3 ms·

Necessary to share ideas? No. Necessary to share important ideas? Maybe. One of the aspects of journals that I don't see talked about much here is the curatio

by bumby 3y ago

Necessary to share ideas? No. Necessary to share important ideas? Maybe. One of the aspects of journals that I don't see talked about much here is the curation of articles. Saying (good) journals aren't necessary is like saying journalists aren't necessary to get your news in the internet era. Not all information is necessarily good, and we often rely on systems/people to help winnow the amount we have to sift through. This is important in a society where the sheer amount of information developed far outpaces what we can consume in several lifetimes.

llm_trw 3y ago
It's more like saying that maybe we don't need the NYT, the people who lied about Iraq: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq, to get good quality journalism when the internet exists. Journals are in the same boat. Any good they have done is dwarfed by the few 'honest mistakes', like Alzheimer's cabal: https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarted-progress-toward-cure/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarte..., which have done more to stifle science than anyone since Stalin picking which biological theories are socialist enough to be true.
- bumby 3y ago
  I think you're conflating the notion of perfect curation. I don't think anyone is claiming that journals or journalists are infallible. They certainly make m, although I don't think I agree that the good is "dwarfed" by them, except when used as a direct attempt to undermine credibility by adversaries. Put differently, do you think bad ideas spread more easily with the internet? The current research seems to think so, and if you agree, I don't see how that mitigates the spread of bad information. If anything, it exacerbates it.
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    I think that every bad idea spread by the internet dwarfs the harms done by ideas spread by government. Every issue with the middle east over the last 20 years is the direct result of a crusade launched on a lie enthusiastically repeated by the same people claiming the moral high ground today.

by bumby 3y ago

llm_trw 3y ago

It's more like saying that maybe we don't need the NYT, the people who lied about Iraq: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/27/media.iraq, to get good quality journalism when the internet exists. Journals are in the same boat. Any good they have done is dwarfed by the few 'honest mistakes', like Alzheimer's cabal: https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarted-progress-toward-cure/ https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/25/alzheimers-cabal-thwarte..., which have done more to stifle science than anyone since Stalin picking which biological theories are socialist enough to be true.

bumby 3y ago
I think you're conflating the notion of perfect curation. I don't think anyone is claiming that journals or journalists are infallible. They certainly make m, although I don't think I agree that the good is "dwarfed" by them, except when used as a direct attempt to undermine credibility by adversaries. Put differently, do you think bad ideas spread more easily with the internet? The current research seems to think so, and if you agree, I don't see how that mitigates the spread of bad information. If anything, it exacerbates it.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  I think that every bad idea spread by the internet dwarfs the harms done by ideas spread by government. Every issue with the middle east over the last 20 years is the direct result of a crusade launched on a lie enthusiastically repeated by the same people claiming the moral high ground today.