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Science Journals Caught Publishing Fake Research For Cash (vice.com)
Tuesday a Canadian journalist described his newest victory in his war on fake-science journals. An anonymous reader writes:
In 2014, journalist Tom Spears intentionally wrote "the world's worst science research paper...a mess of plagiarism and meaningless garble" -- then got it accepted by eight different journals. ("I copied and pasted one phrase from a geology paper online, and the rest from a medical one, on hematology...and so on. There are a couple of graphs from a paper about Mars...") He did it to expose journals which follow the publish-for-a-fee model, "a fast-growing business that sucks money out of research, undermines genuine scientific knowledge, and provides fake credentials for the desperate."
But earlier this year, one such operation actually purchased two prominent Canadian medical journals, and one critic warns they're "on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.â So this summer, Spears explains to Vice, "I got this request to write for what looked like a fake journal -- of ethics. Something about that attracted me... one morning in late August when I woke up early I made extra coffee and banged out some drivel and sent it to them."
He's now publicizing the fact that this formerly-respectable journal is currently featuring his submission, which was "mostly plagiarized from Aristotle, with every fourth or fifth word changed so that anti-plagiarism software won't catch it. But the result is meaningless. Some sentences don't have verbs..."
But earlier this year, one such operation actually purchased two prominent Canadian medical journals, and one critic warns they're "on a buying spree, snatching up legitimate scholarly journals and publishers, incorporating them into its mega-fleet of bogus, exploitative, and low-quality publications.â So this summer, Spears explains to Vice, "I got this request to write for what looked like a fake journal -- of ethics. Something about that attracted me... one morning in late August when I woke up early I made extra coffee and banged out some drivel and sent it to them."
He's now publicizing the fact that this formerly-respectable journal is currently featuring his submission, which was "mostly plagiarized from Aristotle, with every fourth or fifth word changed so that anti-plagiarism software won't catch it. But the result is meaningless. Some sentences don't have verbs..."
I'd like to see peer reviewed journals go away. They're a relic of the past, for many reasons.
1) The review process isn't transparent. It's too easy for authors to submit fake reviewers or for reviewers to not disclose conflicts of interest.
2) Reviewers generally don't have access to data and tools to actually verify the quality of the research. It's too easy for fabricated results to get published.
3) Many conference presentations are recorded. There's much less need for publications when it's easy to go online and watch a recording of a conference presentation.
4) Is it better to have a paper about a data set or the actual data set? Is it better to have a paper about a research tool or the actual research tool? Judge researchers based on the data and analysis tools they release, which is far more of a contribution to science.
5) Peer review gives researchers incentives to withhold data that might be contradictory to a hypothesis or that they can't explain yet, because it's often more important to get more publications than to do good research. This is as much a fault of the system as it is a criticism of researchers.
Eliminating peer reviewed journals is one of the best things that could happen to science. It would also end a lot of abuses by the journals.
Oh, you mean you have published work showing that human being do not affect climate? Really? Please cite it - I'd like to read it. Oh... you DON'T have any published work on climate? Um... well... maybe you can go back to school and learn some math and such and then come back when you're properly prepared.
Deep.
If you post it, they will read.
Try that with real science journals and see how far you get.
Say...: The Analyst, Analytica Chimica Acta, Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, Polyhedron, Acta Physica Polonica, Molecular Physics, Applied Optics...
The problem here is what the media defines as "science". They don't really know what they are talking about.
Like any scientist would take something called the "Journal of Clinical Research & Bioethics" seriously. Ha! You can tell by the name it is bogus and has nothing to do with real science.
...a political activist that also wants to take credit for advances actually developed by engineers, entrepreneurs and lay inventors.
That's the most disgusting anti-intellectualist bullshit that I read today.
Half the scientists that I know are barely aware of politics, so it's hard to know how you came to this conclusion.
