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Nature as a journal also tends to reward hype and exaggeration over concrete results.

SiempreViernes 8y ago
Yeah, but think about all the trash they must reject if they let the questionable things trough. I’m also more sceptic that the flagship journals actually have declined, at least in part I suspect the critsism is just complains in the spirit of those about ”the youth of today”.
- thousandautumns 8y ago
  Actually, some of the biggest problems with modern science are directly caused by journals. One problem is that because they publish the most eye opening studies, they are inherently biasing the results they publish to extreme findings that are anomalous or don't represent reality. If 20 scientists are all conducting similar experiments, a typical experiment design would expect 1 of them to find a statistically significant result when there is none. But due to the way journals review and accept research, often the extreme result will be the one published. In fact, surveys have shown that many of those with the null result won't even bother submitting their findings because they likely won't be accepted. So published research is being biased towards false positive results, which is part of why reproducibility in science is in crisis these days. So while there is certainly bad science being filtered out by journals today, there is actual important "boring" findings that are solid science that are being filtered out as well, and that is damaging science on the whole.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    > One problem is that because they publish the most eye opening studies Is this really the case? In my own field, it is quite common for us to publish only slight increments of existing knowledge, or we simply debunk an earlier paper. I have also done some work in scientific editing for scholars in other fields, and from what I’ve seen, it seems that they, too, publish similar minor work, even literature reviews where the author does not make any original claims but only summarizes what is out there, and these do get accepted and published. I can definitely imagine that a few über-high-profile journals like Nature might want the flashiest claims and discoveries, but there is a whole world of publishing out there.

Yeah, but think about all the trash they must reject if they let the questionable things trough. I’m also more sceptic that the flagship journals actually have declined, at least in part I suspect the critsism is just complains in the spirit of those about ”the youth of today”.

thousandautumns 8y ago
Actually, some of the biggest problems with modern science are directly caused by journals. One problem is that because they publish the most eye opening studies, they are inherently biasing the results they publish to extreme findings that are anomalous or don't represent reality. If 20 scientists are all conducting similar experiments, a typical experiment design would expect 1 of them to find a statistically significant result when there is none. But due to the way journals review and accept research, often the extreme result will be the one published. In fact, surveys have shown that many of those with the null result won't even bother submitting their findings because they likely won't be accepted. So published research is being biased towards false positive results, which is part of why reproducibility in science is in crisis these days. So while there is certainly bad science being filtered out by journals today, there is actual important "boring" findings that are solid science that are being filtered out as well, and that is damaging science on the whole.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  > One problem is that because they publish the most eye opening studies Is this really the case? In my own field, it is quite common for us to publish only slight increments of existing knowledge, or we simply debunk an earlier paper. I have also done some work in scientific editing for scholars in other fields, and from what I’ve seen, it seems that they, too, publish similar minor work, even literature reviews where the author does not make any original claims but only summarizes what is out there, and these do get accepted and published. I can definitely imagine that a few über-high-profile journals like Nature might want the flashiest claims and discoveries, but there is a whole world of publishing out there.