Do comments on web pages ruin science?

GregLaden writes: Last week Popular Science shut down comments on their web pages citing the damage being done to the public perception of science as their reason. Earlier research suggested that this might be a good idea because trollish negative comments can color the perception by readers of a news story. However, some have taken Popular Science’s move to be anti science, implying that science itself is positively affected by web and blog comments, as though these comments contributed to the science being done itself. Here, I take exception to this and suggest that while comments are important in relation to the public perception of science (which itself is important) blog and web commentary never, or only rarely, influences the process of scientific inquiry itself.