Announcement

Collapse

Natural Science 301 Guidelines

This is an open forum area for all members for discussions on all issues of science and origins. This area will and does get volatile at times, but we ask that it be kept to a dull roar, and moderators will intervene to keep the peace if necessary. This means obvious trolling and flaming that becomes a problem will be dealt with, and you might find yourself in the doghouse.

As usual, Tweb rules apply. If you haven't read them now would be a good time.

Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

Einstein and peer review. (I've never been published in Nature, but...)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    Originally posted by Jorge View Post



    To wit: try going through the PR process at Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley or MIT with something that opposes the views of the reigning "scientific" establishment and see what happens. The obvious example (but certainly not the only one) is anything that criticizes the Evolution dogma - that paper paper will be toast before it even gets to 1st base of PR regardless of its scientific merits (which, by the way, is why people wishing to publish such works have had to resort to alternative publication outlets).
    Really.

    Scientists have indeed been challenging conventional evolutionary theory for quite some time and not only has their work passed peer review, in many cases it has been accepted in whole or in part. Indeed, classical evolutionary theory has been changed over the years as new and more accurate information continues to come in.
    • Like when Conrad Waddington proposed developmental evolution (evo-devo) in 1942

    • Like when Willi Hennig proposed phylogenetic systematics (cladistics) in 1950

    • Like when Motoo Kimura proposed the neutral theory of molecular evolution (genetic drift) in 1968

    • Like when Lynn Margulis proposed Endosymbiotic theory in 1970

    • Like when Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed punctuated equilibrium in 1973

    • Like when Søren Løvtrup proposed Epigenetics in 1974

    • Like when Carl Woese proposed horizontal gene transfer in 1977


    These are all (and not the only) examples of controversial theories when they came out as they accounted for observed biological changes that did not correspond to the expectations of the neo-Darwinian models derived from the New Synthesis (which itself over-turned pure Darwinian thought and theory and was developed in the mid 1930s through the mid 40s). That is the way science is supposed to work.

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by sylas View Post
      First, I really don't understand why anyone here bothers to respond to Jorge on anything.
      The usual reason:
      duty_calls.png
      Peer review is not what determines whether a scientific paper is valid. It is simply a way of managing the initial checks to see if a paper is worthy of consideration by the larger scientific community. The real review and evaluation of scientific papers and ideas is what happens after publication, as other scientists read and followup with more research or data or response. Peer review is just a couple of individual experts who generally manage fairly obvious flaws in a proposed paper.
      There's a movement afoot in biology to move toward preprints, prepublication peer review and some form of post-publication PR. The PR system is seeming increasingly fragile. At some point online technology will probably change the practice in substantial ways, but exactly how that's going to work out remains to be seen.

      You can always get your publications out in any case, especially now we have the internet. A good paper that fails to get into a scientific journal can still get out through blogs or websites or self publication or specialized journals without conventional scientific review: and if it actually is significant and any good, it will get picked up and passed around. If it still doesn't have any impact, then it would not have had any impact as a journal article either. We are well used to journals that publish lousy papers; getting published doesn't correspond to having an impact on the field.
      I really doubt this. It's quite possible for a paper get stuck in review or rejected, and never have any impact because other papers end up covering the same territory (sometimes not as well).

      Rejection at the peer review stage is nearly always due to explicitly identified flaws in a paper.
      Not in my experience. When our papers are rejected at the review stage, it's almost always because the journal editor decided it was interesting enough or appropriate for that journal. (Maybe we should write more flawed papers?)

      What I would really like to add to this are examples of excellent papers that failed to get published because of improper peer review.
      Have you looked at the Heng Li/BWA imbroglio? Here is part of the story.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by Jorge View Post
        WOW!!! ...

        Yeah ... sure ... whatever.

        Jorge
        Simple question. This is your answer?

        K54

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by sfs1 View Post
          The usual reason:
          [ATTACH=CONFIG]843[/ATTACH]

          I'm always still in trouble again

          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by sfs1
            There's a movement afoot in biology to move toward preprints, prepublication peer review and some form of post-publication PR. The PR system is seeming increasingly fragile. At some point online technology will probably change the practice in substantial ways, but exactly how that's going to work out remains to be seen.
            I'm interested in seeing how an "open review" system might work. The preprint, and the comments from reviews, are made available together on a website, and there is a subsequent exchange much like a series of forum posts in which differences are nutted out. This has been implemented by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union).

            The interactive discussions are usually pretty brief, and the comments are in the form of pdf documents. You can easily find exchanges relating to papers under review from the home page. The interactive discussions are typically open for a limited time of some months. Here's an example exchange (link may not work beyond July 8): interactive review discussion.


