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Category

Peer review

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
June 18, 2021
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
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That time they invented scientists as well as research papers…

Denyse O'Leary
June 18, 2021
Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
The Googlebot soon found the papers and [fictional] Antkare was credited with 101 papers that had been cited by 101 papers, which propelled him to 21st on Google’s list of the most cited scientists of all time, behind Freud but well ahead of Einstein, and first among computer scientists. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 29, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
Tagged
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At last! Computer-generated sci babble papers to be “retracted”

Denyse O'Leary
May 29, 2021
Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
The most likely reason one can think of for the persistence of computer-generated gibberish in the science database is that many other papers sound like that — but are in fact authentic human creations — so no one really wants to go there. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 22, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Peer review
Tagged
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Big (?) Surprise: Cool, glitzy papers less likely to be replicated

Denyse O'Leary
May 22, 2021
Intelligent Design, Peer review
Of course. The papers that are unlikely to be replicated are mostly going to be stuff that people want and need to believe that isn’t necessarily so. Or not demonstrated via the sources that gave rise to the paper, anyway. To begin any kind of serious analysis, we would need to classify the papers by general theme and general drift. That might give us a picture of what type of finding is too readily believed. But is it a picture anyone wants? Who, that has any say in the process, can really afford it? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 16, 2021
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
Tagged
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Evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala’s membership in the National Academy of Sciences may be withdrawn

Denyse O'Leary
April 16, 2021
Culture, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
At The Scientist: With the potential moves against Marcy and Ayala, “We are watching social change happening in front of our eyes,” says Nancy Hopkins, an NAS member and emeritus biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It has been a long time coming.” … Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 23, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
Tagged
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Gregory Chaitin on the dead hand of bureaucracy in science

Denyse O'Leary
March 23, 2021
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
Chaitin: I have a pessimistic vision which I hope is completely wrong, that the bureaucracies are like a cancer — the ones that control research and funding for research and counting how much you’ve been publishing. I’ve noticed that at universities, for example, the administrative personnel are gradually taking all the best buildings and expanding. So I think that the bureaucracy and the rules and regulations increases to the point that it sinks the society. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 19, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Peer review
Tagged
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Gregory Chaitin’s take on: Was math invented or discovered?

Denyse O'Leary
March 19, 2021
Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Peer review
Chaitin, best known for Chaitin's unknowable number: "Some mathematics, I think, is definitely invented, not discovered. That tends to be trivial mathematics ... But other mathematics does seem to be discovered. That’s when you find some really deep, fundamental mathematical idea, and there it really looks inevitable. " Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 22, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Philosophy, Science
Tagged
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At Wall Street Journal: Science needs critics, not cheerleaders

Denyse O'Leary
February 22, 2021
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Philosophy, Science
From an interview with John Staddon we learn that constructive criticism is more useful than cheerleading when one’s game needs work. One outcome of the problems Staddon describes is that “trust the science” is becoming something of a joke in a broad variety of areas and that is not good news. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
January 21, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Peer review
Tagged
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Why is Retraction Watch not what we hoped it would be?

Denyse O'Leary
January 21, 2021
Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Peer review
Rob Sheldon: There was nothing either unethical or inaccurate in the paper. The conclusions were wrong. This is true of over 50% of papers in the literature. Further papers show why the conclusions were wrong. No one retracts a paper because the data was interpreted improperly. For example, Newton's conclusion that the universe was unstable. Einstein's conclusion that a cosmological constant could stabilize it. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
December 22, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
Tagged
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Authors of article on female vs male mentorship have now retracted their own paper

Denyse O'Leary
December 22, 2020
Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science
The bottom line is that—in a move worthy of an existentialist writer like Kafka—Cancel Culture has succeeded in making actual issues around mentorship dangerous to discuss. The big loser is equity, of course, because if one can’t discuss actual issues (like guys are higher in the hierarchy at present), then one can’t propose useful approaches. But there is always, of course, a bureaucrat out there (many, actually), quite ready to conduct a seminar, etc., which will change nothing because no one can afford to be honest. Read More ›