Deniers Hack Feed of "Science Writing in Age of Denial" Conference

A star-studded cast of experts spent two days discussing "Science Writing in the Age of Denial" at the University of Wisconsin April 23-24. Most who attended praised it. Unable to argue the science, science deniers advanced their arguments by trying to silence the conference Twitterfeed with a denial-of-service attack, according to the Knight Science Journalism Tracker.

"This Tracker is taking the week off for meetings and business, but must pause to give a shout out to the superlative, star-laced 'Science Writing in the Age of Denial' program that the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s crew of science writing department and communication specialists put on today, continuing with workshops tomorrow.

It even got a full-on flame blogpost from the contrarian and angry side of the room. So it’s not just the expected group that paid attention to its existence. Tweets, at last report using the tag #denialconf, even got stalled for awhile by a denial-of-service hack attack.

I have to bail out from the second day of workshops tomorrow, but the first day of plenary talks and followup panel discussions was terrific (lineups in the program, along with credits to those who put the meeting together, are in the first link up there). Video crews followed every moment. UWisconsin public affairs man who spearheaded the organization of the meeting, Terry Devitt, expects that the videos will be post in six weeks or so."

Charlie Pettit reports for Knight Science Journalism Tracker April 24, 2012.

SEE ALSO:

"Science Writing in the Age of Denial" conference site

The Twitterstreams from this conference can be followed using @sciencedenial , #denialconf , and #sciencedenial

Storify of part of conference by Kate Prengaman

"‘Science writers’ deny denial or affirm it or maybe they don’t know what they are talking about" (Junkscience.com)