[Vo]:Nobel prize winner boycots Nature

2013-12-10 Thread walker...@gmail.com
Hi all

Nobel winner declares boycott of Nature and other top science journals

Randy Schekman says his lab will no longer send papers to Nature, Cell and 
Science as they distort scientific process

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals?CMP=fb_gu

Follow the link to read the article.

Something I think the members of vortex may find some agreement with.

Kind regards walker




Re: [Vo]:Nobel prize winner boycots Nature

2013-12-10 Thread Jed Rothwell
This is a breath of fresh air. It is similar to what Pam Boss et al. wrote
in the JCMNS the other day:

How the Flawed Journal Review Process Impedes Paradigm Shifting Discoveries

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedk.pdf#page=6


Re: [Vo]:Nobel prize winner boycots Nature

2013-12-10 Thread Jed Rothwell
Someone quoted in that article makes an important point: The system is not
meritocratic. You don't necessarily see the best papers published in those
journals. The editors are not professional scientists, they are journalists
which isn't necessarily the greatest problem, but they emphasise novelty
over solid work. It isn't widely known, but the former editors of Nature
and Sci. Am., Maddox and Piel, were not professional scientists. They did
not have PhDs. I am not saying that should have disqualified them, but it
makes you wonder how they ended up as the de facto arbiters of DoE policy.
They and the other editors they worked with seemed to have a shallow grasp
of some technical issues. Years ago I exchanged a lot e-mail messages with
them. I found myself trying to explain aspects of calorimetry and other
subjects they did not grasp, or had never heard of. I did this by pointing
them to papers by McKubre and Miles. They did not read these papers. As one
of them told me, reading papers is not our job.

Maddox and Piel were among the most influential opponents of cold fusion.

I am not suggesting that I knew more than Maddox. He had tremendous
knowledge of a wide range of scientific subjects. He had a much deeper,
broader education than I have, and decades of experience. A person does not
have to have a PhD to make important contributions. But I did have some
specific knowledge of hands-on experimental details that he lacked, and --
more important -- that he no interest in acquiring. I guess what I am
saying is that no single person should have as much power as these people
had.

- Jed


Re: [Vo]:Nobel prize winner boycots Nature

2013-12-10 Thread Alain Sepeda
as i says in the article,
there is a sad tendency to focus on easy frauds debunked quickly,
and to miss the huge failure of big Journals like natureco :

- Pal -review, kingmakers, kerberos... which prevent enemies to publish .
many case identified today from different source, and minimized each time,
ans not a problem.
- consensual fraud, which are nearly never identified, because the result
is too much pleasing.

fraud induced by desperate greed is much less dangerous for the society
than consensual collective delusion, and professions who grow on faulty
science, for sometime centuries.


2013/12/10 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com

 This is a breath of fresh air. It is similar to what Pam Boss et al. wrote
 in the JCMNS the other day:

 How the Flawed Journal Review Process Impedes Paradigm Shifting Discoveries

 http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedk.pdf#page=6