Slashdot Mirror
Rejected Scientific Paper Recycled as an Ad
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, The Scientist reveals a curious and probably unique story. Two years ago, a researcher at Brown University submitted a paper to a scientific medicine journal. Then he received a note from the editor saying that his paper would not interest the journal readers. Thinking that his article was unfairly rejected before peer review, he decided to publish a two-page ad with the contents of his paper in the same journal. He even asked readers if they thought the contents interesting and received 33 positive replies. Read this summary before telling me what you think and if you've heard about a similar story."
The point was that Dow had released a paper claiming that, while an abnormal number of their workers were getting cancer, that this wasn't because of some chemical that they were exposed to in the workplace.
The scientist "critiqued a 2003 Dow-funded paper (published) in Texas Medicine"
In other words, he argued that the industry funded paper was a lie, but had a hard time getting his arguments published.
Personally, I wish that he had gotten the article peer reviewed and published in another paper before doing this.
I wonder if he can now claim that he was "published in JOEM." Can people cite this work? Probably not, I'm thinking.
The effects of industry on scientific communication is pretty interesting. The overproscription of Statins in the US because the FDA was effectivly bribed is just one example.
Considering the various technology transfer acts passed by congress, more and more previously government funded is becoming the province of industry. The effects on the integrity of scientific research are only slowly becoming apparent.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Here, read this: http://www.thedarkcitadel.com/index.php?itemid=276
"It doesn't, but it is generally held to a higher standard than a typical blog or webvert. Much of the time, it actually upholds a very high standard of integrity - better than many current media outlets - with any public retractions or updates added onto the front page, rather than tucked away out of sight."
Wow, I seriously disagree with this. Slashdot has demonstrated bias and sensationalism numerous times. If you like Linux, FireFox, OSS in general, Farscape, etc then you're happy here. If you don't mind Microsoft, find FireFox to be clunky, enjoy Enterprise, etc you're poorly represented here. Not only a good chunk of the stories sensationalist in nature, but the mod system basically drives conformity in public opinion.
To put it another way: I have a hard time believing anything that's printed on Slashdot. I know I'm not alone in this feeling.
"Derp de derp."
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this guy is blatanly using Groklaw's graphics and color scheme. When I first clicked on the link, I thought "Hmmm... wonder what Groklaw is doing covering this story". Pretty sad.
IAAS and I serve as a peer-reviewer for a number of journals. Among the criteria we are asked to judge are the significance and originality of the work. If the work isn't "interesting", i.e. if it is not very significant/important or it's not very original (confirmatory results, for example), then it gets scored lower. The journal's space is limited, and the editors would rather devote it to new, important information rather than results which don't advance the field.
If the bulk of the readership is going to skip the article because it presents no new information or because it deals with a topic that no one cares about, then the editors are right to reject it.
In every journal, the "Instructions to Authors" section spells out what kind of manuscript will be considered for publication... the topics appropirate for this journal, the kinds of research, etc. If your paper isn't right for this journal, publish it somewhere else.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
It's not that it's a bad story, I liked the story, unfortunately, Roland's self-serving self-linking is what puts me, and so many other slashdotter's off.
He blatantly rips off content to get cheap hits on his site for ad revenue.
Read this to see why.
Photos.