If peer review of publications actually involved independent researchers attempting to replicate results, I'd support it. However, that's not how the process actually works. Instead, it involves submitting a manuscript to a journal and suggesting reviewers. The manuscript is assigned to an editor, who then selects reviewers and sends the manuscript out for review. The reviewers generally don't try to replicate the results. They just comment on the manuscript and any supplemental materials that have been supplied for the reviewers. Releasing data sets and analysis tools publicly would make it far easier for independent researchers to replicate results than peer reviewed journals do. My proposal to eliminate peer reviewed journals and replacing them with a more transparent process is far more in the spirit of peer review than the current system. Release the data and analysis tools, then have actual peer review instead of trusting an opaque process. As for your ad hominem allegation of me being a shill, that does nothing to support your position.
Peer reviews were never designed to allowed "others to replicate" ... Because in many cases to replicate the experiment is a multi-year, multi-million dollar venture. Peer reviews were designed to allow others to verify that the correct process was taken. No Averaging of Average, proper control and test groups are explained in the correct sizes to be mathematically valid.
Half the scientists that I know are barely aware of politics, so it's hard to know how you came to this conclusion.
Trump 2016?
I.e. Any drivel anyone manages to regurgitate is just as good as fact. Or better.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This last year, one of the more senior CS professor at my college got promoted to full professor, mostly due to the P&T Committee's noting his multiple publications (all from pay-to-publish journals), The committee, not being scientists, had no clue these were not legit journals.
What school does this? The ones I've worked at all spent quite a time digging down into the actual papers and citations. The ability of the prof to get grants was also a big part of the tenure pay raise discussions, but grant reviewers tend to be even closer to the researcher's field and also look into details of papers. The legitimacy of the journal doesn't really come up (although big named ones might factor into PR potential... but if you don't know the field that would be moot).
If your school just allows the committee count number of publications, it can't really blame anyone else for their system sucking.
You do realise that the idea of a peer review is for others to replicate the research and attempt to come to the same conclusions from their own datasets, right?
No. This is wrong. I have peer reviewed nearly a hundred papers over my career, and I have never replicated the research. I read the paper, see if it makes sense, and if the conclusions are supported by the data. Sometimes I recommend the paper be rejected outright, sometimes I suggest revisions for clarification or completeness, sometimes I recommend that paper be published as-is. Typically I will spend a few hours to do the review, for research that would take a year or more to replicate.
Peer-review can detect sloppy writing and incompetent research. It rarely catches outright fraud.
Using the same dataset if it was published with the article would lead to manipulation of that dataset to meet the already decided upon conclusion. Taking the idea/theory and using an independent dataset is the only way to stop this.
We've seen the results of this before from just about every lobby group with something they are trying to spin into something more positive , for ex Tobacco lobby, NRA, AGW, the list goes on. Marketting droids meet persons with personal agenda. Having no peer reviewed science publishers would be markedly worse. If you had said 'paid peer review publishers' then I would agree.
It's interesting how you turned my question of over your independence into an 'allegation'. You see that little round punctuation mark at the end of my sentence I guess, that denotes a question.
Those of us that are genuine, tend to not hide behind the ac button. Try it some time
And, in case you want to point to peer-reviewed journals, I give you one of the newer /. submissions on the front page:
Science Journals Caught Publishing Fake Research For Cash
You fail to recognize the crucial word in the headline:
Science Journals Caught Publishing Fake Research For Cash
Also, if you bothered to read the articles, you would see that these were formerly-respectable journals that were bought up and exploited by a company that does either perfunctory or nonexistent peer-review, then turns around and agrees to publish the author's paper, provided they pay up of course. Almost all journals charge authors to publish their papers. But these journals are in it for the money, not the science.
This story has nothing to do with the failure of peer-review. It's exposes the failure caused by a lack of it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
So you're saying we need to destroy the planet in order to "prove" that we're destroying the planet to your satisfaction?
That seems a bit counter-productive.
OKay.
