[X] My Assistant

[jrdahlman]

I'm not sure if this topic is substantive enough to be posted under Doug's new rules, but I'll try it.

Computer and hardware pioneer Don Lancaster (still going strong), in his blog on April 2, had an interesting take on the "Gresham's Law" effect that amateur internet posting is having on traditional publishing. For scientists:

But Scholarly Journal Publishers clearly have the most serious problems. If they are to survive at all. Sloppy researcher "A" throws some crap up on the web and instantly delivers zillions of free copies worldwide. Competent researcher "B" pays an outrageous fee to have his peer-review paper published in the distant future in a journal so expensive that their institution's own library cannot afford a copy. Guess who wins?

At the very least, scholarly journal survival demands unlimited free instant access of all abstracts without so such as a registration hassle. Combined with sanely limited quantities of free access to any paper over five years old.

http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu06.asp


I am not a scientist, but clearly there are many on this board. This topic may have been mentioned before, but I'm wondering if any of you have heard anything from the journal publishers themselves? Is this really becoming a problem? Is the market changing or fees rising? Are they getting nervous about the economics of it? Are researchers equally nervous? Not leading questions--I actually don't know.

(One of the amazing things about this board for outsiders is seeing "science being made." The back-and-forth debates between geologists, alternate (plausable!) theories, etc., as opposed to the dry official reports that are finally released. I feel almost like a spy in on closed sessions!)

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

Hi all, interesting discution.

My experience of peer review is poor, as I published only one science paper, and it was on a rather political-prone subject (that, in an economy system, when the agents behave in a somewhat altruistic way, the repartition of wealth can become much more equalitarian than with 100% egocentric agents). I submitted my paper to two referees... One simply mocked at me. The other asked me to remove the "philosophy" (what I did) before accepting me. But he let pass a serious mistake in a formula, that fortunately the first noticed to me.

So I am not convinced that the peer referee system is alway implemented correctly.


However I can only back what was said in several posts, Don, helvick, Bob, etc that the peer referee system results from centuries of experience, that it is the best known, despites its imperfections and defects. But however, even if a false paper can fool a peer review, a false theory cannot fool the whole system for a long time.

About volontary frauds, there are sometimes strong difficulties which arise. See in some examples:

-The Gupta affair. This guy distributed hundreds of fossils while falsifying their place of origin, leading to false conclusions into tens of however honest studies. It took years to be removed, as he had a power position into his country science organization: any national who denounced him was fired, and any foreigner who denounced him was dismissed as hostile to his country. The affair had to be solved at a politics/government level.
-The Ragnar Rylander affair. This "hygiena teacher" completelly invented studies showing that passive smoking was not dangerous. But he was paid by Phillips Morris for thirty years! In this example we have a vested industrial interest who acted franckly out of legality and far beyond any morals. The affair was brough to procecution and all these people condemned, thanks to the relentlessness of anti-tobacco activists.
-Sir Cyril Burt was the founder of Mensa (a club of people with high IQs) and a propagandist of the genetic transmission of intelligence. At his death his falsifications were found (about the IQs of separated true twin children). Cases of this sort lead today geneticians to be very politically correct about finding genes which would imply a difference between the races. No such gen was found until today (officially), but what if one is found?

What is interesting to note is that, even in the very difficut case of the Gupta affair, science won!!

[Guest_DonPMitchell_*]

-Sir Cyril Burt was the founder of Mensa (a club of people with high IQs) and a propagandist of the genetic transmission of intelligence. At his death his falsifications were found (about the IQs of separated true twin children). Cases of this sort lead today geneticians to be very politically correct about finding genes which would imply a difference between the races. No such gen was found until today (officially), but what if one is found?

While I was a student at Caltech, Dick Feynman was interviewed by Omni magazine. He came into a colloquium with a current issue, and thought it was kind of a fun magazine. Then the article on him appeared...his face on the cover with the title "World's Smartest Man". Oh my god was he upset! And inside was a second article on "The World's Smartest Woman", who was some MENSA member who practiced taking IQ tests and puzzles until her score was over 200 (but otherwise, she had no remarkable accomplishments). Feynman was very proud of the fact that his measured IQ was 120-something, not even within the so-called "genius" range.