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It also seems unlikely that a patent clerk, even one with a PhD in physics, would be allowed to publish in a physics journal today. The gatekeeping has gotten a

It also seems unlikely that a patent clerk, even one with a PhD in physics, would be allowed to publish in a physics journal today. The gatekeeping has gotten a lot more strict.

fckgnad 4y ago
Filters out a lot of kook theories but I'm sure some revolutionary stuff from some Goodwill Hunting genius has been filtered out as well.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  I’m not sure it filters out kook theories, given the replication crisis. Rather, journals promote well-connected kooks at the expense of less well-connected kooks and happen to occasionally publish some science as a byproduct.
- Attrecomet 4y ago
  Fun fact: peer review isn't gatekept. There are peer reviewed young earth creationist articles out there: https://www.cnet.com/culture/creationists-launch-peer-reviewed-journal/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/creationists-launch-peer-review... So "peer review" isn't holding back kook theories at all on its own. At best, journal prestige is bolstered by it, which the journal can then translate into holding them back. The track record is a bit unclear, though.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    I view peer review as respecting the time of the journal subscriber. Someone filters out the things that are obviously flawed before wasting everyone else's time. Journal aren't just a magic upload into scientific consciousness; it takes time and energy to read and process them.
    - Attrecomet 4y ago
      It's doing a rather bad job at filtering out obvious flaws, given the reproducibility crisis we've got on our hands. Everyone says peer review is very important, but when it comes to reviewers putting in the hard and boring work of actually checking the raw data, almost none do, so in truth, peer review is NOT important to most scientists. And we nevertheless pay the price of adhering closer to orthodoxy for it, since effort being put in is a rather superficial "this paper sounds reasonable to me" filter, perhaps with some boxes that must be checked like p-value or sample size.
  - themaninthedark 4y ago
    A peer review young earth creationist journal would still gatekeep anything that did not come from a young earth perspective. >Papers can be in any scientific, or social scientific, field, but must be from a young-earth perspective and aim to assist the development of the creation model of origins The problem is that inherently peer review is designed to act as a brake: >Peer review, in which a scientist's paper is scrutinized by a group of colleagues, is designed to find errors and weed out half-baked ideas. But in blocking you are going to reject ideas. >And although some have criticized peer review for rejecting new ideas just because they're too radical for the establishment to stomach How much of a problem and how many revolutionary ideas are stopped, I don't know. I am more concerned about the reproducibility problem in science.
    - Attrecomet 4y ago
      Sorry, bad phrasing on my part. I didn't mean that peer reviewing doesn't lead to gatekeeping, but that simply making something peer reviewed isn't enough, because ludicrously bad attempts at science can be peer reviewed. Peer review is also obviously a bad solution for the reproducibility problem, given that we've got the problem now, concurrent with generations of peer reviewed manuscripts.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Attrecomet 4y ago
https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405 https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-ein... This article mentions Einstein being offended that his paper was submitted to peer review by Physical Review, and submitting it elsewhere instead: "We (Mr. Rosen and I) had sent you our manuscript for publication and had not authorised you to show it to specialists before it is printed. I see no reason to address the – in any case erroneous – comments of your anonymous expert. On the basis of this incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere." I just recently ended up there via this blog: https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall... which argues, not unconvincingly IMO, that peer review is a failed experiment which tries to stop bad science at the price of also stopping brilliant, unconventional science, where instead we would profit more from letting the scientific public do the sorting instead of hand-picked specialists. The author phrases it as science being as strong as its strongest links, not as weak as the weakest one, and we should do everything to get the brilliant crazy ideas.
- OJFord 4y ago
  > the price of also stopping brilliant, unconventional science, where instead we would profit more from letting the scientific public Also currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34257150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34257150 In brief, London 'man off the street' solves 20k year Ice Age drawings mystery, published in Cambridge Archaeological Journal via contact with Durham professor. (And he is first author.) I don't say that to disagree with you by the way - it's undoubtedly a rare example.
- dguest 4y ago
  These days Einstein could just put his paper on arXiv and worry about publication later. The physics community goes nuts about arXiv results all the time. There's zero review if you have a university email (or national lab etc). I tend to agree that peer review has flaws. But given the ease with which someone can publish anything with no review whatsoever it seems reasonable that peer review might shift to fill a niche that is slower and less disruptive.
codethief 4y ago
I disagree, at least in math there have been many instances recently where laymen (with a PhD) found some new and exciting results[0] and got to publish them, and I don't see why it would be any other way in physics. Most recent example: https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-out-of-math-an-ai-programmer-cracks-a-pure-math-problem-20230103/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-out-of-math-an-ai-progra...

