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I read it: it is a real paper, professionally written in an staid tone. Therefore, even if the premise is entirely wrong, even if you disagree with every single

I read it: it is a real paper, professionally written in an staid tone. Therefore, even if the premise is entirely wrong, even if you disagree with every single word, there is no reason for it to be "retracted". Instead of signing petitions full of buzzwords and posting solitary anecdotes on Twitter, opponents of the paper should write a rebuttal and refute the author's claims.

nabla9 6y ago
Read my other reply. In my view not about disagreement or agreement. It's about being completely outdated, already debated and abandoned viewpoint from highly active senior citizen. Good for him for being active, but we cant just entertain elderly. Main support for his viewpoint comes from references to articles from 70's and 90s. Just to be clear: There is nothing wrong with being old researcher. But we must require the same relevance and rigour from them as we do from the young.
- ecliptic_pole 6y ago
  The good thing about digital publishing is that virtually no "entertaining" of authors is required of anyone. I highly doubt this 6-page paper in a low-impact Springer journal significantly consumed anyone's electronic or physical resources. Moreover, only those who specifically seek it will ever be confronted with the paper. No one is forcing researchers to attend seminars or conferences, or otherwise disturbing them. The work is simply made available online for anyone who wants to read it. (Apparently it has already been downloaded thousands of times.) I disagree with the implication that "outdated", "debated", and "abandoned" ideas should be excluded from publication. The merits of any idea should be determined by endless, open-ended, free debate, without any deference to whatever is and is not presently "in fashion". Your broader point, about the composition of the academic community and the long tail of elderly professors occupying the limited research positions at universities, is of course a serious concern. Retracting unfashionable papers by older authors is not a solution.
  - salawat 6y ago
    As I recall there is an example of a study that Feynman was wont to remind people of, done by a researcher back in the 30's that pretty much has never been cited once, but nevertheless goes into the great lengths one has to go to properly control for training rats. Point being, just because a study is old, doesn't mean it's useless. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experiment_you_dont_know_about_but_should.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi... Frankly, if it weren't for my absolute refusal to support the academic publishing complex and the gatekeeping of knowledge, I'd give his article a read, and would be interested in being pointed in the direction of some of the papers that have challenged his conclusions.
qtplatypus 6y ago
So what if the tone is good. The arguments that he made are not supported by the evidence.
- ecliptic_pole 6y ago
  I agree that the arguments he made are not supported by evidence, but this is our judgment of his paper, not a reason to retract it and prevent other people from reading it. The fact that the paper is written in a scholarly tone is obviously relevant. If it was spam or "junk mail", or some sort of violent sermon or political philippic, then of course there is no reason for it to stay online. But it's not. It's obviously a real, genuine academic paper.
  - qtplatypus 6y ago
    Looking for errors in the paper is exactly what peer review and retraction is for. Even if it mimics the form of an academic paper it doesn’t progress the debate if all it is using is already discredited or unsupported. As other commentators have pointed out the cites that he uses are way out of date and this isn’t advancing the field. It serves no ones to repetitively rebut the same mistakes over and over again. While at the same time such papers lend false credibility to damaging ideas.
  - ZeroGravitas 6y ago
    Couldn't you make the same argument for basically every retracted paper? What do you think about this retraction? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/ Much like "free speech", the specific things it's used to support and not support is often more revealing than the claimed position itself.

nabla9 6y ago

Read my other reply. In my view not about disagreement or agreement. It's about being completely outdated, already debated and abandoned viewpoint from highly active senior citizen. Good for him for being active, but we cant just entertain elderly. Main support for his viewpoint comes from references to articles from 70's and 90s. Just to be clear: There is nothing wrong with being old researcher. But we must require the same relevance and rigour from them as we do from the young.

ecliptic_pole 6y ago
The good thing about digital publishing is that virtually no "entertaining" of authors is required of anyone. I highly doubt this 6-page paper in a low-impact Springer journal significantly consumed anyone's electronic or physical resources. Moreover, only those who specifically seek it will ever be confronted with the paper. No one is forcing researchers to attend seminars or conferences, or otherwise disturbing them. The work is simply made available online for anyone who wants to read it. (Apparently it has already been downloaded thousands of times.) I disagree with the implication that "outdated", "debated", and "abandoned" ideas should be excluded from publication. The merits of any idea should be determined by endless, open-ended, free debate, without any deference to whatever is and is not presently "in fashion". Your broader point, about the composition of the academic community and the long tail of elderly professors occupying the limited research positions at universities, is of course a serious concern. Retracting unfashionable papers by older authors is not a solution.
- salawat 6y ago
  As I recall there is an example of a study that Feynman was wont to remind people of, done by a researcher back in the 30's that pretty much has never been cited once, but nevertheless goes into the great lengths one has to go to properly control for training rats. Point being, just because a study is old, doesn't mean it's useless. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experiment_you_dont_know_about_but_should.html https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi... Frankly, if it weren't for my absolute refusal to support the academic publishing complex and the gatekeeping of knowledge, I'd give his article a read, and would be interested in being pointed in the direction of some of the papers that have challenged his conclusions.

qtplatypus 6y ago

So what if the tone is good. The arguments that he made are not supported by the evidence.

ecliptic_pole 6y ago
I agree that the arguments he made are not supported by evidence, but this is our judgment of his paper, not a reason to retract it and prevent other people from reading it. The fact that the paper is written in a scholarly tone is obviously relevant. If it was spam or "junk mail", or some sort of violent sermon or political philippic, then of course there is no reason for it to stay online. But it's not. It's obviously a real, genuine academic paper.
- qtplatypus 6y ago
  Looking for errors in the paper is exactly what peer review and retraction is for. Even if it mimics the form of an academic paper it doesn’t progress the debate if all it is using is already discredited or unsupported. As other commentators have pointed out the cites that he uses are way out of date and this isn’t advancing the field. It serves no ones to repetitively rebut the same mistakes over and over again. While at the same time such papers lend false credibility to damaging ideas.
- ZeroGravitas 6y ago
  Couldn't you make the same argument for basically every retracted paper? What do you think about this retraction? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/ Much like "free speech", the specific things it's used to support and not support is often more revealing than the claimed position itself.