1/ Some reflections on scientific Twitter sociology

I hadn't used Twitter much before the pandemic. I was used to the politics of peer-review, grants, large studies etc. But scientific Twitter can be the Wild West by comparison.

2/ First of all say that 95% of the scientists in Twitter are great. This is one of the 2 main reasons I use twitter, that I can e.g. ask questions from experts in other fields and they'll reply etc.

(The other reason is the ability to provide info to the population directly)

3/ But there are some more nefarious behaviors out there.

The simpler one is the scientist that resorts to personal "ad hominem" attacks ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ), as in politics: to combat a scientific argument, discredit the person.

I just ignore and block those folks.

4/ The trickier one are groups of scientists that when confronted with an argument they don't have a real answer to, when I press for an answer for the argument, they say that it is a personal attack from me.

5/ In some cases they play the victim. After they denounce the (non-existent) personal attack from me, they continue with "you are a senior researcher attacking poor me junior / female / etc. researcher"

In a public forum like Twitter this can be very hard to counter.

6/ And they often work in groups.

Once this dynamic is established, quickly other scientists show up in the conversation quickly, and join in denouncing the (non-existent) personal attack, trying to discredit me ("you don't know anything about X") instead of engaging argument.

7/ And you see this over and over. The same groups of scientists using the same sneaking tactics to avoid having to debate arguments.

It took me quite a while to understand this pattern. I write this so that others perhaps can learn to recognize it faster.

8/ I ask all scientists to focus and engage on the arguments. What is the evidence for and against a given hypothesis? That's where Twitter convos can be extraordinary, enabling sorely-needed connections between fields , and that are far slower through journals and conferences.

9/ I look forward to continuing to talk with the large majority of scientists in Twitter who do so honestly and candidly.

And I hope this may help a few people in identifying the more negative tactics.

10/ One other feature of the "group attack", is that often they seem to call in to colleagues who may be unaware of the tactics.

So new scientists barge in, who have been told "so and so are personally attacking me" and they join the fray. Having been manipulated into doing so.

11/ This latter tactic is particularly harmful, because it starts to create a perception on Field X that "Field Y is attacking the younger members of Field X, thus the scientists from Field Y are a******s"

Which creates barriers to collab. btw fields, precisely when most needed!

12/ Some replies say "just block those scientists." Unfortunately, not that easy. Some of these folks are well-known, are routinely interviewed by major news media. And they attack many different ppl this way.

If we block, can't counter the misinformation they spread at times.

13/ Apparently this type of tactic has a name, "the moat and the bailey", kind of like an inverse straw man.

Thanks @raj_a_mehta https://twitter.com/raj_mehta/status/1357841209255989248