4 ms·

This has been a well known problem for a while, though the internet may be a multiplying force here, and this article didn't do much beyond stating the obvious

This has been a well known problem for a while, though the internet may be a multiplying force here, and this article didn't do much beyond stating the obvious for anyone even peripheral to science fields. What I would like to see is actual discussions on how to address the issue. You can't stop those publications. Despite the article saying talk of free speech is preventing action, these publishers have every right to do what they are doing, predatory or not. Doesn't it, then, fall on the science community to build an institution that can be easily recognized and trusted to aggregate the "true" (or at least vetted and peer-reviewed) work in a way approachable by the general public?

semi-extrinsic 12y ago
I think most western countries already have a national body that maintains a list of "valid" journals. Often also with a system ranking the journals, so your beancounters get more happy when you publish in Nature than The Hungarian Journal of Chemical Engineering. So maybe what we need is a union of these national bodies? Sort of like we have for most sports?
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Sports unions are rather corrupt.
eevilspock 12y ago
Why do we trust journals at all, instead of the community of respected scientist? We could capture a network of trust among scientists, where individual scientists vet other scientists and articles. Think of it as ScienceRank, a PageRank where the nodes are individual scientists and the individual articles they publish, and the links are publish, review, reproduce and consistent-with events: - scientist A published article X - scientist B gave a positive peer review of article X - scientist B gave a positive peer review of scientist A - scientist B gave a negative peer review of article X - scientist B gave a negative peer review of scientist A - scientist C independently reproduced the experiment in article X - scientist C failed to independently reproduce the experiment in article X - article Y is consistent with article X - article Y is inconsistent with article X Trust would flow from trusted scientists. Scientists gain and lose trust via the positive and negative reviews they or their publications receive. The algorithm would be a little more complex than PageRank's, given the different treatment required for the different links. Technology could be a multiplying force in the positive direction instead.
- czr80 12y ago
  Journals are communities of respected scientists.
  - eevilspock 12y ago
    I agree with that, but they are small scale, and not very democratic.
- semi-extrinsic 12y ago
  I think negative reviews are hard to interpret, especially algorithmically. My favorite example is Arthur Kornbergs JBC papers on polymerase in 1957 [1] where the reviewers recommended rejection with amongst others the comment “It is very doubtful that the authors are entitled to speak of the enzymatic synthesis of DNA”. Just two years later he received the Nobel prize in medicine for that work. [1] http://m.jbc.org/content/280/49/e46.full http://m.jbc.org/content/280/49/e46.full
  - eevilspock 12y ago
    I'm a big fan of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. But revolutions are supposed to be hard, as are changes to the Constitution, etc. But I'm thinking an open trust network can actually support revolutionary research: acceptance/rejection is not limited to the small subset of scientists that control journals. Fringe scientists can provide positive peer review to something, and add supportive research, allowing a gradual growth of support. And if this fringe that went against the grain early, and are ultimately proven right, they gain a lot of trust in the system for being early.
- Fomite 12y ago
  As another poster noted, journals are communities of respected scientists. When I publish something in say, the American Journal of Epidemiology, I am publish something in the official journal of a professional society. The other problem is that "trust among scientists", and many proposals along those lines, implicitly favor the "Old Guard", who have larger networks to give reviews, and those networks will be less inclined to give them poor reviews.

semi-extrinsic 12y ago

I think most western countries already have a national body that maintains a list of "valid" journals. Often also with a system ranking the journals, so your beancounters get more happy when you publish in Nature than The Hungarian Journal of Chemical Engineering. So maybe what we need is a union of these national bodies? Sort of like we have for most sports?

eevilspock 12y ago
Sports unions are rather corrupt.

eevilspock 12y ago

Why do we trust journals at all, instead of the community of respected scientist? We could capture a network of trust among scientists, where individual scientists vet other scientists and articles. Think of it as ScienceRank, a PageRank where the nodes are individual scientists and the individual articles they publish, and the links are publish, review, reproduce and consistent-with events: - scientist A published article X - scientist B gave a positive peer review of article X - scientist B gave a positive peer review of scientist A - scientist B gave a negative peer review of article X - scientist B gave a negative peer review of scientist A - scientist C independently reproduced the experiment in article X - scientist C failed to independently reproduce the experiment in article X - article Y is consistent with article X - article Y is inconsistent with article X Trust would flow from trusted scientists. Scientists gain and lose trust via the positive and negative reviews they or their publications receive. The algorithm would be a little more complex than PageRank's, given the different treatment required for the different links. Technology could be a multiplying force in the positive direction instead.

czr80 12y ago
Journals are communities of respected scientists.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  I agree with that, but they are small scale, and not very democratic.
semi-extrinsic 12y ago
I think negative reviews are hard to interpret, especially algorithmically. My favorite example is Arthur Kornbergs JBC papers on polymerase in 1957 [1] where the reviewers recommended rejection with amongst others the comment “It is very doubtful that the authors are entitled to speak of the enzymatic synthesis of DNA”. Just two years later he received the Nobel prize in medicine for that work. [1] http://m.jbc.org/content/280/49/e46.full http://m.jbc.org/content/280/49/e46.full
- eevilspock 12y ago
  I'm a big fan of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. But revolutions are supposed to be hard, as are changes to the Constitution, etc. But I'm thinking an open trust network can actually support revolutionary research: acceptance/rejection is not limited to the small subset of scientists that control journals. Fringe scientists can provide positive peer review to something, and add supportive research, allowing a gradual growth of support. And if this fringe that went against the grain early, and are ultimately proven right, they gain a lot of trust in the system for being early.
Fomite 12y ago
As another poster noted, journals are communities of respected scientists. When I publish something in say, the American Journal of Epidemiology, I am publish something in the official journal of a professional society. The other problem is that "trust among scientists", and many proposals along those lines, implicitly favor the "Old Guard", who have larger networks to give reviews, and those networks will be less inclined to give them poor reviews.