- Joined
- Jan 2, 2013
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- 19,259
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- 6,899
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
Of course none of this comes a surprise to anybody who honestly looked into the Climatgate scandal.
"the journal Nature published a study that attempted to confirm the findings of 53 prominent peer-reviewed papers that present results of lab experiments related to cancer drugs. The scientists were unable to reproduce 94 percent of these results, despite the fact that “when findings could not be reproduced, an attempt was made to contact the original authors, discuss the discrepant findings, exchange reagents and repeat experiments under the authors’ direction, occasionally even in the laboratory of the original investigator.”
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a “detailed review“ of “2,047 biomedical and life-science research articles” that have been retracted. It found that “21.3% of retractions were attributable to error” and “67.4% of retractions were attributable to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication (14.2%), and plagiarism (9.8%).” The authors also noted that “incomplete, uninformative or misleading retraction announcements have led to a previous underestimation of the role of fraud in the ongoing retraction epidemic.”
BioMed Central announced that it had “identified 43 articles” in its peer-reviewed journals “that were published on the basis of reviews from fabricated reviewers.”
the journal Tumor Biology retracted more than 100 papers because the editors had “strong reason to believe that the peer review process was compromised.”
Phil Hurst, a publisher for the Royal Society, wrote that “traditional peer review is confidential, with research papers scrutinized by a small number of anonymous experts. Although publishers are vigilant, this secrecy provides the opportunity for fraud.”
Austin L. Hughes, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, wrote that “the high confidence in funding and peer-review panels should seem misplaced to anyone who has served on these panels and witnessed the extent to which preconceived notions, personal vendettas, and the like can torpedo even the best proposals.”
The journal PLOS ONE published an analysis of peer-review practices that states:
“Peer review is the main process by which scientists communicate their work, and is widely regarded as a gatekeeper of the quality of published research. However, its effectiveness remains largely assumed rather than demonstrated.”
Peer review “has limited tools to safeguard the efficiency of the process.”
“Reviewers are typically protected by anonymity, and are not rewarded for an accurate and fair job nor held accountable for a sloppy or biased one. Reviewers are thus under little incentive to act in the best interest of science as opposed to their own best interest.”
“We find that the biggest hazard to the quality of published literature is not selfish rejection of high-quality manuscripts but indifferent acceptance of low-quality ones.”
Dr. Andy Farke, a vertebrate paleontologist and editor for the scientific journals PLOS ONE and PeerJ, wrote, “I have seen errors or editorial/reviewer lapses in pretty much every journal I have read.”
the journal Nature published an analysis of peer-reviewed papers conducted by “a group of researchers working on obesity, nutrition and energetics.” They found:
“In the course of assembling weekly lists of articles in our field, we began noticing more peer-reviewed articles containing what we call substantial or invalidating errors.”
“After attempting to address more than 25 of these errors with letters to authors or journals, and identifying at least a dozen more, we had to stop—the work took too much of our time.”
“Our efforts revealed invalidating practices that occur repeatedly … and showed how journals and authors react when faced with mistakes that need correction.”
Drummond Rennie, former deputy editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and of the Journal of the American Medical Association, affirmed there “are scarcely any bars to eventual publication” in peer-reviewed journals. Emphasizing the point, he added, “There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.”
https://fee.org/articles/epa-s-lack-of-transparency-is-a-breeding-ground-for-junk-science/
**SCATHING***
"the journal Nature published a study that attempted to confirm the findings of 53 prominent peer-reviewed papers that present results of lab experiments related to cancer drugs. The scientists were unable to reproduce 94 percent of these results, despite the fact that “when findings could not be reproduced, an attempt was made to contact the original authors, discuss the discrepant findings, exchange reagents and repeat experiments under the authors’ direction, occasionally even in the laboratory of the original investigator.”
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a “detailed review“ of “2,047 biomedical and life-science research articles” that have been retracted. It found that “21.3% of retractions were attributable to error” and “67.4% of retractions were attributable to misconduct, including fraud or suspected fraud (43.4%), duplicate publication (14.2%), and plagiarism (9.8%).” The authors also noted that “incomplete, uninformative or misleading retraction announcements have led to a previous underestimation of the role of fraud in the ongoing retraction epidemic.”
BioMed Central announced that it had “identified 43 articles” in its peer-reviewed journals “that were published on the basis of reviews from fabricated reviewers.”
the journal Tumor Biology retracted more than 100 papers because the editors had “strong reason to believe that the peer review process was compromised.”
Phil Hurst, a publisher for the Royal Society, wrote that “traditional peer review is confidential, with research papers scrutinized by a small number of anonymous experts. Although publishers are vigilant, this secrecy provides the opportunity for fraud.”
Austin L. Hughes, a professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, wrote that “the high confidence in funding and peer-review panels should seem misplaced to anyone who has served on these panels and witnessed the extent to which preconceived notions, personal vendettas, and the like can torpedo even the best proposals.”
The journal PLOS ONE published an analysis of peer-review practices that states:
“Peer review is the main process by which scientists communicate their work, and is widely regarded as a gatekeeper of the quality of published research. However, its effectiveness remains largely assumed rather than demonstrated.”
Peer review “has limited tools to safeguard the efficiency of the process.”
“Reviewers are typically protected by anonymity, and are not rewarded for an accurate and fair job nor held accountable for a sloppy or biased one. Reviewers are thus under little incentive to act in the best interest of science as opposed to their own best interest.”
“We find that the biggest hazard to the quality of published literature is not selfish rejection of high-quality manuscripts but indifferent acceptance of low-quality ones.”
Dr. Andy Farke, a vertebrate paleontologist and editor for the scientific journals PLOS ONE and PeerJ, wrote, “I have seen errors or editorial/reviewer lapses in pretty much every journal I have read.”
the journal Nature published an analysis of peer-reviewed papers conducted by “a group of researchers working on obesity, nutrition and energetics.” They found:
“In the course of assembling weekly lists of articles in our field, we began noticing more peer-reviewed articles containing what we call substantial or invalidating errors.”
“After attempting to address more than 25 of these errors with letters to authors or journals, and identifying at least a dozen more, we had to stop—the work took too much of our time.”
“Our efforts revealed invalidating practices that occur repeatedly … and showed how journals and authors react when faced with mistakes that need correction.”
Drummond Rennie, former deputy editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and of the Journal of the American Medical Association, affirmed there “are scarcely any bars to eventual publication” in peer-reviewed journals. Emphasizing the point, he added, “There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.”
https://fee.org/articles/epa-s-lack-of-transparency-is-a-breeding-ground-for-junk-science/
**SCATHING***