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No, it's that an extraordinary claim that would revolutionize our understanding of the universe would be likely to be published in a high-impact journal, if it

No, it's that an extraordinary claim that would revolutionize our understanding of the universe would be likely to be published in a high-impact journal, if it is backed up by enough evidence to survive review in that journal. When the principal investigator of a study is someone who has to publish in his own journal, http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents11.html http://journalofcosmology.com/Contents11.html (Wickramasinghe is "Executive Editor, Astrobiology" for the Journal of Cosmology) then you can see for yourself a bad sign about the strength of evidence for the paper. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_... for more details on identifying reliable sources. AFTER EDIT: The group blog Retraction Watch http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/ is an excellent glimpse into the world of scientific publishing, and shows how many low-ranking journals there are that are hard up for content. I think I learned about this interesting blog from another HN participant a year or two ago.

raverbashing 14y ago
The article should stand (or not) on its merits, regardless of the journal of publication (or other medium) Of course I trust Nature more than, let's say "Bob's Journal about science stuff" But sometimes even articles in Nature have been printed elsewhere first, (like a 'beta test' for the article - peer review nevertheless), usually in journals specific from the field (clarification below) The "Identifying reliable sources" page is a Wikipedia policy, it has some good insights, but it is biased towards Wikipedia, see for example "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper" Edit: Yes, journals usually don't accept content published elsewhere, my bad. What happens is that, yes, you can't republish something 100% equal to something published elsewhere. (eg: http://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf http://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf ) but while the research progresses you provide more detailed papers or focus on different areas of research
- carbocation 14y ago
  > But sometimes even articles in Nature have been printed elsewhere first, (like a 'beta test' for the article - peer review nevertheless), usually in journals specific from the field. Not true. Republishing already-published work is specifically disallowed by Nature and most high impact journals. Doing so merits a retraction.

raverbashing 14y ago

The article should stand (or not) on its merits, regardless of the journal of publication (or other medium) Of course I trust Nature more than, let's say "Bob's Journal about science stuff" But sometimes even articles in Nature have been printed elsewhere first, (like a 'beta test' for the article - peer review nevertheless), usually in journals specific from the field (clarification below) The "Identifying reliable sources" page is a Wikipedia policy, it has some good insights, but it is biased towards Wikipedia, see for example "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper" Edit: Yes, journals usually don't accept content published elsewhere, my bad. What happens is that, yes, you can't republish something 100% equal to something published elsewhere. (eg: http://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf http://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf ) but while the research progresses you provide more detailed papers or focus on different areas of research

carbocation 14y ago
> But sometimes even articles in Nature have been printed elsewhere first, (like a 'beta test' for the article - peer review nevertheless), usually in journals specific from the field. Not true. Republishing already-published work is specifically disallowed by Nature and most high impact journals. Doing so merits a retraction.