Blogs help police and expose false studies with which interest groups and partisans may attempt to counter the empirical work that undermines the factual bases of their positions. Academic experts regularly write for blogs and, unlike reporters, are well suited to subject empirical work to searching scrutiny. Recently, for instance, a group of prominent legal scholars has begun a blog wholly devoted to law and empiricism. Such developments will also force empiricists to be more careful and transparent about the discretionary decisions they make, such as their choices of time periods to include in their investigations, because their colleagues will be able to call them to account for misjudgment or bias more easily.


...Another policy imperative for advancing empiricism is to sustain the free flow of information that conveys research in useable form to the public. It goes without saying that any regulation of the blogs should be rejected. Unfortunately, some are already suggesting that blog postings should be considered in some circumstances a contribution to candidates and subject to regulation under the McCain-Feingold act. But it is precisely near elections that those with empirical data and expertise are most needed to critique the policies and platforms of candidates.