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Post by marchesarosa on Jan 28, 2011 0:40:59 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Jan 28, 2011 0:46:53 GMT 1
ZT said
"The MPs may want to speak to peer review definition expert, Phil "keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is" Jones. And perhaps an examination of pal review and its relationship to peer review would also be fruitful."
Remember that email? One of the "Climategate" leaked emails. Someone seems to have been taking notice of them. Probably Graham Stringer MP.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 5, 2011 15:03:05 GMT 1
Carl Phillips an epidemiologist states
Do the reviewers ever correct errors in the data or data collection? They cannot – they never even see the data or learn what the data collection methods were. Do they correct errors in calculation or choices of statistical analysis? They cannot. They never even know what calculations were done or what statistics were considered. Think about what you read when you see the final published paper. That is all the reviewers and editors ever see too. (Note I have always tried to go the extra mile when submitting papers, to make this system work by posting the data somewhere and offering to show someone the details of any analytic method that is not fully explained. This behavior is rare to the point that I cannot name anyone else, offhand, who does it.)
Does this mean that if you just make up the data, peer review will almost certainly fail to detect the subterfuge? Correct.
Does this mean that if you cherrypick your statistical analyses to exaggerate your results, that peer review will not be able to detect it? Correct.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 5, 2011 15:11:12 GMT 1
End of the peer revue: has the peer review process lost credibility? (Geddit?) Sunday 31 October, 3.44pm until 5.14pm, Lecture Theatre 1 Battle over Scientific Evidence from the Institute of Ideas Peer review, the system whereby scientific and scholarly work is subjected to the scrutiny of other experts in the field, has long been cherished as a guarantor of academic rigour. But today it appears to be in something of a crisis. Recent controversies have included the retraction (12 years after publication) of Andrew Wakefield’s peer-reviewed paper suggesting a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, the ‘Climategate’ scandal involving emails between climate researchers appearing to manipulate peer review to their advantage, the assertion by eminent stem cell biologists that a clique of reviewers has been blocking the publication of quality research, the ‘Glaciergate’ incident in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was taken to task for predicating its assertions on non-peer-reviewed ‘grey literature’, and the acceptance of a hoax paper from the ‘Centre for Research in Applied Phrenology’ (CRAP) in the peer-reviewed ‘Open Information Science Journal’. Obviously peer review has never been infallible, but it has been trusted as the best mechanism for maintaining impartiality in research. This is now challenged. Some critics have argued peer review is merely a socially-constructed smokescreen for objectifying science, a cover for commercial and ideological interests. Others complain that while peer reviewing must depend on the collaboration of a community of experts in a given field who are committed to impartiality, inevitably subjective criteria enter the process and distort what passes for peer-reviewed science: Phil Jones, the central figure in the Climategate scandal, promised to keep two research papers out of the IPCC report. ‘I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is’. With the best will in the world the individuals who constitute a ‘community of experts’ are often asked to review and referee their friends, competitors, sometimes even their rivals. Some critics argue that one of the most disturbing threats to the integrity of the peer-review system has been the growing influence of advocacy science and the implicit pressures to provide evidence to fit in with policy objectives. In numerous areas, whether concerning climate or drugs, research has become a ‘cause’, increasingly both politicised and moralised. Conversely, the same trends have turned peer review into a ‘last word’ source of authority, silencing contestation not only over scientific facts, but over what are in fact political disputes. From this perspective, voices which lack the authority of peer review are, by definition, illegitimate. Politicians frequently wave peer-review at those who challenge their evidence-based policies on everything from behavioural economics to our individual lifestyles. www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2010/session_detail/4088/Does peer review need to be amended, or should we adjust our expectations of what peer review can achieve? Can we uphold peer review without creating the impression that if something is published in a peer-reviewed paper this automatically makes it ‘true’? Is the ideal of a pursuit of truth, free from vested interests, realisable or even desirable? Listen to session audio at the link above.
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Post by carnyx on Feb 5, 2011 20:26:59 GMT 1
'"What is truth" said Pilate, and would not stay for an answer' ....
ByeBye, Enlightement ... Hello, MediaEvil Era?
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Post by helen on Feb 6, 2011 11:46:30 GMT 1
The thing is Marchesarosa, nothing is perfect and folk are fallible that's the nature of science, so you pick on the handfulls of mistakes and misjudgemen's out of thousands. I'm sure that the authors would be happy to correct any errors, unlike 'pal reviewd' papers where it seems to me that the authors rarely qualify their errors. You remind me of Hamlet's mother Gertrude: The antithesis of her son. Hamlet is a scholar and a philosopher, searching for life's most elusive answers. He cares nothing for this "mortal coil" and the vices to which man has become slave. Gertrude is shallow and on and on anon.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 6, 2011 18:39:13 GMT 1
Still on the knock, knock, knock, helen?
Keep on in this vein and you'll be suspended. Again.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 6, 2011 19:14:33 GMT 1
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Post by helen on Feb 6, 2011 19:55:03 GMT 1
Oh for heavens sake, 'scientific papers must include a description of the procedures used to produce the data, sufficient to permit reviewers and readers of a scientific paper to evaluate not only the validity of the data but also the reliability of the methods used to derive those data.' Correct. That is the nature of peer reviewed papers. My point is that occasionally folk fall foul, make mistakes but these errors are picked by others and acknowledged by the original writer. This doesn't happen in the blogosphere where people claim the sun is made of iron and there is no ozone in the atmosphere and other unquantifiable nonsense. Who do you trust?
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Post by abacus9900 on Feb 6, 2011 21:51:02 GMT 1
The only tried and tested way is by peer reviewed methods and I'm sorry if that upsets some here but science has to attain a consensus at some point. That is just reality. Without undergoing this process any crank can push their personal pet theories (and, BTW, make money in the process). Pity marchesarosa cannot see this.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 7, 2011 10:02:49 GMT 1
I don't object to the ideals and values of peer review. They are STILL being flouted by the upholders of orthodox climate science.
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Post by helen on Feb 7, 2011 13:14:13 GMT 1
This is not the case marchesarosa, where? Come on give us readers some evidence of peer review being 'flouted' by the upholders of orthodoxy. I can cite a hundreds, literally, hundreds of articles of nonsense anti-science rubbish in the blogosphere. Cite some examples of peer reviewed nonsense.
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Post by louise on Feb 7, 2011 13:20:21 GMT 1
I believe that the papers that 'the team' hoped to keep out of the IPCC reports were actually included in those reports.
That there was a desire to supress papers that were considered (by some) to be poor science is undebatable. That those same papers were indeed published shows that the desire was not enough to overturn the peer review process.
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Post by marchesarosa on Feb 7, 2011 14:49:33 GMT 1
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Post by louise on Feb 7, 2011 14:54:11 GMT 1
Marchesarosa, as your link shows, it is true that most nonsense science will not get through to be published in most peer reviewed journals.
This is an example of the value of peer review.
There are some journals who do allow nonsense science to be published and try to claim that they are also peer reviewed (e.g. Energy & Environment), but their own published biased ensures that these are taken with a pinch of salt.
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