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"The win would be a scientific publication that takes science seriously." The articles in question are editorials, there are quite a number of them on Inferenc

"The win would be a scientific publication that takes science seriously." The articles in question are editorials, there are quite a number of them on Inference. So this is not a situation of Journal passing of pseudoscientific research as science i.e. publishing crazy papers. It's really a fuss about some lengthy and interesting bits of logical diatribes that possibly only a few have read in the first place. Thanks to the commenter below, here is the offending article: [1] Have a quick gander. And now you might wonder what all the fuss is about and that the 'real story' seems this might be some tawdry logic by motherjones trying to take a piece out of Thiel? The author of the article seems to be making a genuinely thoughtful case, for god's sake man if this kind of discussion cannot be had the world will end. Most science comes from meandering and most of our meandering is wrong. It doesn't seem to me there is any 'anti science' here really (I don't have enough background in this area to be fully certain), this whole thing could be ridiculous. Nobody is claiming 'flat earth' or pushing crazy propaganda. Frankly, it's enjoyable to read left-field ideas, so long as they are not passed of as 'truth', and I don't think they are in this case, it'll be fine. [1] https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-crisis-revisited-part-one https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-c...

staticautomatic 8y ago
Actually I don't wonder what all the fuss is about, and for a reason you seem not to have considered. The history of science with a non-scientific agenda is by no means limited to questionable methods and questionable inferences drawn improperly from otherwise "good science." At least as often (if not most of the time), the goal of junk and pseudo science is not actually to assert a truth but to act as if there some reasonable question regarding a thing about which there actually isn't. For example, tobacco companies benefitted from and were primarily interested in perpetuating the idea that there was some genuine debate about whether cigarettes cause lung cancer, in the same way that certain capitalists benefit from the idea that there's a real question about whether burning fossil fuels causes the earth to warm and creationists benefit from a "debate" about whether evolution is real. To say that they're merely asking a question or asserting a point would be disingenuous in light of the historical record. In any event I read the article. It's an interesting history lesson but a number of the author's points suggest to me that he either doesn't totally understand what he's arguing against or is deliberately misrepresenting it. I say that as someone who's done hard science research in the field.

staticautomatic 8y ago

Actually I don't wonder what all the fuss is about, and for a reason you seem not to have considered. The history of science with a non-scientific agenda is by no means limited to questionable methods and questionable inferences drawn improperly from otherwise "good science." At least as often (if not most of the time), the goal of junk and pseudo science is not actually to assert a truth but to act as if there some reasonable question regarding a thing about which there actually isn't. For example, tobacco companies benefitted from and were primarily interested in perpetuating the idea that there was some genuine debate about whether cigarettes cause lung cancer, in the same way that certain capitalists benefit from the idea that there's a real question about whether burning fossil fuels causes the earth to warm and creationists benefit from a "debate" about whether evolution is real. To say that they're merely asking a question or asserting a point would be disingenuous in light of the historical record. In any event I read the article. It's an interesting history lesson but a number of the author's points suggest to me that he either doesn't totally understand what he's arguing against or is deliberately misrepresenting it. I say that as someone who's done hard science research in the field.