            Originally posted by sfs1
            Originally posted by sylas
            You can always get your publications out in any case, especially now we have the internet [...] and if it actually is significant and any good, it will get picked up and passed around. If it still doesn't have any impact, then it would not have had any impact as a journal article either. We are well used to journals that publish lousy papers; getting published doesn't correspond to having an impact on the field.
            I really doubt this. It's quite possible for a paper get stuck in review or rejected, and never have any impact because other papers end up covering the same territory (sometimes not as well).
            True enough... I was thinking more of the case of people who are claiming that some specific idea doesn't get out because of bias in review; rather than of an individual paper which never gets out while similar material does get through. My claim is basically that one can still publish other than in reviewed science journals; and further that IF the publication actually does make a good case for some new idea then it will get picked up and passed around.

            I had in mind the general concern often expressed that valid criticisms of some generally accepted scientific idea is ignored because it fails to get past review. The usual suspects here -- evolution, climate, cosmology, relativity, medicine and vaccination esp, etc, etc.

            Originally posted by sfs1
            Originally posted by sylas
            Rejection at the peer review stage is nearly always due to explicitly identified flaws in a paper.
            Not in my experience. When our papers are rejected at the review stage, it's almost always because the journal editor decided it was interesting enough or appropriate for that journal. (Maybe we should write more flawed papers?)
            Yes; that is another common reason for rejection. I will quibble that it is to your credit that you get this response; and I continue to suspect that in general, the most common reason for rejections are specific flaws in the paper. You probably have a lot less flaws that most people attempting to get published.


            Originally posted by sfs1
            Have you looked at the Heng Li/BWA imbroglio? Here is part of the story.
            Thanks for the link; looks potentially interesting.

            Cheers -- sylas

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by sfs1 View Post
              When our papers are rejected at the review stage, it's almost always because the journal editor decided it was interesting enough or appropriate for that journal. (Maybe we should write more flawed papers?)
              I thought this was restricted to the editorial selection process, until I had a manuscript rejected from Nature Nano based on an external reviewer who directly questioned the degree of interest for the readers of Nature Nano. One could say that this was an extension of the editorial selection process rather than peer review, but reviewers are increasingly asked to “rate” a manuscript according to its appeal to the readers in the area and wider interests, in addition to evaluating scientific merit.

              We’ve all got our tales to tell. I had a manuscript rejected by the editorial team at Science and later accepted by Angewandte Chemie International Edition after peer review. That same article was then given an editorial highlight in Science.

              I sent another manuscript to a journal with impact factor 5 (one that I regularly use for the field I work in), where it was rejected by reviewers (selected by a new handling editor) whose comments really didn’t match the manuscript. I wrote to the handling editor and editor-in-chief, the former didn’t care and the latter said that the correct process of review was followed and there was nothing he could do. I split the paper into two, added a FieldView image (pretty looking but nothing to change the results in the manuscript) and got it published in two journals with impact factor of 6 and 12.

              Finding excellent papers that fail to get published because of improper peer review will be difficult given that the author would proceed to the next journal and then the next until it finds a home.

              I am interested in the deliberate attempts to publish erroneous science, such as the Jan Hendrik Schön scandal. It highlights what Sylas was saying that peer reviewers were looking for glaring errors and then the actual test of the paper came afterwards when others tried to repeat it.

              Comment


              • #22
                Don't worry about Jorge. Congrads on it. Hopefully you'll make it into the magazine someday too (if you do, let me know so I can get the issue to read the story).
                "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                  Really.

                  Scientists have indeed been challenging conventional evolutionary theory for quite some time and not only has their work passed peer review, in many cases it has been accepted in whole or in part. Indeed, classical evolutionary theory has been changed over the years as new and more accurate information continues to come in.
                  • Like when Conrad Waddington proposed developmental evolution (evo-devo) in 1942

                  • Like when Willi Hennig proposed phylogenetic systematics (cladistics) in 1950

                  • Like when Motoo Kimura proposed the neutral theory of molecular evolution (genetic drift) in 1968

                  • Like when Lynn Margulis proposed Endosymbiotic theory in 1970

                  • Like when Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed punctuated equilibrium in 1973

                  • Like when Søren Løvtrup proposed Epigenetics in 1974

                  • Like when Carl Woese proposed horizontal gene transfer in 1977


                  These are all (and not the only) examples of controversial theories when they came out as they accounted for observed biological changes that did not correspond to the expectations of the neo-Darwinian models derived from the New Synthesis (which itself over-turned pure Darwinian thought and theory and was developed in the mid 1930s through the mid 40s). That is the way science is supposed to work.
                  You know he is going to whinge because he said “nowadays”, submit to “Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley or MIT” and challenge “Evolutionary dogma” (please note the capitalization of “E” and the “dogma” label freely attached to it because it suits his purposes).

