into one camp and treat them the same way. Blogging is not the best way to communicate effectively to these people.

So, if creationists couldn’t be reached, then who could? Luckily (or unluckily, as many might put it), at the time of my realisation the intelligent design movement was increasing its web presence – setting up blogs and new projects galore, all with the intent of showing what a corrupt and shaky science evolutionary biology was. This intrigued me – here were people that clearly didn’t accept evolution, yet were trying to go about things in a scientific way, at least on the surface. Could this be an opportunity to set some facts straight that would be worth my time?

The intelligent design movement is fundamentally different to the creationist movement in a few ways. One way, which I have already mentioned, is that they try to make their objections to evolutionary theory seem to be based on science rather than a strong religious faith, and another important distinction is that, because the movement was spawned out of the need for anti-evolutionary ideas to appear less unconstitutional in the US (in order to get it taught in public high schools and universities), they try to distance themselves from appearing to be religious in their general nature. What this means is that you can engage the arguments of intelligent design proponents on a purely scientific (and sometimes philosophical) level, and religion is never mentioned.

Thus, when a member of the general public is drawn into thinking that arguments for intelligent design have merit, they feel that they are based on science, making the job of a real science educator much easier in brushing away the misinformation and inserting the correct facts – they don’t have to stray into the territory of religion at all, and the layperson can keep their religious faith (which they might be a little less than forthcoming when it comes to abandoning).

Because of this, I found myself looking more and more at the claims made by intelligent design proponents, particularly the claims made by the Discovery Institute, which is pretty much the largest intelligent design think-tank around today. It dawned on me that people actually take these people seriously, and the skeptical and scientific communities need more people actively trying to place counter-arguments out there for interested members of the public to find. So, that’s what I did, and I still do.

At the moment, I see the focus of Homologous Legs to be countering the misinformation the Discovery Institute puts out in relation to evolutionary biology, while also entertaining regular readers with less-than-topical posts and links to things that are more interesting and funnier than myself – because nothing’s better than a good skeptical webcomic. Ideally, of course, the ultimate medium-term goal for the blog is to have it somehow acknowledged by the Discovery Institute, which would push my writing directly into the hands of their readers (either regular or transitory), some of whose minds I may just change. Maybe, just maybe.

Why did I choose the name “Homologous Legs”?

Hehe. Yesss, so… It’s my firm belief that blogs should have titles that are somewhat familiar and not threatening to new readers, yet understandable on a deeper level to more regular readers and people who have a little bit of expertise in the field which the blog talks about. They’re not in-jokes as such, just titles that will amuse the people who you want to keep as regular readers.

“Homologous Legs: The Evidence for a Common Ancestor Between Tables and Chairs” is the full name of this blog, and to a person who knows nothing about evolutionary biology it might seem interesting, a little cute, but they won’t really understand it completely. However, to a person who knows about the idea of homology of structure, whereby a certain morphological trait has been conserved among multiple organisms over the evolutionary process, pointing clearly to a shared common ancestry, the name takes on more meaning.

In sense, the title is making fun of intelligent design proponents and creationists who try to apply the design of human-built objects to living things, by applying evolutionary phylogeny to objects that we know are designed (tables and chairs). It’s irony, people, IRONY. I’m such a hipster, shoot me now.

Why is blogging important?

Blogging, like many communicative media, is very important. Why? Well, people read blogs, that’s a fact. If you put information out there, in the form of something that people are comfortable with reading, they’re more likely to read it than if you package it in a form that nobody has ever dealt with. Skeptical blogging, in particular, is very information-dense, usually, and writing is a good way to get that information down in an efficient way. But what’s the difference between writing a book on a topic and writing a blog on a topic? Since they’re both writing, they’re the same, right?

Blogging is unique in that it has all the advantages of written media (the ability to be entertaining, yet information-packed, and you can easily cite sources), plus the advantages of Internet media (the content is free, very easily shared and linked between people, and cross-referencing and recommending other sources of information is as simple as it can get). It costs nearly nothing to start up, you don’t have to impress someone else in order to get your message out there, and if other people like your content they will link to you and your profile can raised easily and nearly instantaneously. Compared with physical books, blogging wins out in a lot of areas.

Of course, books still have that sort of prestige about them that the general public takes to mean that they hold more intellectual weight, but the tide is turning, and due to the ease of access most people have to the Internet, blogs are growing in influence rapidly, and will soon become a major source of information to rival both books and other print media.

