This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| Stoat (blog) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Stoat |
| Type | Blog |
| Language | English |
| Current status | Active |
Stoat (blog) is a scholarly-oriented weblog noted for commentary on evolutionary biology, statistics, philosophy of science, and related debates. It has been a platform for critique and discussion engaging readers in fields linked to Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Ronald Fisher, Thomas Kuhn, and contemporary figures in the life sciences. Contributors have crossed into discourse involving institutions such as University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University.
Stoat emerged during the proliferation of weblogs alongside platforms like Blogger (service), LiveJournal, WordPress, and TypePad in the early 2000s. Its timeline intersects with milestones such as the publication of The Selfish Gene editions, debates around SARS research, and controversies involving Intelligent design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case. The blog's development paralleled online communities around ResearchBlogging.org, commentary in Nature (journal), and columns in The Guardian and The New York Times on scientific controversies. Over time, Stoat engaged with episodes tied to figures like Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Jerry Coyne, and institutions including the Royal Society and National Academy of Sciences.
Articles and posts frequently analyze studies published in outlets such as Nature (journal), Science (journal), PNAS, The Lancet, BMJ, and Cell (journal). Themes include scrutiny of statistical methods rooted in work by Fisher's exact test, debates invoking Bayes' theorem, critiques referencing p-value usage, and methodological concerns linked to replication crisis discussions. The blog addresses controversies in fields affected by papers from research groups at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Max Planck Society, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Broad Institute, and Sanger Institute. Posts often comment on sociobiology topics tracing to Hamilton's rule, Trivers–Willard hypothesis, and debates involving group selection and kin selection as discussed by scholars at Princeton University, Stanford University, and University of California, Berkeley.
Stoat has been cited or discussed in forums spanning Reddit (website), Hacker News, and scholarly commentaries in BioRxiv preprints and peer-reviewed retrospectives. Journalists from The Telegraph, The Atlantic, Slate (magazine), and The New Yorker have referenced debates animated on the blog. Its influence extends to academic seminars at Columbia University, Yale University, and policy discussions touching institutions like the Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and regulatory agencies including National Institutes of Health and European Research Council. The blog's critiques have shaped conversations intersecting with awards and recognitions associated with the Nobel Prize, Darwin Medal, and fellowships from the Royal Society.
Contributors have included academics, postdoctoral researchers, and commentators affiliated with universities such as University College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Chicago, McGill University, and University of Toronto. Guest posts and exchanges have involved names associated with departments at California Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, and Duke University. The authorship pattern resembles interdisciplinary collaborations seen in projects at Salk Institute, Scripps Research, and networks linked to societies like the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The blog has been central to disputes involving interpretations of data from high-profile studies by groups at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and consortia behind projects like the Human Genome Project. Critics from outlets and figures associated with The Times (London), National Review, and commentators connected to Discovery Institute have challenged the blog's tone and positions. Debates have echoed larger disputes such as those seen in the Pace of science discussions, methodological fights paralleling controversies around STAP cells and the Reproducibility Project.
Stoat has been hosted on common blog infrastructure used by academic bloggers, leveraging tools related to HTML5, CSS, and content management systems like WordPress or static site generators comparable to Jekyll (software). It interacts with social media services including Twitter, Mastodon (service), Facebook, and integrates with academic discovery services like Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. Archival interest connects the blog to preservation initiatives similar to Internet Archive and citation practices used in CrossRef indexing.
Category:Blogs Category:Science blogs