Let's begin with some real science, and a major issue: solar input
Rind, D.H., Lean, J.L., Jonas, J. 2014. The Impact of Different Absolute Solar Irradiance Values on Current Climate Model Simulations. Journal of Climate Vol. 27(3)
Bodas-Salcedo A, Williams K, Yokohata T, et al. 2014. Origins of the Solar Radiation Biases over the Southern Ocean in CFMIP2 Models. Journal Of Climate Vol. 27(3)
Solanki, S., Krivova, N., Haigh, J.D. 2013. Solar Irradiance Variability and Climate. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics Vol. 51(1)
Scafetta, N. 2012. Multi-scale harmonic model for solar and climate cyclical variation throughout the Holocene based on Jupiter-Saturn tidal frequencies plus the 11-year solar dynamo cycle. Jurnal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestri al Physics Vol. 80
Dima, M. and Lohman, G. 2009. Conceptual model for millenial climate variability: a possible combined solar-thermohal ine circulation origin for the ~1,500 year cycle. Climate Dynamics Vol. 32(2/3)
Krivova, N., S.K. Solanki, 2004: Solar Variability and Global Warming: A Statistical Comparison Since 1850. Advances in Space Research, Vol. 34(2)
Lean, J., D. Rind, 1998: Climate Forcing by Changing Solar Radiation. Journal of Climate Vol. 11(12)
Rind, D., D. Shindell, J. Perlwitz, J. Lerner, P. Lonergan, 2004: The Relative Importance of Solar and Anthropogenic Forcing of Climate Change Between the Maunder Minimum and the Present. Journal of Climate, Vol. 17(5)
Bard, E. and Frank, M. 2006. Climate change and solar variability: What's new under the sun? Earth & Planetary Science Letters. Vol. 248(1/2)
Stott, Peter A.; Jones, Gareth S.; Mitchell, John F.B. 2003. Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change? . Journal of Climate. Vol. 16(24)
For those not familiar with it, back in the mid-90s there was the Sokal Hoax
If it was peer *replication* they wouldn't call it peer *review* would they, idiot?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sea levels rising a bit would be expensive, no doubt, since we tend to build cities on the coast. Maybe it's cheaper to emit less carbon? Maybe it's not. But either way, hyperbole like "destroy the planet" is political propaganda, not science, and obviously so - speaking of counter-productive.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Now every man must come at times to the aid of the party through the general precept that ethical behavior demands support of the community. It is by reason of erroneous reasoning of this kind that we become unjust and in general evil, or worse, slytherins;
That's gold baby. GOLD!
do realise that the idea of a peer review is for others to replicate the research and attempt to come to the same conclusions from their own datasets, right?
You are entirely wrong. That's simply not what "peer review" means. That's a step after peer review, which BTW almost never happens. Peer review is simply a methodology check: did this research use accepted best practices.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If you read the article closely, you'll learn that fake journals publish fake research papers. What a surprise.
Let's see him get his phony paper published in Nature, Annals of Mathematics or the Reviews of Modern Physics. Then we'll have something to talk about.
This is just another story from the hard Right (National Post was started by Canadian con-man Conrad Black) which seeks to convince people that you can't trust those crafty scientists so it can make it easier to get the yokels to believe whatever garbage they want them to believe.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It depends on the field a little. We work in material science and about 2-3 times a year we will attempt to replicate work as part of our peer review of other's work. We have all the kit and can usually run a couple of experiments in a few days and have them analysed in house. Again, it depends on the field and the more general approach is as the parent poster outlines.
For those situations, the authors tend to expose ALL data and processes/methods needed to recreate their results. They don't hide their data and refuse to release their code...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"If they do otherwise y are blamed," -- y was not defined beforehand, nor was x... But Y?
"for example the sort of actions which people in a prisoner-of-war camp have been force to perform." -- Use the Force! English conjugations are so freaking difficult!
"What sort of acts, we must ask, should be we call compulsory?" -- I didn't find the sentence in which he accidentally a whole verb, but I did find where the verb ended up!
"It is by reason of erroneous reasoning of this kind that we become unjust and in general evil, or worse, slytherins" -- Aristotle . . . was he in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?
"for who would bear fardles unless the person who does not understand these acts involuntarily?" -- and some editors should fall upon their bodkins
"But that is a topic for another day." -- This is probably the only sentence which is good enough for a fourth-grade paper . . . not good enough to get a good mark, of course.