Sure, I’ve made my point about why blogging itself is a good medium with which to exchange information, but is blogging really important for people in the skeptical movement to do? Why would we want people blogging?

Simply put, the other side we fight against – woo-sellers, paranormal believers, conspiracy theorists, religious oppressors and anti-evolution crusaders – also blog. They have an enormous web presence, and claims that they make can go unchallenged quite easily. Having a large net of skeptical bloggers puts criticisms of their ideas up online so that reason can at least be found somewhere.

Blogging also fosters communities and creates networks, allowing for information that one skeptic comes across to be quickly and easily transferred across the network, maximising its impact and audience – it’s a powerful tool that skeptics can use to make a real difference.

How do you become a good blogger, and what are important things that every blogger should consider?

There is no real formula for being a great blogger, and even if there was, I clearly don’t know or apply it, judging by the traffic my own writing gets. However, there are important guidelines that should skeptics should follow if they want to start blogging, or start thinking about how they can improve their own blogging. Here’s what I think:

• Choose your focus and know your goals. Knowing what you want to achieve with your blogging is very important, as it lets you tailor your writing to a particular audience. Do I want to write for children? Scientists? Laypeople? Educated laypeople? In what field? What about? What will I need to do to communicate my message? All of these questions cannot be answered without knowing an overall goal.
• Pick your fights. Skeptics love confrontation, but it’s easy to get bogged down in a one-on-one debate with someone who nobody cares about. If you want to change minds about a skeptical topic, you need to challenge idols and ideas that people respect. Don’t waste your precious time on ventures that will give nothing back.
• Promote yourself, but don’t depend on the recognition of popular people. Being linked to by a large and popular blog is always great, but in my and many other bloggers’ experiences, the huge boosts in traffic only last a few days (a week at most) - the readers that the linking sends to your blog don’t stay around as regulars. There’s no real way to combat this, but a good thing to do is try not to rely on getting linked to by someone like PZ Myers or Phil Plait – build up a loyal readership slowly by writing good things (I make it sound so simple!).
• Support other blogs and bloggers. This is related to the above point – you can increase your readership and general skeptical influence (and hence your prospective audience made up of the public) if you make friends with other bloggers and connect to an existing network. Plus, it grows your readership’s knowledge of skeptical topics and makes them more informed in general – something that should be a main goal of skeptical blogging in the first place.

• Try not to be rude. The general public doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with you, and if you want to convince them that a certain idea or notion needs to be taken with a grain of salt, or that there is little evidence to support a claim, you need to be respectful, in the sense that you shouldn’t call people names just for the sake of calling them names. It may feel good and you may get those feelings mirrored by your regular skeptical commenters, but new readers and readers who are on the fence about the topic won’t appreciate it – at all.
• Don’t give your opponents easy targets. Again, this is related to the above point – being rude makes it easy for bloggers who oppose your views to latch onto that part of your criticism and use emotional arguments to make you seem bad. This puts the general public off, and they won’t take you seriously – not a great idea if you’re trying to educate. Also remember to check your facts, cite sources, make your writing as watertight as you can. Leaving holes in arguments and lines of thinking allows opponents to base their arguments on those flaws alone, forgetting the relevant and legitimate criticism – and the public will see this as acceptable. Be careful.
• Choose a distinctive writing style. Some people don’t think about how they write – they just do it and it comes out like it comes out. Others have to think about what they want to say and carefully construct a style of writing. Make sure, if you’re in the latter group, that you make your style unique, yet not challenging for the general public – it’ll cement your particular blogging “image”. The particular style you choose will tie back to your goals and target blogging audience – and you need to experiment to find the style that’s right for you.

And that’s it! I know I may have sounded like an arrogant know-it-all, but that’s what happens when you write meta-posts – your true nature is revealed, maybe. Perhaps.

Make sure to check out all the other posts about being Good in Blog through the SheThought website – they probably have better ideas than me. After all, they seem to have found their own target audiences quite well… Hey – I’m working on it, okay? What are you if you don’t follow your own advice?

Homologous Legs is the blog of Naon Tiotami (aka. Jack Scanlan), an Australian undergraduate biology student who has a serious problem with creationists and intelligent-design proponents.

There you can find rebuttals to articles found on various high-profile creationist and intelligent-design websites, news about the creation/evolution “war”, and mostly coherent thoughts from an 18 year-old music-loving student.