On comments

Comments can be bad for science. . . . . . . even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests. . . . . . commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch. Even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story. A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically...