Peer review

Measuring the effectiveness of scientific gatekeeping Significance Peer review is an institution of enormous importance for the careers of scientists and the content of published science. The decisions of gatekeepers—editors and peer reviewers—legitimize scientific findings, distribute professional rewards, and influence future research. However, appropriate data to gauge the quality of gatekeeper decision-making in science has rarely been made publicly available. Our research tracks the popularity of rejected and accepted manuscripts at three elite medical journals. We found that editors and reviewers generally made good decisions regarding which manuscripts to promote and reject. However, many highly cited articles were surprisingly rejected. Our research suggests that evaluative strategies that increase the mean quality of published science may also increase the risk of Read More ›

… have a really hard time figuring out why anyone tries to be good? The current barf is The carriers of the evolutionary process are populations. Populations consist of reproducing individuals, such as cells, viruses, plants, animals, and people. Offspring inherit fundamental information from their parents. This information is encoded in genomes, if we focus on genetic evolution. Occasionally modifications arise. These new genetic variants are called “mutants.” Mutation generates new types, new molecular ideas. This constitutes the first half of the evolutionary process. The second half is “natural selection.” The mutations might affect reproductive rates. Some mutant genes spread faster in the population than others. Nature becomes a gigantic breeder selecting for advantageous traits. Survival of the fittest is Read More ›

We thought that kind of thing only happened to us ID folk. We’re used to it. Any mediocrity can make his name in Tax-Funded Science attacking us. You pay, you enjoy. Or not. You pay anyway. But now this from Discover: A psychiatry journal, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (JNMD), has just published a remarkable attack on another journal, Frontiers in Psychology. Here’s the piece: it’s by the JNMD’s own Statistics Editor. In it, he writes that: To be perfectly candid, the reader needs to be informed that the journal that published the Lakens (2013) article, Frontiers in Psychology, is one of an increasing number of journals that charge exorbitant publication fees in exchange for free open access Read More ›

In Everyone, Even Jenny McCarthy, Has the Right to Challenge “Scientific Experts,” science writer John Horgan challenges colleague Chris “war on science” Mooney: I had a similar reaction when I spotted the headline of a recent essay by journalist Chris Mooney: “This Is Why You Have No Business Challenging Scientific Experts.” Similar, that is, to his reaction to a naive student. He goes on, But the history of science suggests—and my own 32 years of experience reporting confirms—that even the most accomplished scientists at the most prestigious institutions often make claims that turn out to be erroneous or exaggerated. Scientists succumb to groupthink, political pressures and other pitfalls. More than a half century ago, Freudian psychoanalysis was a dominant theory of Read More ›

Consensus science. Chronicle still hasn’t released a free version of the bad news about consensus science, but a brief quote may be permissible: While the public remains relatively unaware of the problem, it is now a truism in the scientific establishment that many preclinical biomedical studies, when subjected to additional scrutiny, turn out to be false. Many researchers believe that if scientists set out to reproduce preclinical work published over the past decade, a majority would fail. This, in short, is the reproducibility crisis. The NIH, if it was at first reluctant to consider the problem, is now taking it seriously. This scandal, of course, is where consensus gets us: Everyone is wrong for all the right reasons. Incidentally, we also happened Read More ›

Featured in an article, Amid a Sea of False Findings, the NIH Tries Reform? BioLogos is a group that wants Christians to believe in evolution, whatever that means. Today, of course it means Darwinism. Didn’t Templeton give them $$millions? One must pay to read the rest. News doesn’t want to pay because it’d just be the usual blather. Always promising reform but won’t root out causes. End story. See also: John West has updated Darwin Day in America (with Afterword) (read free excerpt, includes Collins) Our culture is witnessing the rise of what could be called totalitarian science, says West. And see the role of BioLogos founder. Question from usual pew sitter: Not how did these people get to be Read More ›

Here at Retraction Watch: Psychology has been home to some of the most infamous cases of fraud in recent years, and while it’s just a few bad apples who are spoiling the bunch, the field itself has seen an overall increase in retractions, according to a new paper by Jürgen Margraf appearing in Psychologische Rundschau and titled “Zur Lage der Psychologie.” That increase, Margraf found, is not entirely due to its most well-known fraudsters. More. On the other hand, maybe it’s nothing. 😉 See also: If peer review is working, why all the retractions? Follow UD News at Twitter!