It also seems unlikely that a patent clerk, even one with a PhD in physics, would be allowed to publish in a physics journal today. The gatekeeping has gotten a lot more strict.

fckgnad 4y ago

Filters out a lot of kook theories but I'm sure some revolutionary stuff from some Goodwill Hunting genius has been filtered out as well.

zmgsabst 4y ago
I’m not sure it filters out kook theories, given the replication crisis. Rather, journals promote well-connected kooks at the expense of less well-connected kooks and happen to occasionally publish some science as a byproduct.
Attrecomet 4y ago
Fun fact: peer review isn't gatekept. There are peer reviewed young earth creationist articles out there: https://www.cnet.com/culture/creationists-launch-peer-reviewed-journal/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/creationists-launch-peer-review... So "peer review" isn't holding back kook theories at all on its own. At best, journal prestige is bolstered by it, which the journal can then translate into holding them back. The track record is a bit unclear, though.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  I view peer review as respecting the time of the journal subscriber. Someone filters out the things that are obviously flawed before wasting everyone else's time. Journal aren't just a magic upload into scientific consciousness; it takes time and energy to read and process them.
  - Attrecomet 4y ago
    It's doing a rather bad job at filtering out obvious flaws, given the reproducibility crisis we've got on our hands. Everyone says peer review is very important, but when it comes to reviewers putting in the hard and boring work of actually checking the raw data, almost none do, so in truth, peer review is NOT important to most scientists. And we nevertheless pay the price of adhering closer to orthodoxy for it, since effort being put in is a rather superficial "this paper sounds reasonable to me" filter, perhaps with some boxes that must be checked like p-value or sample size.
- themaninthedark 4y ago
  A peer review young earth creationist journal would still gatekeep anything that did not come from a young earth perspective. >Papers can be in any scientific, or social scientific, field, but must be from a young-earth perspective and aim to assist the development of the creation model of origins The problem is that inherently peer review is designed to act as a brake: >Peer review, in which a scientist's paper is scrutinized by a group of colleagues, is designed to find errors and weed out half-baked ideas. But in blocking you are going to reject ideas. >And although some have criticized peer review for rejecting new ideas just because they're too radical for the establishment to stomach How much of a problem and how many revolutionary ideas are stopped, I don't know. I am more concerned about the reproducibility problem in science.
  - Attrecomet 4y ago
    Sorry, bad phrasing on my part. I didn't mean that peer reviewing doesn't lead to gatekeeping, but that simply making something peer reviewed isn't enough, because ludicrously bad attempts at science can be peer reviewed. Peer review is also obviously a bad solution for the reproducibility problem, given that we've got the problem now, concurrent with generations of peer reviewed manuscripts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Attrecomet 4y ago

https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405 https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-ein... This article mentions Einstein being offended that his paper was submitted to peer review by Physical Review, and submitting it elsewhere instead: "We (Mr. Rosen and I) had sent you our manuscript for publication and had not authorised you to show it to specialists before it is printed. I see no reason to address the – in any case erroneous – comments of your anonymous expert. On the basis of this incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere." I just recently ended up there via this blog: https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall... which argues, not unconvincingly IMO, that peer review is a failed experiment which tries to stop bad science at the price of also stopping brilliant, unconventional science, where instead we would profit more from letting the scientific public do the sorting instead of hand-picked specialists. The author phrases it as science being as strong as its strongest links, not as weak as the weakest one, and we should do everything to get the brilliant crazy ideas.

OJFord 4y ago
> the price of also stopping brilliant, unconventional science, where instead we would profit more from letting the scientific public Also currently on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34257150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34257150 In brief, London 'man off the street' solves 20k year Ice Age drawings mystery, published in Cambridge Archaeological Journal via contact with Durham professor. (And he is first author.) I don't say that to disagree with you by the way - it's undoubtedly a rare example.
dguest 4y ago
These days Einstein could just put his paper on arXiv and worry about publication later. The physics community goes nuts about arXiv results all the time. There's zero review if you have a university email (or national lab etc). I tend to agree that peer review has flaws. But given the ease with which someone can publish anything with no review whatsoever it seems reasonable that peer review might shift to fill a niche that is slower and less disruptive.

codethief 4y ago

I disagree, at least in math there have been many instances recently where laymen (with a PhD) found some new and exciting results[0] and got to publish them, and I don't see why it would be any other way in physics. Most recent example: https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-out-of-math-an-ai-programmer-cracks-a-pure-math-problem-20230103/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-out-of-math-an-ai-progra...