In this crazy blogosphere, we measure lives by hits and misses, page counts and views, links and Google ranks. So it’s no surprise that outright ridiculous ideas and posts can gain quite a bit of traction.

Take, for example, global warming. If one is skeptical of global warming, then the blogosphere will readily fuel that skepticism — regardless of the merits behind the post.

To his credit, a true satirical master, “Dr. Mark Cox,” “published” a scientific paper on his website (only the Google cache remains). The paper claimed,

We have no choice but to conclude that the recent increase in global temperatures, which has caused so much disquiet among policy makers, bears no relation to industrial emissions, but is in fact a natural phenomenon.

Despite the pseudoscience, pseudonyms, and a pseudo-editorial board, bloggers (and even our good friend Rush Limbaugh) snapped up the story.

Dr. Cox did more that debunk global warming.

He debunked the credibility of so many “citizen journalists” who seek information on their own terms, not relative to what is true. This should definitely serve as a wake-up call to bloggers across the political spectrum. We may be not be constrained by standard journalistic practices, but we can still look quite foolish.