Chapter five of Shooting <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983240701/> The Bull is devoted to the issue of bad science and the inadequacy of peer review vis-à-vis gun control. Indeed, one entry in the books catalog of canards reads:
The Lie of Peer Review: Using bands of researchers who share the same biases to review and approve suspect research. >From my ongoing review of such peer reviewed studies, one recurring nightmare emerged Joyce Foundation funding to medical schools to produce criminological research. Ive combed through a fair stack of these studies and have yet to find one that lacked significant methodological flaws. I personally believe this is part of the Joyce Foundation game plan because of how it plays with the average voter: 1) People have to trust doctors in order to survive past childhood, thus people tend to have unfaltering belief in the scientific studiousness of medical professionals (The Lie of Universal Competence: Using experts in one field of study to opine in a different field, and having their credibility conceal poor research). 2) Papers on criminology published in medical journals do not receive the scrutiny they would in criminological journals, and thus get printed without opposition (and at times, encouragement). I forget exactly which medical journal I was thumbing through, but it contained a rather sloppy gun control focused paper. The editorial in that edition, which referenced the paper, read almost like a Brady Campaign web page. That I found such blatant editorial bias unsurprising shows how thoroughly seedy the whole process has become. At the risk of rudeness and shameless self promotion, this snippet from Shooting The Bull ties it together: This iniquity has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the research community, medical and medicated alike. Robert Higgs, a fellow with enough letters after his name to start an alphabet soup factory, is troubled by the bias-induced weakness of the peer review system. He should know given that he has endured four decades in academia, during which he has been a peer reviewer for over thirty professional journals, and a research proposal reviewer for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and a number of private foundations. Peer review, he writes, on which lay people place great weight, varies from being an important control, where the editors and the referees are competent and responsible, to being a complete farce, The main obstacle for a researcher to get published is to find a journal whose editors share the researchers bias. Any journal editor who desires, for whatever reason, to reject a submission can easily do so by choosing referees he knows full well will knock it down; likewise, he can easily obtain favorable referee reports. If that doesnt inspire confidence in the scientific peer review process, then sanity persists. Guy Smith Author Shooting The Bull <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983240701/> and Gun <http://www.gunfacts.info/> Facts _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raymond Kessler Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 12:47 PM To: 'Jamie Fraser-Paige'; [email protected] Subject: RE: Firearmsregprof Digest, Vol 88, Issue 2 Agreed: The JAMA publishes a lot of trash research on the gun issue. Peer review is, IMHO, very weak in this area. See also http://www.secondamendmentlibrary.com/10/KESSLER.htm Dr. Ray Kessler Prof. of Criminal Justice P.S. Please feel free to check out my blog at http://crimelawandjustice.blogspot.com/
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