"I found Peter Ridd’s book about the Great Barrier Reef, and the poor
state of quality control in science, to be both refreshing and
complimentary."
Within a favorable review of this book was some wisdom about science in general that I quoted below. Peer review is a very common process for science papers, but means nothing special about the paper itself. It is usually a "pal review" for any paper that supports the current "consensus", but tends to reject newideas.Ye Editor
"... A common form of communication
for others writing about the Reef is simply to assert things about ‘The
Science’. They don’t actually delve into the reasons or scientific
logic/analysis that support their assertions.
Importantly, they make a
point of not expanding on any area where the results of a favoured piece
of research can be shown to be doubtful. Peter Ridd does the opposite,
and he does it with direct speech and in a clear manner.
The oft-used term, ‘The Science’ is problematic because people who
use it appear do so from a position of a self-assured sense of
‘knowing’.
They use it as a putdown to those who, unlike them, do not
understand (and cannot be expected to understand) their special, almost
mystical knowledge of what they call ‘The Science’. What’s worse, the
media often adopts and repeats this self-assured tone without criticism.
Again, this is not the case with Ridd’s book.
... Because of the anonymity generally surrounding the peer review
process, Ridd is unable to identify the reviewers of the published Reef
papers. As he makes clear, this is a major flaw in the credibility of
the whole science of the Reef because peer review is not a proof of
anything. It is not even meant to be a final arbiter of the truth or
otherwise of a paper.
Anonymity of the peer reviewers means there can be no accountability
and no back-checking of the reviewer. It’s all done in the shadows.
... Ridd expands his doubts about the standard of Reef
research to the scientific mainstream by linking the problem with the
wider issue of the "replication crisis" in science generally.
... there is, indeed, a
plethora of studies and papers whose claimed results no other
researchers are able to reproduce.
Ridd bemoans the fact that, at this
stage, the awareness of this issue remains somewhat cloistered and has
not yet made it into the general media in Australia.
Further proof of
this ignorance a recent Senate enquiry, which saw the CEO of the
Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) deny even being aware of a
replication crisis. I found this absolutely mind-boggling.
... In the part of the school curriculum involving the
scientific method, we were exposed to the ideas that there were such
things as hypotheses, and that a hypothesis, by itself, was not
inherently true.
We learnt the concept of replication, and ‘got’ the
idea that ‘no replication equals no validation’.
We were exposed to the
concepts that science had to be open, that a researcher had to fully
reveal to others the method used, the assumptions made, the raw data
used and the results.
Things like error bars had to be defined and, above all, the experiment had to show the same
results within margins of error when conducted by someone else.
This
applied even if the ‘someone else’ was a vehement critic of the original
hypothesis and the work of the original researcher."
"I found Peter Ridd’s book about the Great Barrier Reef, and the poor state of quality control in science, to be both refreshing and complimentary."
"... A common form of communication for others writing about the Reef is simply to assert things about ