xTYBALTx

Anything that tastes good must be good for me!

Except, apparently, wild almonds. :[

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

TheFeniX

Such a good example, I was hoping someone would bring it up.

The thing that people don't seem to understand is that this amount of scientific discourse is a GREAT thing. Remember kids, 50% of people who got their PHD graduated at the bottom of their class.

The scientific community has no real consensus. When you put a paper out for review, it is subject to brutal interrogation by other scientists. Issues will be found and corrections will be made. Sure, some might not print a retractions, but that really doesn't mean much as many scientists aren't worried about the politics. But hey, maybe this article will make them more vigilant.

Science is not perfect, you only have to look at emergency medicine to see that. Even in the 20th century, doctors have made huge strides against bad practices we think are common today. Hell, they didn't start giving blood to people suffering from blood loss shock up until around WWII.

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xTYBALTx

I guess I'm just wondering why people would defend peer review for allowing mundane errors such as "miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis."

No one expects peer review - or any system - to catch all errors, or most errors, or whatever. But what's the purpose of peer review if it can't catch these specific types of errors?

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Beatnik

It does catch those errors, just not every instance of them. Studies are rejected all the time for those types of errors. And epidemiology is in fact part of that process: post-hoc and meta analyses of studies.

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leejo

Wouldn't you expect significantly more than 50% of papers appearing in scientific journals to have been vetted to the point at which they didn't suffer from procedural errors and bad calculations? After all, what is science if precision doesn't could all that much?

sordavie

Um. Where did you get this idea from?

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leejo

Easy Sordavie. He may have made an error, and that's as big a part of the process as being correct.

sordavie

Well, in one sense it's almost trivial. If what he means is that 50% of PhDs graduated in the bottom half of their class, then that's true by definition--given that not all PhDs recieved the same exact grade.

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Beatnik

I think he was being facetious. But thanks for clarifying that point nonetheless. The philosophical implications of that tautology kept me from getting a good night's sleep last night.

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leejo

Yeah well your avatar is pooping a love rainbow, so there.

leejo

Moi? Tautology? That's what Han Solo had to cut open to keep Luke from freezing, right?

TheFeniX

I am, but I am dead serious as well: 50% of people graduate at the bottom of their class. Granted, this means less, than say, a high school diploma. They hand those out like bathroom tissue.

A PHD is much harder to get and you have to put in the work to get one. But for every person who blew through their classes and has a wealth of knowledge to offer, there's just as many people who made the bottom end of the cut.

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sordavie

What do you mean by bottom of the class? One in three PhD candidates are dismissed or drop out. I take it that that's the bottom of the class. And even then, they all would have had to be fairly well positioned in their undergraduate or masters class to even be admitted to the program.

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Rincewind

And besides, a PhD candidate isn't really measured by the grades they got in their graduate courses. A lot of courses are pass fail at the doctoral level. A lot of candidates get their degree with a 4.0. This was the case in my department at my university. Based on grades, there was no one at the bottom of our class.

TheFeniX is just throwing around semantics to make a point: don't put people with PhD's and other sorts of qualifications (MD's, Certified Engineers, etc.) up on a pedestal; some are brilliant, but most aren't.

Did I get that right FeniX?

Leejo, does a peer reviewed, published study claiming a 50% fail rate in peer reviewed, published papers count as recursive irony?

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~~ Veritas simplex oratio est ~~
No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat. --T. Pratchett

<---- You know you're getting old when you rely on your forum meta-data to remind you how old you are.

Required Reading for all TG sandboxers

leejo

If there is a problem with its methodology or calculations, yes. It's meta-ironic, too.