My colleague Jacob T. Levy also decided to start blogging this week, and has an extended riff on how/if scholarship and blogging could be compliments. He pointed out the same advantages of the Blogosphere that I just did. Advantage: Levy!

Levy also has a concern -- that the blogosphere will eventually devolve into the sort of uninformed discourse that Richard Posner claims is increasingly common among public intellectuals. He might be right, but to be blunt, there's uninformed discourse in professional outlets as well, at least in the social sciences. Look at this piece on why political scientists aren't public intellectuals. The author claims that other social scientists are more likely to be public intellectuals, but a quick perusal of Posner's "Top 100" reveals that there are approximately as many political science Ph.D.s as other social science disciplines. The notable finding is the number of lawyers. The point is, the author's primary assertion is made without credible evidence to support his claim; despite this, the essay got published in a refereed journal.