I don't know much about the editor they've hired, former CBS.com health editor David Freeman, but color me cautiously optimistic. Will this move clean up the HuffPo's notoriously woo-filled science coverage? Cross fingers.

  • http://profiles.google.com/adamsonster Mike Adamson

    “woo-filled”…as in pitching woo?

  • http://ryandavidjahn.com Ryan David Jahn

    HuffPo could hardly get worse on science, so almost any step would have to be a step in the right direction, but this piece Freeman wrote for Men’s Health — the first piece of his writing I found — doesn’t exactly fill me with hope: http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/cancer_fighting_foods/printer.php

    • Lobster

      Oh FFS…

    • Antinous / Moderator

      HuffPo could hardly get worse on science…

      Is that a dare?

      • http://stephenrice.eu Stephen Rice

        Challenge accepted

  • http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

    I don’t really follow HuffPost…what would be considered “woo” science?

    • Mujokan
    • Lobster

      Woo is superstition presented as science, usually with a healthy dose of conspiracy theory to explain why mainstream science labels it superstition.

      • Guest

        Totally. Science diluted by superstition.

        • http://stephenrice.eu Stephen Rice

          Lobster has it the right way around. It’s not science that’s been “diluted”, it’s just crazy made up stuff that may or may not borrow from science to make itself look more plausible (eg. “crystals can heal you because of quantum energy fields” sounds more workable to modern listeners than “magic rocks”).

      • digi_owl

        So in essence, intelligent design.

  • http://twitter.com/DustinInTN Dustin Parsons

    What is a “Huffington Post” anyway? It sounds more like an architectural element than a news source. Huffpo is more like a megablog than an actual news source, and until now the accuracy of their science reporting has been abysmal. I hope this hiring will help rather than just lending credibility.

  • lafave

    I judge people who get their news from HuffPo

    • niktemadur

      Maybe the same people who get their history from the History Channel.

      A shame, really, because the Huffington Post could have been so much more, at the beginning I thought it would be an anti-Drudge Report, instead it’s just a mirror image, give or take.

  • Lobster

    It’ll either clean up their woo, or codify it.

  • phil koltko

    Judging by HuffPo’s other forays, it’ll be a combination of woo, press releases and real tidbits that BoingBoing linked to days before…

  • oldtaku

    First up, the science of why homeopathy works! It’s all the quantums resonating in the crystal energy fields imprinting on the water’s ethical compass. I just vomited that out off the top of my head, but Poe’s Law applies here.
     

    • http://stephenrice.eu Stephen Rice

      If that’s off the top of your head that must be because the water in your brain remembered how homeopathy works.

  • greebo
    • Antinous / Moderator

      I e-mailed this to Maggie last night with the subject line God have mercy.

  • travtastic

    I’ll finally be able to publish my thesis on the connection between vaccines and brain worms. I bet they won’t pay me either!