Harvard Asks 31 FakeNews Papers be Retracted from Journals

[_DarkHelmet]

Again I am amazed by how similar all this is to Mormonism.

I'm amazed at how much you sound like am amateur Mormon internet apologist. Seriously, you're the ldsfaqs of global warming denial.

[_DoubtingThomas]

DT,

This article explains why your premise is faultier than any of us feared.

http://theconversation.com/the-peer-rev ... pair-72669

After reading the article, if you want to discuss solutions I invite you to offer a few.

- Doc

Your article says "An experiment conducted with the Journal of Public Economics based in Cambridge in the US found that its referees are late with their reports half of the time"

So let me repeat

At least not in well-known physical science journals. If I am wrong give me the stats or some examples.
Show me the trash papers in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/

So how many trash papers do you think Nature and Science publish?

[Guest]

So how many trash papers do you think Nature and Science publish?

That's the million dollar question, DT. Scientific journals should have formal processes in place to make sure their research is accurate. One way to do this is to employ editorial fact-checking. This includes, but is not limited to, double-checking basic facts, statistics, quotes, analogies, images, and descriptions. Everything. Editorial fact-checking is in-house quality control: it happens before research publishes, and would involve, I suppose, a fairly lengthy process through which reviewers who suggested edits, the scientist who is publishing, and blind reviewers would be contacted y the journals fact checking editors.

You could probably peg most papers submitted to your referenced journal as not having undergone this process prior to publishing. This may actually be one of the reasons disreputable publishers with legitimate sounding names get so much business. You have a lot of PhDs needing to get published, without the academic infrastructure in place to meet demand.

- Doc

[_Chap]

It's interesting to read a site like this one, that keeps a watch on retractions of scientific papers:


Top 10 Retractions of 2017

Number 8 in the list shows that even Nobel prize winners are not immune to the post-publication review process in which scientists way "OK, he said he did that. I'll try in my lab, and see how it works out.'

8 “Definitely embarrassing.” That’s how Nobel winner Jack Szostak of Harvard University described the retraction in December of his 2016 article in Nature Chemistry. The authors asked for the retraction after a researcher in Szostak’s lab could not reproduce the findings, which the group attributes to honest error. Szostak wasn’t the only Nobelist to lose a paper this year. In October, Science retracted a 2014 paper by Bruce Beutler, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, also for failure to reproduce the results.

Note how in the first case it was the Nobel laureate himself who pulled the paper.

All this is part of the process that ensures that as the years go by science accumulates a mass of tested results that command consensus. No-one is immune from criticism - and I suspect the guy who proved his professor wrong in Szostak’s lab did not lose by it in career terms.

[_DoubtingThomas]

That's the million dollar question, DT. Scientific journals should have formal processes in place to make sure their research is accurate.

Nature and Science do have a formal process. No journal is perfect, but I doubt that Nature and Science publish a lot of trash papers.

https://www.nature.com/
https://www.sciencemag.org/

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Ok, buddy.

- Doc

[_DoubtingThomas]

Ok, buddy.

- Doc

Do well-known physical science journals publish a lot of trash papers yes or no?

[_Chap]

Ok, buddy.

- Doc

Do well-known physical science journals publish a lot of trash papers yes or no?

If they were seen to do so, they would very soon become less 'well-known', in the sense of ceasing to be the journals to which people sent articles that they had reason to believe reported on research of major significance - because who would want to see their best work appearing next to a significant proportion of trash?

And if that became the case, less people would read and cite them: their 'impact factor', an important measure of how many people pay attention to and cite articles that journals publish - would fall. That would lead to people being more likely to publish elsewhere, since they get more kudos from publishing in high-impact journals.

All this is part of the semi-automatic quality control mechanism that keeps journals on their best behaviour without any formal authority having to push them around or impose penalties on them.

[_Water Dog]

Welp, pro climate change initiatives failed in AZ, CO, and Washington.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bal ... 370355.php

[_EAllusion]

Welp, pro climate change initiatives failed in Arizona, CO, and Washington.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bal ... 370355.php

I bet you anything the age breakdowns on how people voted on those measures is really depressing when you think about it for a second.