I absolutely LOVE the fact you got modded to -1! A challenge for "published proof. Not claims..verifiable, reproducible, proof...including all data used and how it was collected and any 'adjustments' made) that proves that humans are a major controlling factor in global climate." You provide a list that is at least as authoritative as the other side, and get slammed. A thoughtful person would take it as proof that everything is NOT known, there is still some variability, and conclude at best "well, there is probably a good chance that climate change is caused by humans" or at worst "there is a good chance that climate change is not caused by humans". Declaring one way or another cannot be realistically done.
But the pro-AGW side treat it more as a religion than science - and modded your list into oblivion...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You've claimed repeatedly that something better can be done. I used to work in science and published a reasonable number of papers (and have reviewed considerably more). How much journals suck and how to make them better is a really popular pub topic among scientists.
Turns out it's really hard and there are no easy solutions. So, instead of telling us how things ought to be better actually make a suggestion. Otherwise it's just abstract complaining about how things aren't good enough.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You do realise that the idea of a peer review is for others to replicate the research and attempt to come to the same conclusions from their own datasets, right?
You literally just made that up, knew you were doing it, but didnt give a fuck that you were completely full of shit.
You also thought everyone else was completely stupid? For fuck sakes.... never post again.
"His name was James Damore."
The list was modded down not because it wasn't published proof, but rather because it was nothing more than a set of models that are included in subsequent climate reviews to be corrected for later.
It's like asking someone to publish a list of cakes and getting answers like "flour, eggs, water, coco powder".
Some of those articles I've seen before ... cited in studies showing the affects of AGW, because scientists actually know how to do their jobs despite what a bunch of Slash-f-wits think.
Several methods I can think of. First, just leave the printing stage off, let any libraries that find that important just print off their own copies, and remove that excuse for high fees. That's like version 0.01.
After that, you can experiment (which is sort of being done) with proper reputation systems to replace the "we're a big organization with $X, no one else can play" model. Sure - the big organizations would still dominate most of those, and scoring 'points' in such a system would still require money - but that money should hopefully go more towards people doing work, and less towards organization fees, licenses, etc. That would get you to something like version 0.35.
Getting to this point would involve lots of scandals - but proper ones that really should happen. To get further, you'd want replace the flawed "because we're older and got more mentions" system with a proper interactive vetting process, where replications are worth a larger percentage, even if they don't get 'published'. You can start to bring the newer system into the hiring process instead of 'must have published in x or y' process we've got now. That would get you around 0.5.
To get further than that, you'd have to get outside parties interacting with the process better. Imagine a world where not only free access, but journalists would actually use it, because it's mostly as convenient as 'industry sources' info. That, and being able to contact often obscure scientists to ask a question without having to wait for days in administrative limbo as often.
I'm not coming at this from a 'oh, why won't they support my pet topic' perspective - but as someone whose had friends that have had to deal with the system as it has existed, and who is into proper James Randi-style skepticism (not "science skepticism"), who sees flaws in journals and journalists covering topics lead to mass public misunderstandings greater than just a few simple scandals.
Any system is going to have flaws - I just don't see the journals as useful to anything at this point, when expert gatekeeping can be done so much better in other circles.
What are you trying to say? Slow down and try again. If there's an adult home, have them help you with the hard words.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I encourage everyone to read the article cited and post a comment as informative as the original article!
And, to those in my audience, this beginning of my defense seems to be most appropriate concerning the standing of this man so that I should tweet first to those things which his haters and accusers and dummies in the media have advanced with the general view of disparaging him and for the sake of detracting from his honor and despoiling him of his dignity. His father was cast in his teeth on various accounts, at one time as having been a man of no great respectability himself; at another, he was said to have been treated with but little respect by his son. On the score of dignity, our subject, to those who know him and to the best people among us, is of himself, without speaking, himself able easily to take a very sufficient expression, and without anyone having any occasion to suppress any tweet from him; but as for those to whom he is not equally well known, on account of his great stature, which has now for some time hindered his mixing much with us in the forum bigly, let them think this: that whatever dignity can exist in an individual- and certainly the very greatest may be found in that family- has always been considered, and is to this day considered, to shine out in great luster in his case; and moreover it is so considered, not only by his own relations and friends, but by every one to whom he can possibly be known on any account whatever to be a real citizen.
