Peer Review Scandals

[Mark C Wilson]

S

Sent from my iPod - please excuse typos 
Mark C Wilson

> On 11/10/2014, at 07:12, Paul Colin de Glouceſter <de_Ghloucester at NINTHFLOOR.ORG> wrote:
> 
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> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> 
> On July 21st, 2014, Dowman P Varn submitted:
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"Davis & Stephen,                                                           |
> |I come from a physics background, and much what you discuss bears little    |
> |resemblance to the facts on the ground. No one given a manuscript would ever|
> |try to replicate the results."                                              |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> Dear Dowman:
> 
> Many articles which the putative physicist Jan Hendrik Schoen
> contributed to were subjected to retractions because physicists who
> were attempting to do impossible things which Schoen fraudulently
> boasted he performed have been unable to replicate what Jan Hendrik
> Schoen has dishonestly claimed to have accomplished.
> 
> Note that when replication is performed, it might not be performed for
> its own sake, but instead merely as steps towards another advance
> progressing past what is being replicated.
> 
> More than one physical principle is used for various types of for
> example altimeter, and measuring altitude by a ruler or by
> trigonometry or by air pressure. Measurements of a single property by
> different techniques can be considered to be a form of replication.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" It could take months of full time work, and is                            |
> |simply an unreasonable burden on the reviewer."                             |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> It could take less time or more time depending on what is being
> replicated. It would not be an unreasonable burden if the refereeing
> was being paid for with an amount of money comparable to the original
> research. Publishers charge a lot of money without earning it.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" Science would just stop."                                                 |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> I disagree. Would you like to take a drug which happens to be lethal
> instead of the mistaken claim that it is a medicine because no
> laboratory was paid to confirm or refute the original article?
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"The purpose of peer-review (and yes, I use that term in the sense of an    |
> |expert reading and evaluating a manuscript for publication, as this is the  |
> |common vernacular in my field) is not to ensure that the results are        |
> |correct."                                                                   |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> Even today publishers refer to refereeing as quality control.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"[. . .]                                                                    |
> |                                                                            |
> |[. . .]                                                                     |
> |[. . .] I don't read a journal article as gospel, but                       |
> |rather as a document where I cast the onus on the authors to convince me of |
> |something. Often I'm not convinced. There are entire little subfields that, |
> |in my opinion, are founded on flawed assumptions, and therefore the         |
> |conclusions reached are dubious. I recognise that that is just my opinion,  |
> |and I don't begrudge them (too much) for the work they do, because I realise|
> |that I may be wrong."                                                       |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> Perhaps you are not mistaken. Perhaps you should type papers about
> these possibly flawed assumptions and possibly dubious conclusions.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"As for the issue of fraud, peer review is not the place to catch it, unless|
> |it is rather inartfully done. How can say that an observation wasn't made?" |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> Measurements should be made available antecedently before typescripts
> utilizing them are submitted. Physicists are lagging behind
> inventors of medicines from this point of view.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"How can I say that the result of a detailed calculation is wrong?"         |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> By checking it! (Too many papers skip steps of derivations.)
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" I'm not                                                                   |
> |going to do it myself."                                                     |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> That is your choice, but you might be more inclined to check it if you
> ran software such as an automated theorem prover or a computer algebra
> system.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" As a reviewer, I can point out the objections and                         |
> |concerns of a expert, perhaps many that the authors had yet to consider, but|
> |at the end of the day, it is their contribution to the conversation. If they|
> |have something interesting to say, can explain it in a reasonable way, and  |
> |are sufficiently familiar with the state of field to discuss it             |
> |intelligently, who am I to say they are wrong?"                             |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> You are a fellow scientist.
> 
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" That is for the community to                                              |
> |decide. And, in my opinion, that is how science should work.                |
> |                                                                            |
> |Best regards,                                                               |
> |                                                                            |
> |Dowman"                                                                     |
> |----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 
> We suffer from incorrect informational cascades that way.
> 
> With best regards,
> Paul Colin de Glouceſter