In trying to navigate the new ethical territory of blogging, I’ve decided to delete part of one of my posts. The full explanation is below.

Last week the story about the Turkish “quadruped” family was in circulation. I pointed to an article in which a Turkish scientist made an accusation of unethical payments against English scientists and a television company. When one of the English scientists, Nicholas Humphrey, complained in the comments that I was spreading “empty gossip,” I updated the post with a partial retraction, apologizing for not following up on the accusation. However, I rebuted the claim that I was passing on empty gossip, and I raised some additional questions about the ethics of the undertaking. Dr. Humphrey