About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Rationally Speaking podcast: Peer Review

If you value scientific evidence you're probably familiar with the idea that having "peer-reviewed" studies is crucial to the legitimacy of any new claim. But what does "peer-reviewed" entail, anyway?

In this episode, Massimo and Julia open up the black box of peer review, explaining how the process originated, how it works, and what's wrong with it.

They also try brainstorming ways it could be fixed, and ask: how is the Internet changing the way we do research?
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1 comment:

  1. JoshJMarch 28, 2012 10:57 AM

    "Physicist Michael Nielsen points out that peer review is historically rare (just one of Einstein’s 300 papers was peer reviewed; the famous Nature did not institute peer review until 1967), has been nationally biased, erroneously rejects many historic discoveries (one study lists “34 Nobel Laureates whose awarded work was rejected by peer review”; Horribin 1990 lists others like the discovery of quarks), and catches only a small fraction of errors. And fraud? Forget about it."

    From http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#fn50

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