Anyone expecting marinas to open after Sundays announcement

[JumbleDuck]

It also turned out that most of psychology 101 was the result of a few charismatic professors in the 1960s making stuff up and that much of the work since isn't much better. Including much that has made it into the popular consciousness, business practice and in some cases, law The Replication Crisis in Psychology.

Oh, don't start me on psychology. The Stanford Prison "experiment" is typical: no replication, no control - the very worst type of anecdata. Even the supposedly clinical parts are full of gibberish: one of the DSM diagnostic criteria for ADHD is "seems like they have a motor running inside them all the time".

And let's not even think about nutritional science, where the long running comedy of the Daily Mail claiming x causes y a week after claiming x prevents y is accidentally an accurate representation of the field.

Have you seen Kill or cure? ?

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Yes.

The system seems to work well enough at the top so if you are Niels Bohr, fine, because there is a wide audience of brilliant people looking on. Though even Cyril Burt got away with nonsense for years because it sounded plausible and nobody could be arsed to look at the figures.

At the bottom of the chain some of the publications are full of pot boiling rubbish, designed to keep very minor academics in their posts. To pluck one discipline out of thin air, check out the Physical Education technical press.

.

I worked in a government science establishment, and everything staff there published had to go through an internal vetting procedure, first by one's line manager then the Head of Division and finally the Director of the establishment. Everything that was submitted for publication went past 3 sets of eyes other than the author's before going out of the building. At least two of those sets of eyes had at least some knowledge of the field you worked in. As a line manager, I carried out this task for my staff. In some ways, it meant that your work was checked more rigorously than a reviewer would, and, barring publications such as Nature and Science where criteria additional to scientific excellence come into play, we had a very low rejection rate. Even for Nature and Science, we probably did better than average, but statistics are lacking! I think that if all scientific publication had to go through equivalent internal refereeing before publication, it might help.

For those not familiar with scientific publication, the normal procedure is that a researcher submits a paper to a journal. It is then reviewed by two or three independent reviewers within the same area of science. They evaluate the paper according to criteria that include scientific accuracy, originality and clarity. Nature and Science, being interdisciplinary, also add the criteria of wide interest and importance. Papers like the Cold Fusion one JD refers to were published because IF they were correct they were very important and of extremely wide interest.

The review process sometimes fails for two reasons, neither of which are new! First, editors don't always choose suitable reviewers, and the reviewers simply can't assess the paper properly. I've been asked to review a paper outside my competence, and I was honest enough to return it saying that I could not review it. But not everyone wishes to admit that they can't do it; I've had referee's comments that simply didn't make sense because the referee didn't have the appropriate background. Second, there are factions in science just as in every other field of human endeavour. If a reviewer happens to be of a different camp from the author, this can result in an unjustified critical review. Again, it happened to me once - fortunately, the editor recognized what was going on and ignored that review!

Reviewers have an important role to play, and I have certainly caught at least two fatally flawed papers before they were published - papers that would have greatly embarrassed their writers if they had been published! One was actually relevant (sort of) to this forum - it was an analysis of depth sounding data that had uncritically accepted the results of an automated contouring routine without taking the distribution of data into account; some of the features they were commenting on were artefacts of the contouring routine! However, I think that the growing trend towards pre-publication with papers attracting comments from a wide range of viewers may be the way forward.

 

[st599]

Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the UK on Sunday evening, 10th May 2020, Cowes Harbour Commission (CHC) can confirm there is no immediate change at the moment to ‘stay off the water’ messages. CHC is liaising with the South Coast Harbour Masters’ Association, British Ports Association, Government, RYA and British Marine to clarify what the latest Government announcement means for port and marine operations and policies, and we aim to update stakeholders further by this Wednesday, 13th May.

CHC has been following the Government’s advice in respect of Coronavirus and we have put measures in place to limit risks to port users, our staff, emergency services and the public. As the country moves towards the easing of certain provisions of the lockdown there will be an understandable interest from many leisure users who want to get back out onto the water. Whilst we are keen to see this eventually, we will need to assess the Government’s latest guidance in respect of what activities and essential travel will be permitted. 



Furthermore, even when we are able to reopen CHC’s facilities, stakeholders should be aware that arrangements to preserve social distancing will be needed. This means that there are likely to be certain measures we need to enforce that could alter what users and visitors can do. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience and support. We will continue to monitor the situation and will advise of any further updates as soon as possible this week.

 

[JumbleDuck]

However, I think that the growing trend towards pre-publication with papers attracting comments from a wide range of viewers may be the way forward.

I think that in science generally information now spreads almost entirely by online preprints, and actual journal publication is just a later validation process for boosting grant applications. Anything new and interesting has circulated for months before it reaches paper.

 

[JumbleDuck]

However, I think that the growing trend towards pre-publication with papers attracting comments from a wide range of viewers may be the way forward.

I think that in science generally information now spreads almost entirely by online preprints, and actual journal publication is just a later validation process for boosting grant applications. Anything new and interesting has circulated for months before it reaches paper.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I think that in science generally information now spreads almost entirely by online preprints, and actual journal publication is just a later validation process for boosting grant applications. Anything new and interesting has circulated for months before it reaches paper.

I think it's very subject dependent - it's pretty unusual in environmental sciences, but I gather it's usual in the physical sciences.

 

[FlyingGoose]

I think it's very subject dependent - it's pretty unusual in environmental sciences, but I gather it's usual in the physical sciences.

Your are right in the environmental sciences , my Wife has published papers and must still go through peer review before publishing, some sneak through but in the whole it is a good process to stop bad science getting out there

 

[Stemar]

Papers like the Cold Fusion one JD refers to were published because IF they were correct they were very important and of extremely wide interest.

That would also explain the publication of the MMR/Autism paper. If it had been true, it would have been huge. Also, if they hadn't published, the antivaxers would have spread their poison anyway, and screamed about establishment censorship. I guess most people haven't got the analytical ability or the access to data that allows them to discern the facts, so will believe what they want to believe