"Scientific peer review problems" Topic

I'm not anti-science. I believe science is a WIP to discover the truth and most people in the industry are doing great work. Like any organization, it needs to generate an income and has sponsors, agendas, advertisers and organizations (some with an agenda) that give research grants. They have an institutionalized political process just like any other organization. Just like other organizations, you need to "play" the politics to get ahead.

In the politics of science, if you are not "politically correct" and part of the crowd you can be ostracized. This means your papers do not get peer-review approval nor will they be published. This means you can be unemployed. This has turned the scientific community into somewhat of an echo chamber and become politicized. This isn't anything new:
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I'm not a member of the scientific or educational community. Of course, the above is my observation and opinions wich you are free to disagree with.

Most people want to believe the science but since knowledge, discovery, data collection, proxy data interpretation and the Scientific Theory is a WIP so it is hard to establish an absolute. It's not the fault of science or scientists. However, it seems there is an increasing pressure from people in the scientific community, and their allies, to force people to "believe" the science and shut down discussion. But isn't discussion what science is all about? Without open discussion and ridiculing people that don't believe isn't that shutting down discussion and debate? To believe something that is not an absolute is to have "faith" in it which is the realm of religion. No one wants to turn science into a religion.

The current state of the peer review process is part of the problem.

Peer review is at the heart of the processes of not just medical journals but of all of science. It is the method by which grants are allocated, papers published, academics promoted, and Nobel prizes won. Yet it is hard to define. It has until recently been unstudied. And its defects are easier to identify than its attributes. Yet it shows no sign of going away. Famously, it is compared with democracy: a system full of problems but the least worst we have.

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Enjoy.

Wolfhag

As part of the educational community, I agree with most of what you state.

I agree with the sentiment, but don't forget that passing peer review is but the first hurdle. The next hardest step is acceptance by the wider community, and confirmation by follow-up studies.

Peer review is open to the same human foibles as any activity, EXCEPT, in the end, the process generally weeds out bad theory and faulty evidence. It is a non-ending process that means EVERY theory or data source is reviewed whenever any disparity or additional data is discovered. Often it isn't that the facts are disproven, but that a better theoretical structure to explain them is found. Newton's Laws still work in the limited framework they were created to explain, it's just that later theories, including Einstein's etc. do a better job of modeling the data.

The recent fly in the ointment is bogus theories, bogus data, and bogus conclusions have acquired their own universe, primarily on the Internet, and espoused by people that have no training, no expertise, and no really functioning hypothesis or means of testing. These sources grab bits of disconnected information, often combine it with political or religious dogma and immediately proclaim a new truth that is propagandized to a scientifically illiterate mass of people. These people are seeking an absolute that fits with their unscientific world view.

This world is populated with cranks, snake-oil salesmen, deniers of evolution, deniers of climate change, deniers of pandemic threats and other people discomfited by the findings of modern science. It gets traction because of the internet linking them and constantly repeating their nonsense. The believers see this echo-chanmber as confirmation of their world view and lack any tools to accurately judge the science involved.

Science plays by a set of rules that require thought, evidence, tests of conclusions and coherence. It has a great capacity to self-correct over relatively short time lines. The internet "but whattabout…?" crowd lacks all of these tools as many of them have never completed a high school science course, let alone college or postgraduate work, and,yes, that matters.

This world is populated with cranks, snake-oil salesmen, deniers of evolution, deniers of climate change, deniers of pandemic threats and other people discomfited by the findings of modern science.

Some people just can't resist being "that guy" …

"This world is populated with cranks, snake-oil salesmen, deniers of evolution, deniers of climate change, deniers of pandemic threats and other people discomfited by the findings of modern science. It gets traction because of the internet linking them and constantly repeating their nonsense. "

What gives them a lot of traction is when we get a political hitjob dressed up as science in peer reviewed journals. TMP link

Only because they never seem to see that the self-correction by the scientific community demanding ACTUAL data is what exposed the error. It was immediately, and publicly, announced and there was internal criticism of the acceptance of the article. This mistake was probably encouraged by the high demand for answers on the Covid-19 virus and the community wanting to get info out expeditiously. The action was taken within a few weeks of the initial publication. This is exactly what science is designed to do. I'd love to see some of the wacko sites EVER correct their multitude of errors! They just seem to move on to the next made-up fraud.

In the interim, several other sources have provided information that says the Hydroxychloroquine treatment was not effective, and still presented potential complications to anyone using it. Reflecting this understanding, the FDA withdrew its support for emergency use of the drug in treatment of Covid patients.

I'd love to see some of the wacko sites EVER correct their multitude of errors! They just seem to move on to the next made-up fraud.

I'd love to see some correct their errors on here, Repiqueone.

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,
but considerst not the beam that is in thine eye?

Or wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull the mote out
of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam from thine own eye;
and then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy
brother's eye." -Matthew 7:1-5

Well, I had thought religion was off topic for these boards.

What gives them a lot of traction is when we get a political hitjob dressed up as science in peer reviewed journals.

Judging from the facts at hand, I chalk it up to more of "fake it 'till you make it" start-up hustle culture (see Holmes, Elizabeth) where they bit-off more than they can chew, with the crisis short-circuiting sober reflection during the peer review process. In the end, the process sort of worked, even if it took a detour.

The thing about peer-review is that it's not a guarantee of absolute metaphysical certainty. If you want absolute metaphysical certainty, get out of science and walk down the hall to theology.

Well, Mr. Myers, biblical quotations are cultural in nature when used by secular writers or atheists. There is some wisdom in the literature, just as there is genius in the art of Michaelangelo, or the liturgical music of Bach.

In my experience, the most "Christian" people I've ever met are often atheists.

I suppose if one interprets on their own they can come up with nearly anything.

It's nice to see you showing a sense of self-reflection.

Do you ever post anything beyond personal attacks?