Perhaps it's time for reputable publishers and the academic community to get together and agree on some minimal standards about what it means to be a "reputable journal" or a "reputable publisher."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Try that with real science journals and see how far you get.
You missed the point.
If you read even the SUMMARY of TFA, above, you'll see that the POINT was that the fake-journal operations are buying up REAL journals, with real reputations, and converting them into more pay-for-play fakes. (Their customers will no doubt be willing to pay even more for placement in a respected journal, before its reputation collapses.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
When do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that dumbness of yours still to mock us? When will there be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now? Do not the readers armed with mod points- and the hostile responses you receive- does not the alarm of the people, and the union of all good men, when faced by your outrageous opinion, have any effect upon you? Do you not feel that your bullshit is debunked? Do you not see that your conspiracy theory is already arrested and rendered powerless by the knowledge which every one here possesses of it? What is there that you did, and what outrageous assessment was there which was adopted by you, with which you think that any one of us is unacquainted?
Shame on this age and on its principles! The public is aware of these things, and yet you defecate them into public deliberations; some of you are watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every principled individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the nation if we keep out of the way of these frenzied attacks.
You ought long ago to have been led to execution by command of your own mother's gynecologist. That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own ass.
That's not the scientific argument at all.
Start there, add chemicals that trap that heat from the sun, then you have problems. The science is saying that humans are producing chemicals that prevent the sun's energy from radiating away like it used to. Similar to panels in a greenhouse.
That's not the scientific argument at all.
Start there, add chemicals that trap that heat from the sun, then you have problems. The science is saying that humans are producing chemicals that prevent the sun's energy from radiating away like it used to. Similar to panels in a greenhouse.
Everyone knows it's colder inside a greenhouse right?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Don't know if you are serious or sarcastic, but I've been in a few greenhouses. It's been awhile, but as I remember they were warmer than the outside.
So you're saying we need to destroy the planet in order to "prove" that we're destroying the planet to your satisfaction?
That seems a bit counter-productive.
Exactly. In the end, the only thing that's going to be more annoying than those trying to dismiss the end of times with this incessant prove-it-is-me attitude is listening to those same critics say "Oh, I guess you were right after all."
The most valuable word in the world is Why.
The most expensive statement in the known universe is I told you so.
No matter who or what is to blame for negative impacts to our climate, the species reliant upon said climate in order to survive should probably give a shit at least a little bit instead of exhausting all efforts to ignore the fuck out of it.
Yes, it is indeed warmer. I was not being serious in the sense of meaning it was actually colder. I was being serious in the sense of highlighting the absurdity of denying the greenhouse effect when it can be demonstrated by stepping inside a greenhouse.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
You've claimed repeatedly that something better can be done. I used to work in science and published a reasonable number of papers (and have reviewed considerably more). How much journals suck and how to make them better is a really popular pub topic among scientists.
Turns out it's really hard and there are no easy solutions. So, instead of telling us how things ought to be better actually make a suggestion. Otherwise it's just abstract complaining about how things aren't good enough.
You want a solution? Fine.
The solution we all strive for is actually pretty damn simple. To create it, ensure an organization devoted to publishing truth and fact is well insulated from the greedy corrupt world we live in today, and is backed by those who demand a validated peer-reviewed process as a mandatory step prior to publication.
And yes, the world is greedy and corrupt. You sure as hell don't need another study to prove how greedy and corrupt it is, nor do you need a study done to validate what causes utter bullshit to be published.
And don't give me this shit about having it already. If such an organization existed today, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The lack of replication is a big hole in the scientific research process in this country.
Which country, because that is how peer review works just about everywhere. It is a process to vet the description of the research and the relevance to the journal. Replication usually comes later, and is still pretty common in a lot of fields. You might not see researchers doing the exact same experiment, but there are a lot of experiments expanding parameter spaces or at higher precision. Those experiments quickly find any disagreements.
really tackle the really hard problems (such as translating research into practice).
