Retraction Watch: Erm, about that concerning peer review process. Elsevier also was the publisher of the equally risible book chapter claiming that COVID-19 came to earth on a meteorite.
Peer review
Psychologist sounds alarm: We are turning science into science fiction!
But now, here’s a problem: In the world of the war on math, what, exactly, is wrong with science fiction replacing science? If 2 + 2 does not necessarily = 4, how can we be expected to even know that bogosity is wrong?
That “smallest dino” paper has been retracted
Apparently another team found a similar fossil which it thinks is a lizard.
A Darwinian biologist who has debated ID folk describes getting Canceled
Over time, science in many areas is likely to wither as it comes more and more under the domination of trolls with agendas. And, curiously, being a Darwinist is no longer a form of protection.
Retraction Watch: Lancet hydroxychloroquine editorial retracted and replaced
Beware of internet history. It is written on little electronic signals, not paper…
Ioannidis, the opponent of bad science studies, risks Unpersonhood
On account of stuff he said that is mostly correct and even obvious but exposes the cult of the science expert.
Einstein’s lost hypothesis is being retested
There were setbacks.
The big COVID-19 retraction: Top people don’t notice the smell?
For the record, Uncommon Descent has no official opinion on this mess except to say, yes, a fumigator is badly needed at The Lancet.
Jonathan Bartlett: Twenty Years on, Aliens Still “Cause Global Warming”
Some people may still think that “science” is whatever gets published in a journal. Not any more, that’s for sure.
An ingenious proposal for improving peer review that would accentuate the biggest problem
Ramping up the current system would merely enable 10 dunces to do the work of 100 dunces.
Robert J. Marks: Time to change the peer review system
Marks: The assumption that today’s peer-reviewed paper has been vetted by experts and therefore has been awarded a blue ribbon for excellence is far from the truth. Peer review often does not do its job. Consequently, today’s collection of scholarly literature is exploding in quantity and deteriorating in quality.
Business prof argues: Journals these days are obsessed by theory
Marinetto: The fetishisation of theory does have practical payoffs for editors. For one Swedish academic, Pär J. Ågerfalk, the charge of “insufficient theoretical contribution” can be employed as a neat rhetorical brush-off for submissions that editors do not like the look of but “cannot quite put their finger on why”.
Is the planet really running out of frogs?
That seems to depend on who you read: Last year in the journal Science, a research review concluded that the chytrid fungus caused the decline of at least 501 amphibian species, of which 90 have gone extinct. That paper suggested that species losses due to the chytrid fungus are “orders of magnitude greater than for Read More…
Retraction fun: Fellow didn’t seem to know much about cats
Generally, never trust anything a cat tells you about how it hunts. That’s proprietary information and a lot depends on it. The cat is rarely trustworthy anyhow.
At Areo: How universities cover up science fraud – the details
A pretty hard-hitting article. Is it partly the secular god-like status that these “scientists” assume? The tax funding they receive? Whatever fixes all this will need to be pretty far-reaching.