                  There are of course more examples that fly in the face of the claim “that paper paper [sic] will be toast before it even gets to 1st base of PR regardless of its scientific merits”:
                  • W.J. Ouweneel, “Developmental genetics of homoeosis”, Adv Genet., 18, 179-248 (1976) – fruit fly developmental anomalies
                  • S. Scherer, "Basic Functional States in the Evolution of Light-driven Cyclic Electron Transport", J. Theor. Bio., 104, 289-299 (1983) - evolution of light-driven cyclic electron transport an unsolved problem in theoretical biology
                  • G.R. Lambert, "Enzymic editing mechanisms and the origin of biological information transfer", J Theor Biol., 7, 387-403 (1984) – DNA processes should have high error rates without designer editing enzymes
                  • R.V. Gentry, "Radiohalos in a radiochronological and cosmological perspective", Science, 184, 62-66 (1974) - unclear formation mechanisms of halos in currently accepted cosmological models of Earth formation


                  But let’s face it, if the manuscript’s conclusion cannot be anything other than aligning with a faith-based precondition (à la AiG membership requirement – statement of faith) where it has ignored/excluded any and all contradictory evidence, then it is more than likely to be disposed of during the editorial review of mainstream journals. But it probably doesn’t have to be that extreme; if Jorge tried to publish his “steam crater”, “faster in the past lunar recession rates”, etc “research” then it wont stand up to the basic test of scientific accuracy.

                  I’m sure it is true that material submitted by known YECs and IDers will be very difficult to get through to the peer-review stage nowadays, as I’m sure it is true that it is impossible for a non YEC papers or prolific anti-YEC scientists to be published in Creation Research Society Quarterly, Answers Research Journal, etc.

                  Source: https://legacy-cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/assets/pdf/arj/instructions-to-authors.pdf


                  VIII. Paper Review Process
                  Upon the reception of a paper the editor-in-chief will follow the procedures below:
                  A. Receive and acknowledge to the author the paper’s receipt.
                  B. Review the paper for possible inclusion into the ARJ review process.

                  The following criteria will be used in judging papers:

                  • 1. Is the paper’s topic important to the development of the Creation and Flood model?
                  • 2. Does the paper’s topic provide an original contribution to the Creation and Flood model?
                  • 3. Is this paper formulated within a young-earth, young-universe framework?
                  • 4. If the paper discusses claimed evidence for an old earth and/or universe, does this paper offer a very constructively positive criticism and provide a possible young-earth, young-universe alternative?
                  • 5. If the paper is polemical in nature, does it deal with a topic rarely discussed within the origins debate?
                  • 6. Does this paper provide evidence of faithfulness to the grammatical-historical/normative interpretation of Scripture?



                  The editor-in-chief will not be afraid to reject a paper if it does not properly satisfy the above criteria or it conflicts with the best interests of AiG as judged by its biblical stand and goals outlined in its statement of faith.

                  © Copyright Original Source



                  So some YECs moan about being censored and not being considered for mainstream journals, when quite clearly they have been able to publish in mainstream journals before, and yet they set up their own journal where they censor out non-conformist views and will never publish non-YEC work. Smacks of hypocrisy.

                  Setting up your own journal is not new to mainstream science either. I remember that several journals (e.g. Journal of New Energy) were established to report continuing research in cold fusion given that publishing in mainstream journals had become increasingly difficult, though not impossible.
                  Last edited by Omega Red; 06-27-2014, 01:56 AM.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Omega Red View Post



                    Setting up your own journal is not new to mainstream science either. I remember that several journals (e.g. Journal of New Energy) were established to report continuing research in cold fusion given that publishing in mainstream journals had become increasingly difficult, though not impossible.
                    IIRC someone once started up their own "peer reviewed journal" solely to publish their "paper" about supposed Bigfoot DNA that read like a Middle School term paper written by a C- student.

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                      IIRC someone once started up their own "peer reviewed journal" solely to publish their "paper" about supposed Bigfoot DNA that read like a Middle School term paper written by a C- student.
                      The journal was "De Novo", and the article in question was "Novel North American Hominins, Next Generation Sequencing of Three Whole Genomes and Associated Studies".

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Ucchedavāda View Post
                        A single paper in a single issue!?! I wonder if they got permission from all their co-authors to "publish"?

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          For those who are curious, but also not interested in paying $30 to read the paper, there appears to be a (less flashy) version available here:
                          http://sasquatchgenomeproject.org/view-dna-study/

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
                            Don't worry about Jorge.
                            I worry about Jorge. Don't you?

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                              That's a good question.

                              Jim
                              I call it "talking to fence-posts".

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by sylas View Post
                                First, I really don't understand why anyone here bothers to respond to Jorge on anything.

                                Cheers -- sylas

                                Now THAT'S interesting! I have exactly the same thoughts about most people here, including you.

                                You think that, maybe, there's a psychic connection?

                                Yeah, I kind'a knew that you'd be a bit upset about someone pointing out the
                                'dark side' of your sacred PR process. But, hey, it is what it is - too bad for you.

                                You may now return to the faithful audience that swallows your swill with
                                nary a critical thought. Eat, drink and be merry, fools, for tomorrow you die.

                                Oh, and by all means, do NOT respond to this 'big, bad post'.

                                Jorge

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-18-2024, 12:15 PM
                                48 responses
                                135 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Sparko
                                by Sparko
                                 
                                Started by Sparko, 03-07-2024, 08:52 AM
                                16 responses
                                74 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Started by rogue06, 02-28-2024, 11:06 AM
                                6 responses
                                48 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post shunyadragon  
                                Working...
                                X