Funny, considering far more scientists get hired by industry than academia, and quite a few academics hired out from academia because the money is much better. I quit my job at a university, now get paid twice as much to deal with what you call the really hard problem... that is not really any different than the work done at the university except less info gets published. Quite a few academics also get paid as consultants to help implementations too.
It's often humid in a greenhouse. The analogy that keeps giving.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
And don't give me this shit about having it already. If such an organization existed today, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
No, this conversation happens because there are journals that don't do things the right way. The existence of bad journals doesn't preclude good journals, as both can and do exist at the same time.
Finding good journals today suffers from the same problem that good news now has.
You have to find enough humans who still give a shit about perpetuating truth and facts instead of turning profits perpetuating lies and bullshit.
No. This is wrong. I have peer reviewed nearly a hundred papers over my career, and I have never replicated the research. I read the paper, see if it makes sense, and if the conclusions are supported by the data. Sometimes I recommend the paper be rejected outright, sometimes I suggest revisions for clarification or completeness, sometimes I recommend that paper be published as-is. Typically I will spend a few hours to do the review, for research that would take a year or more to replicate.
As someone who's also peer reviewed a bunch of papers: yeah. I've heard some chemists replicate some synthesis papers, though I've never met one. Just a rumour really. I guess the hard bit is figuring it out, not actually doing it. But for my field, it's the same as yours: it would take a very long time to replicate the work, even if I was (a) interested and (b) had the people to do it.
Peer-review can detect sloppy writing and incompetent research. It rarely catches outright fraud.
Absolutely. It also catches utterly pointless research too! But mostly I think I reject papers for reasons of having meaningless experiments. If someone had sensible sounding experiments and flat-out faked the numbers, there's no easy way to tell.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Several methods I can think of. First, just leave the printing stage off, let any libraries that find that important just print off their own copies, and remove that excuse for high fees. That's like version 0.01.
All journals are available electronically for less than the paper copies. Professionally edited ones like Nature are always going to to cover the costs of staff. Other than that, many journals are now open access or allow open access papers to be published there. The latter since it's now a requirement by some influential funding bodies.
After that, you can experiment (which is sort of being done) with proper reputation systems to replace the "we're a big organization with $X, no one else can play" model. Sure - the big organizations would still dominate most of those, and scoring 'points' in such a system would still require money - but that money should hopefully go more towards people doing work, and less towards organization fees, licenses, etc. That would get you to something like version 0.35.
What? I don't really see what that's got to do with peer review, so a reputation system for WHAT. And more importantly, how is reputation gained? Without absolute concrete examples, your ideas are less than useless. Just about everyone in science has vague ideas about how to make things better.
Getting to this point would involve lots of scandals - but proper ones that really should happen. To get further, you'd want replace the flawed "because we're older and got more mentions" system with a proper interactive vetting process, where replications are worth a larger percentage, even if they don't get 'published'. You can start to bring the newer system into the hiring process instead of 'must have published in x or y' process we've got now. That would get you around 0.5.
Describe the mechanics of this vetting system. You seem to be confusing the peer review process with citations and both of those with academic hiring. They could all be improved, but what you've said is little more than "make it better using the internet".
To get further than that, you'd have to get outside parties interacting with the process better. Imagine a world where not only free access, but journalists would actually use it, because it's mostly as convenient as 'industry sources' info. That, and being able to contact often obscure scientists to ask a question without having to wait for days in administrative limbo as often.
We have these things called "telephones" and "email" where you can contact someone on the other side of the world almost instantly. You should try them, they're t'riffic. Journals almost always publish contact info and for everything else there's google.
But seriously, WHO. Who should "get" outside parties interacting better. Many papers are available online. For the ones that aren't you can just ask and you'll almost always get a copy. The difficult bit is reading and understanding them which might take 5 years of study.
Any system is going to have flaws - I just don't see the journals as useful to anything at this point, when expert gatekeeping can be done so much better in other circles.
