tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post4518297469867583876..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: Blogosphere beats peer review in the case of stealth creationist paperUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-91995188499596919042009-02-26T17:41:00.000-05:002009-02-26T17:41:00.000-05:00Valera,thanks for the suggestion and offer of help...Valera,<BR/><BR/>thanks for the suggestion and offer of help. That site is only provisional, until Stony Brook Library's people finish the actual journal's site with all the interactive bells and whistles. Stay tuned!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-68175923004471877902009-02-26T15:43:00.000-05:002009-02-26T15:43:00.000-05:00Massimo,IMHO, you should ditch the background on h...Massimo,<BR/>IMHO, you should ditch the background on http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/~massimo/p&tb/, it makes reading the text difficult. Also, if you don't have someone else in mind, I could volunteer my services for the development of the website.<BR/><BR/>Sorry, no comments specific to the post; I'm usually in agreement with what you say.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03877117916846565598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-77367579246007982792009-02-24T23:11:00.000-05:002009-02-24T23:11:00.000-05:00I'm reminded of Winston Churchill's famous quote: ...I'm reminded of Winston Churchill's famous quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."<BR/><BR/>But I think there's some ambiguity here. <I>Peer review</I> just means review by one's peers, i.e. other specialists who are competent to comment on the work. The peer review <I>system</I>, on the other hand, is the traditional way that academic peer review has been implemented.<BR/><BR/>Peer review itself is imperfect. After all, experts can be wrong. But, as Ryan suggests, expert review is an indispensable first step.<BR/><BR/>The traditional peer review system has its own shortcomings (its snail's pace for one). It seems that technological innovation has the potential to substantially improve on this. But lots of issues remain. Anonymity, for example, is a double-edged sword.Nick Barrowmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11224940659269649220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51455767769706791762009-02-24T22:08:00.000-05:002009-02-24T22:08:00.000-05:00Kimpatsu,well, for now the best you can do about t...Kimpatsu,<BR/><BR/>well, for now the best you can do about the new journal is to check the general description on the provisional web site: http://philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org<BR/><BR/>We are beginning to receive submissions, and the authors and editors are of a very good caliber, both in biology and in philosophy. I think this is going to be lots of fun!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-43419088989495572992009-02-24T19:10:00.000-05:002009-02-24T19:10:00.000-05:00@Chris Crawford:I think the spelling and grammar p...@Chris Crawford:<BR/>I think the spelling and grammar problems here arose from the fact that English is not the mother tongue oft he authors. What seems interesting here is that the plagiarism wsa caught by the webizens, because it would be unrealistic to expect a handful of peer reviewers to know all the literature out there, and might not ercognise plagiarism where they see it.<BR/>---<BR/>Massimo, could you tell us more about this new, forthcoming online journal, please?Kimpatsuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06156184889287692016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-61846185296515533742009-02-24T14:31:00.000-05:002009-02-24T14:31:00.000-05:00I think this must happen if we are to better under...I think this must happen if we are to better understand complex systems, where there are no 'specialists' and many different fields of science are called upon to formulate a picture of nature. I think the journal is a wonderful idea, let people submit their ideas – let’s talk about it. Even if the ideas are outlandish we can read about why they are so, or why they are not so. Serious discoveries can be made this way! And if it’s total shit, just chuck it.Nilouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17782852771023449127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-30983261859550463782009-02-24T12:35:00.000-05:002009-02-24T12:35:00.000-05:00Let's face it, most academic papers are of interes...Let's face it, most academic papers are of interest to a small number of specialists; it's not as if such papers will attract the attention of the same folk who write angry letters to the editor of their local newspaper. I would therefore expect that the great majority of comments on any paper would be of some value. Moreover, the useless comments would almost certainly be immediately discernible from their poor spelling, grammar, etc. So why not? Cast a wide net, collect a broad variety of responses, and toss the dreck. Sounds like a more reliable system than the Russian Roulette of the standard system.Chris Crawfordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14926445098765433310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-73614914643297571692009-02-24T12:20:00.000-05:002009-02-24T12:20:00.000-05:00Sounds good. I just think keeping "peer review" a...Sounds good. I just think keeping "peer review" and "online review" as separate steps is important. It's one thing to notice that there is some creationist language in a paper and quite another to examine the methods or stats or review of literature. On the other hand, it has always been a system of expert review first, then larger community review second -- it's just been inefficient because it had to happen in print. I think online commentary could be great as a way of making this second part of the procedure more effectiveT Ryan Gregoryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17028390880937952573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-13839220825886671572009-02-24T11:22:00.000-05:002009-02-24T11:22:00.000-05:00Ryan,but the idea wouldn't be to allow non-special...Ryan,<BR/><BR/>but the idea wouldn't be to allow non-specialists to do the extended peer review. It would be members of a community of scientists (or philosophers, or whatever).<BR/><BR/>People could register with the online journal, like they do with the physics archive, and comment on papers. And of course the two systems are not mutually exclusive: a pre-screening of papers could be done in the usual way, but then the paper would be subject to further, open-ended review.<BR/><BR/>In fact, that's the model that a few colleagues and I are thinking of adopting for a new journal that will come online by the end of the year: http://philosophyandtheoryinbiology.org/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-86233091127009370322009-02-24T10:05:00.000-05:002009-02-24T10:05:00.000-05:00I think having feedback from the blogs is very use...I think having feedback from the blogs is very useful, but I see major problems with letting formal publication decisions on technical papers rest on review by non-specialists. This was an exceptional case. The paper should not even have gone to review.T Ryan Gregoryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17028390880937952573noreply@blogger.com