| |
 |
|
|
Science Forum Index » Environment Forum » Journals: how to decide what's worth publishing
Page 1 of 1
|
| Author |
Message |
| Dr. Convection |
 Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 5:43 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
From:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v421/n6920/f
ull/421209b_fs.html
Nature 421, 209 - 210 (16 January 2003); doi:10.1038/421209b
Journals: how to decide what's worth publishing
Sir - Your News Feature (Nature 419, 772-776; 2002) raises important
questions about the reliability of peer review, but falls back on the
justification often used by editors to shield themselves from widespread
dissatisfaction with the system as currently practised: "If it ain't broke,
don't try to fix it".
We believe it may never have been working in the first place.
Perhaps peer review, in its current form, cannot be expected to detect
fraud. But can we even rely on it to improve the chances that what is
published is the best science, communicated as accurately as possible, and
that what remains unpublished is dispensable?
Various studies, mostly in biomedical journals, have reported only modest
author satisfaction (at best) with the review process, irrespective of the
quality of the review. Papers that eventually became very highly cited were
often rejected by the journal of first choice. Peer review is costly,
biased, can be inefficient, does not always identify important work, and can
allow publication of articles with serious deficiencies or omissions.
Rather than falling back on the churchillian cliché quoted in your feature
that peer review is the worst system in the world except for all the others,
members of the research community should cooperate to answer several
questions.
We need to know whether peer review (in whatever form) is more effective
than alternatives. Does it identify submissions of higher quality than do
other selection methods, or chance, or no selection? Does peer review
significantly improve the clarity, transparency, accuracy and usefulness of
published papers compared with the submitted versions?
If peer review in its current, descriptive form is ineffective or less than
effective, we should experiment with more analytical forms of assessment.
For example, the quality of a new study could be assessed in the context of
a pre-existing systematic review of studies on the topic. Such a population
approach may make it easier to assess the contribution of an individual new
study. At the same time, assessment should be standardized and specific for
different experimental designs, and peer reviewers should be trained to use
a single, structured-assessment instrument.
Ultimately, it is the larger population of readers (rather than a possibly
biased sample of referees) who should decide whether the changes made during
review substantially improve the document as a record of a peer's
contribution to science. New systems should be tried that involve readers in
the review process either after 'traditional' review (as in post-publication
commentary, rapid replies and the like) or by developing a 'definitive' text
by consensus before publication. Language experts have been investigating
readers' reactions to texts for many years; it is time for editors and
publishers in the 'harder' sciences to use their methods to extract useful
experimental data from these reactions.
Tom Jefferson
Health Reviews Ltd, Via Adige 28a, Anguillara Sabazia, Rome, Italy
Karen Shashok
Comp. Ruiz Aznar 12, 2-A, 18008 Granada, Spain |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| BretCahill |
| Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 9:02 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
Would you call a biologist an "expert in his field" if he didn't even know
what is designated by the acronym "DNA"? How about chemist who couldn't
explain "stoichiometry?" A mathematician who couldn't prove the Pythagorean
theorem? A physicist who couldn't name Newton's Second Law of Motion?
Just about everyone in their respective fields would call them "outright
frauds" or "just plain stupid." What am I saying? Most educated people
outside their field would think there was something wrong. That's because
those questions are so basic you can go to any college or university and 98% of
the high schools in the U. S. and you know you'll get the correct answer in
less than 20 seconds.
The suggestion that there would be any stonewalling is ludicrous.
Now, let's leave the reputable science and math departments at every last
college and university on the planet and head on over the outspoken free market
"scholars" at the Chicago School, von Mises Inst., Hoover Inst., American
Enterprise, Cato, etc. and ask them a question that is even more basic to their
field:
"Does free speech precede each and every free trade?"
Even though the correct answer is an obvious self evident truth, the outspoken
"market" economists won't have any answers. In fact, these outspoken
"scholars" will stonewall and dodge like Labor Secretary Chao at a press
conference.
As Milton Friedman might say, if corporate interests pay economists to dodge
issues, next thing you know, you have a lot of economists who dodge issues.
Bret Cahill
All conservatism is based on censorship of
economic information.
-- Bret Cahill |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
|
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
The time now is Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:43 am
|
|