Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Climategate
Furedi writes, inter alia, "The 'Climategate' emails remind us, quite forcefully, of one deeply regrettable development in recent years: the politicisation of the institution of ‘peer review’. The emails reveal scientists having quite cynical and political discussions about whose work should get the peer-review stamp and whose should not".
IMO: I ran a physics journal for 7 years. What Furedi says is only too true but one problem amongst many is that when you try to improve things, strangely it can too easily lead to even worse work reaching print. I don't mean 'controversial' or 'unfortunately incomplete or badly presented', I mean real crap. But things need a lot of improvement. Even attempts like Arxiv have now fallen into the same category as the terribly biased peer-review journals, but only UTAP.
Furedi also says "peer reviewing is often more of a cultural than a scientific accomplishment. Indeed, the way that peer review is now used in public debate as a form of divine revelation – where we are told that ‘the peer-reviewed science’ shows that we must believe and do certain things – indicates how this institution risks being corrupted by advocacy researchers".
IMO: Yes, it is getting that bad. And global warming is very real. The old saying used to be "the meek shall inherit the earth" but today it looks more like "the self-seeking, vociferous and greedy of all persuasions will destroy the earth". In other fields in science than global warming, the truth of this hits me in the face every day.
IMO:Yes, we will very probably all die because of the greed in science and outside of it today.
IMO: I ran a physics journal for 7 years. What Furedi says is only too true but one problem amongst many is that when you try to improve things, strangely it can too easily lead to even worse work reaching print. I don't mean 'controversial' or 'unfortunately incomplete or badly presented', I mean real crap. But things need a lot of improvement. Even attempts like Arxiv have now fallen into the same category as the terribly biased peer-review journals, but only UTAP.
Furedi also says "peer reviewing is often more of a cultural than a scientific accomplishment. Indeed, the way that peer review is now used in public debate as a form of divine revelation – where we are told that ‘the peer-reviewed science’ shows that we must believe and do certain things – indicates how this institution risks being corrupted by advocacy researchers".
IMO: Yes, it is getting that bad. And global warming is very real. The old saying used to be "the meek shall inherit the earth" but today it looks more like "the self-seeking, vociferous and greedy of all persuasions will destroy the earth". In other fields in science than global warming, the truth of this hits me in the face every day.
IMO:Yes, we will very probably all die because of the greed in science and outside of it today.
# posted by uv : 7:18 AM
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