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> As editor-in-chief of Science....Generally, I start with the corresponding editors' summaries, which are meant for someone like me: a science generalist who i
by timr 3y ago
> As editor-in-chief of Science....Generally, I start with the corresponding editors' summaries, which are meant for someone like me: a science generalist who is interested in everything but dives deeply only into one field. Next, I check to see if someone wrote a News article on the paper. Third, I check to see if there is a Perspective by another scientist.
This says so much about the volume of absolute crap that gets published in Science. No competent editor-in-chief should be looking to the news media to give background on a research topic.
- Celmfire 3y agoI wouldn't rule it out entirely - a good news article can add context (e.g. via interviews with authors) that is otherwise not generally part of the paper itself
- guy_named_matt 3y agobut.... why is that? if scientific papers were written well (and i'm implicating the science publishing guidelines + accepted culture of scientific writing in that, not just individual authors), shouldn't they self-contain their context to the level that they are comprehensible? note, i'm not talking about spin - that doesn't belong. but if basic comprehension of the paper requires reading secondary sources, isn't that a fundamental problem in how scientific papers are written? (i'm asking this as a person with a phd and post-doc, working as a data scientist now but i have read many many scientific papers). I'll note - older papers (1960's, 1970's, etc.), do seem to include more color and more explanation. some modern papers do too. but many are dry and kind of incomprehensible.
- sxcurry 3y agoI guess you didn’t read the article very closely. The Science editor was talking about Science News (note the capitalization) which is a well respected information resource.
- timr 3y agoOK, first...Science News is trash. Absolute trash. Maybe it's better than e.g. the current NY Times Science reporter (who is so incompetent that it's mind-blowing), but it's still just not worth reading, except maybe on the toilet. They can (and do) say nonsensical stuff all the time. (edit: I just realized that you might be suggesting that "News" in the quote refers only to "Science News". I don't agree, but even if so, it doesn't change anything about my argument. If you are editor-in-chief of a scientific journal, you shouldn't be delegating your analysis to reporters, no matter where they work. If you aren't experienced/knowledgable enough to see why a paper is important from the work in front of you, give it to someone who can. And if you don't want to do that, then reject it.)
- sxcurry 3y agoWell, I don’t agree with your opinion of Science News, but that’s OK. What I was pointing out is that she was indeed referring to Science News (and also Science Perspectives) as sources for her reading and understanding of a paper.
- timr 3y agoMaybe that was implied by the capitalization of "News", but regardless, it's the same argument. Reporters are not scientsts. The whole thing is like a hilarious public announcement that the editor in chief of Science has Gell-Mann Amnesia.
- jamilton 3y agoIf I'm interpreting it right, no, it's not the same argument. It sounds like she said she basically checks if it's been talked about in Science besides as an existing paper. Seems reasonably for a publication to consider it's own standards of publishing as good enough. Science reporters are probably, hopefully, scientifically literate.
- timr 3y ago