Journals are an imperfect filter. All you've described is a vague notion for a different imperfect filter, but one that's probably even more work than the existing system.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You're confusing science journals with journalism it seems. But it's good that you have an angry opinion about a field it appears you are completely unfamiliar with. Go you!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You clearly don't work in science. I agree there is a problem with the way science is funded, but it's not the scientists fault. To get paid, you need to apply for funding. To get funding, you need to convince a funding agency that you have a great idea, and the skills to do the work. I have rarely seen anyone receive funding to reproduce someone else’s work. There is a limited amount of money to go around, so someone else will propose researching a novel idea, and the funding agency finds that more appealing than reproducing old work. There is simply no funding left to reproduce old work. You are most welcome to do that for fee. But I have bills to pay.
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence
Well said sir, were I to have mod point, I would adorn them on your finely worded and insightful post. Such eloquence.
To your lamentations I observe that they befoul our forum with their histrionic buffoonery, and layer, without alteration or abatement, words fecal in origin, uttered from flatulent lips that blubber and sputter forth so that even the best of us, congregated for discussion and contemplation of those things real aforementioned, long to see the hammer of natures laws, expressed in the physics and biology of our surroundings, come down hard upon their empty skulls, with a ceaseless, inescapable, pounding, inevitability that brings a full realization of their folly and little release of their discomfort. Let them drink deep for now, for fools know only folly if it is in the moment they thus occupy.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
So are you claiming that human CO2 emissions somehow formed a glass sphere around the earth? If not then how does stepping into a greenhouse demonstrate anything?
That's a strange thing to think. Why would you think that? Type less, think more.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
If the tides were turned.
If California were Red...
And Wyoming Blue...
Jeff Bezzon's Puppet
The WA-post paper
Would sing high praises
Of the that old bargin
The Connecticut Compromise
You see no politician has true principles, except for the principle of seeking more power.
Ooh sounds like a conspiracy theory, do tell so it can be debunked.
Jones refused to release his data and his algorithms meaning it was impossible to vet and review his claims. Of course, Michael Mann (he who wanted to hide the decline in his own data) now states that we don't really need data because we can just see what happens. Data is irrelevant, anecdotal evidence is all that one needs.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
In the real world, we have to frequently make very difficult, big decisions before there is absolute proof of what the consequences are. That doesn't mean such decisions are uninformed though.
And also in the real world, raising energy prices (a major tool of AGW proponents to control CO2) costs human lives. How many poor/old/disabled peoples' lives is it worth to you? Would you still feel that countering CO2 in this manner was worthwhile if you had to personally shoot the poor/old/disabled people yourself instead of anonymously causing them to freeze/starve to death out of your sight?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
You claimed the greenhouse effect is demonstrated by stepping inside a greenhouse.
A greenhouse is warmer because it is a glass box. How does that demonstrate the greenhouse effect as used when referencing global warming unless you are claiming global warming is caused by a glass box?
Yes there exists numerous materials with similar properties, that should be obvious.
>You claimed the greenhouse effect is demonstrated by stepping inside a greenhouse.
It is. Same principle.
>A greenhouse is warmer because it is a glass box. How does that demonstrate the greenhouse effect as used when referencing global warming unless you are claiming global warming is caused by a glass box?
A greenhouse is warmer because sunlight and to a lesser extent UV passes through the glass easily, hits matter, gets absorbed, gets re-emitted at a lower IR frequency and the IR bounces off the glass and so the energy is retained, just as it bounces off the atmosphere with a higher rate the higher the presence of certain chemicals now known collectively as 'greenhouse gasses'.
