I worry a bit more about the mob element and also the selectivity of the community. Much negative response and little positive. The temptation to create a twitter storm to push a point without requiring much thought or even evidence will be great. In public life, as in science, we need to develop a much greater evidence culture. - Cameron Neylon

Interesting article. Perhaps there is an element of society that hasn't been engaged in this sort of discussion before. I am of a generation that rarely (very very rarely) reads a newspaper and my news comes from the bbc website or twitter these days. Perhaps we have actually reached the stage of twitter as the citizen journalist? Will it be any better than the traditional media reporting methods? I know I check my facts before using RT, but I have to rely on my community and their integrity too. How far can than trust go? - Jo Badge

This was a very interesting read -- ambiently-produced knowledge; ambiently-directed action. I find myself with the same sense of cautious optimism that Curry mentions by the end of the post. - Mickey Schafer

Thanks for the comments folks. I do share your concerns Cameron. There was a more negative take on this in The Independent today: http://www.independent.co.uk/news.... I agreed with some of Glover's points - Twitter is more amenable to blind repetition than reasoned debate - but not with others. I was mainly trying to give a personal take. I have found the last two weeks extraordinarily interesting as a result of engagement in a number of different topics. Whatever else, it is making me more outward looking as a scientist and citizen. - Stephen Curry

Clay Shirky had a good piece on a bad twitterstorm - http://www.shirky.com/weblog... - Anders Norgaard

Stephen - agreed. I just meant to say that I got the impression that my sense was a little more towards the negative than yours seemed. Still very many strong positives here. We certainly live in interesting times...but then perhaps everyone does :-) - Cameron Neylon

No, no - I'm pretty sure the Dark Ages were a crashing bore. *Much* more interesting nowdays! Then again isn't "may you live in interesting times" a Chinese curse!? - Stephen Curry