Yea, tho I walk through the shadows of the valley of death, I shall be
abandoned.
Yeah, RIGHT! I can see the names going onto the multitude of "enemies"
lists. So be it.
I wonder if Hilborn's disclaimer ". . . I emphasize the problem is with the
peer review and editorial system, not the authors of the papers" can save
him from the pyre, and it would be interesting to know how many welcoming
arms have daggers under their togas. It's one thing to question an
altar-boy, quite another to mess with the Emperor.
It is heresy, of course, but I suspect/assert that this phenomenon runs far
deeper and wider than Silvert, Hobbs, Johnson, and Hilborn reveal. They may
escape filleting and smoking, but only because ignoring is the modern
equivalent of burning at the stake. Banishment lives! Open the gates of
Purgatory, and shovel them in.
This phenomenon is far wider and probably deeper than the authors of the two
papers suggest or reveal. As a consumer of research for many decades, I have
noted that "publish such convoluted mish-mash that no peer reviewer, much
less the unwashed masses and practitioners have a prayer of plumbing the
weighty creations of the brilliant yellow-bellied grantsnatchers--or perish"
is tantamount to a Natural Law of academia. Yet, as an outsider, I must have
faith that Hilborn's and Johnson's contentions are justified. Both
experience and gut tell me that the principle holds, but they also tell me,
that in any normal (even abnormal) distribution, that some fraction of the
sampled population must be charlatans, fools, knaves, and the innocently
incorrect. How many times have I erred? Let me count the uncountable ways.
Out in the ungodly world of dog-eat-dog "applied" science, ANYTHING
published ANYWHERE gets cited as the Holy Grail. And the more "respectable"
the journal, the tighter it sticks to policy and "opinion." As if this kind
of fallout is not enough, how is some poor TA going to check out the
validity of every reference cited by every student, much less the professor
who must live on grants? Egad, it just goes on and on and . . .
It's a sloppy world out there, and it probably always has been and always
will be. So it seems to me that the only "solution" is to review the
reviewers "all the way down," and keep on calling a pig a pig (in every
single case), regardless of how much lipstick is put on him. Trouble is,
with modern cosmetology and spin-doctoring, some of them can look pretty
damned good! No particular pigs are implied.
"'Tis friction's brisk rub that provides the vital spark!" --author unk.
WT
See: http://www.jnr-eeb.org/index.php/jnr
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Silvert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Publish and be wrong?
Thanks for posting this. Recently on another mailing list (FISHFOLK) there
was a related discussion dealing with peer review sparked by a paper by
Ray
Hilborn,
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/large_pelagics/Hilborn_2006(faith).pdf,
which I also recommend. It addressed the issue of whether the peer review
process of such journals really guarantees quality, or whether the
journals
are mainly interested in making news.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Hobbs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:59 PM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Fwd: Publish and be wrong?
Thought this was really interesting! I would only add that it's those
high profile studies published in Science or Nature that attract a lot
of
opposition by fellow scientists.
Jim
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Robert Lusardi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: December 3, 2008 8:57:19 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Publish and be wrong?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi all- below please find a link to the Economist article I referenced
during lab meeting this morning. Interesting stuff.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12376658
--Rob
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.9.14/1829 - Release Date: 12/4/2008
2:59 PM