None of this is controversial. It's textbook stuff. Why are you arguing? Didn't you study how a greenhouse works in schools? I certainly did.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
For almost 4 years I was the director of what I like to refer to as a "software sweat shop" on the campus of a major university. Because of our generated revenue, my disliked boss was guaranteed tenure with the only requirement being that we publish six papers during those 3 years. We didn't have much to publish on other than case studies of end users and prognostications of the future of computers in ecology. If it weren't for lame journals I would have had to have devoted much more effort to getting our needed papers published rather than spending my time designing software and working with graduate students to meet our releases. My boss certainly wasn't going to write the papers though he did an excellent job of providing outlines, ideas and a paper writing methodology. I'm pretty sure we had 10 published papers by the time the 3 years was up, some being near repeats in different journals. My boss figured (rightly I'm sure) that we if just had 6 in the bag, that they might look for reasons to kick one or two out. But they weren't going to stoop to disqualifying half of our papers during the tenure review.
In this age of near-universal Internet access, all scholarly research should be online - and free.
Just use the published stuff. Here, a journalist has put it all together for even the stupid people on slashdot - http://vernalutah.org/EnergySu... . Listen to it, it's really worth your time.
You're free to use that instead, then. Just don't cry when your leukemia doesn't respond. Or when you catch any vaccine-preventable disease. And don't use any modern surgical technique or anesthesia either.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
He probably saw some snow somewhere. That's about all it takes to convince the slashdot crowd that it's an evil hippy/chinese conspiracy.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Not really, we just react with the same emotion elicited by the creationist crowd. Utter contempt. The "skepticism" of AGW is intellectual cowardice at its finest.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
lol "oh snap". Hey, if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys? Oh snap! Keep burying your head, climate deniers. Every year that temperature rises and glaciers retreat highlights your inane cowardice and failure to face reality.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You won't get a reply to that.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Simple: he never did release the data. And if you want to use proprietary data, more power to you! Just don't expect to use it for peer-reviewed articles because they can never be peer reviewed.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Hyperbolic-strawman, much?
Yes, exactly what you asked for:
verifiable, reproducible, proof
The only way you can reproduce "this will destroy the planet," is by destroying a planet. Which isn't really a possible thing to do.
Where's the planet that climate-alarmists used to prove their theory, if a planet-wide experiment is necessary to disprove it?
That's exactly my point -- there is no way to "prove" anything here, for either side. All we can do is gather evidence and form theories and models based on that evidence. And pretty much all evidence so far points to climate change being both a thing and a problem.
Peer review is not to validate every aspect of a paper. The goal is to see if the methodology is reasonable, and to bring up other things in the scientific literature. For a long time, nobody really expected a raw data dump for a peer-reviewed paper. The paper would describe the methodology of data collection and the principles behind the processing, preferably in enough detail to replicate all stages of the experiment or observation.
The problem with demanding data and source code is that replication with those tells you nothing. For a result to be considered valid, it's necessary to find out if it holds with independent data collection and independent software models based on the assumptions the paper makes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
When do you think the practice of real science started? I've read innumerable papers in which there was no obvious way to get the raw data, and no guarantees that it still existed.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You know, one theoretical solution to all problems of greed and corruption is to take hypothetical competent humans of known utter honesty and put them in charge. The trick is (a) ensuring that there are such people, and (b) figuring out who they are. Election through the Electoral College seems to not quite work.
While you're figuring out those things, the rest of us will try to improve the real world.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It may not be "released" in the sense of sitting in a public archive somewhere, but it usually only takes a quick email to the researcher to get more information. Most university researchers have their email listed somewhere on the faculty pages (and often listed on the paper itself these days, for just this reason.) Corporate scientists might be a little harder to connect to since companies only like to talk about their C-level employees but its not like its impossible there either. If nothing else, pick up the phone and ask for them by name.
They may not release full data (IP issues and all) unless you're another known scientist in the field, but you'll almost certainly be able to get clarifications on anything that you found non-obvious in their papers.. this is their life's work and they're happy to talk about it night and day if you let them! Most are, anyway. I mean they're still people and you'll run into the odd grumpy asshat but generally speaking they love it when someone's interested in their work.
So the proper order to follow up on something that interests you is: Press release -> actual paper -> open a discussion with the researchers.
Most people stop after the first step. Of course press releases are entirely lacking in data since they're intended for laymen.
Many that remain stop after the second step. But that third step still exists for the few people who care to actually delve into the details before they start running their mouths.