5 ms·

Science working as intended.

golly_ned 3y ago
It really isn't. This paper was accepted and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Research could already be underway based on the results of this paper. The paper was retracted because the other co-authors raised concerns, not based on experiment or observation. Science working as intended would mean this paper wasn't published in the first place, nor would a researcher like this have his own lab.
- zwieback 3y ago
  Second order science working as intended.
- greentea23 3y ago
  Science historically works on the time scale of decades and centuries, not months and years imo. So I think it's working faster and better than ever before. Journals are not science, just a small tool for slightly better communication between scientists. I think/hope we'll make them obsolete in favor of something that looks more like git repos with lots of automated analysis of logic and tests etc eventually.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Peer review is a modern invention, so benchmarking whether or not science is working based on peer review is a bizarre notion. What we're seeing is indeed old-school science working as it always has.
- fooker 3y ago
  Why are you conflating peer review with science? Peer review is a relatively modern invention. A vast majority of important 20th century physics, for example was pre-peer review.
dilawar 3y ago
More like science self-correcting itself. But nonetheless there should be controls on such nonsense. The ease with which many academics get away with all this will make even a seasoned politician jealous.
rossant 3y ago
Except we have no way to know that for 1 such retracted paper, there aren't 100 papers as bad that are not.
- defrost 3y ago
  Journals aren't intended to be pefect and only filled with papers that are never disputed or exposed as wrong. There are ways of estimating percentages of bad papers, just as there are ways of estimating subsets of other populations. This is science working as intended - the good reproducable work advances on the strength of the good papers and the bad papers fall away from lack of follow on.

It really isn't. This paper was accepted and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Research could already be underway based on the results of this paper. The paper was retracted because the other co-authors raised concerns, not based on experiment or observation. Science working as intended would mean this paper wasn't published in the first place, nor would a researcher like this have his own lab.

zwieback 3y ago
Second order science working as intended.
greentea23 3y ago
Science historically works on the time scale of decades and centuries, not months and years imo. So I think it's working faster and better than ever before. Journals are not science, just a small tool for slightly better communication between scientists. I think/hope we'll make them obsolete in favor of something that looks more like git repos with lots of automated analysis of logic and tests etc eventually.
hackerlight 3y ago
Peer review is a modern invention, so benchmarking whether or not science is working based on peer review is a bizarre notion. What we're seeing is indeed old-school science working as it always has.
fooker 3y ago
Why are you conflating peer review with science? Peer review is a relatively modern invention. A vast majority of important 20th century physics, for example was pre-peer review.

dilawar 3y ago

More like science self-correcting itself. But nonetheless there should be controls on such nonsense. The ease with which many academics get away with all this will make even a seasoned politician jealous.

rossant 3y ago

Except we have no way to know that for 1 such retracted paper, there aren't 100 papers as bad that are not.

defrost 3y ago
Journals aren't intended to be pefect and only filled with papers that are never disputed or exposed as wrong. There are ways of estimating percentages of bad papers, just as there are ways of estimating subsets of other populations. This is science working as intended - the good reproducable work advances on the strength of the good papers and the bad papers fall away from lack of follow on.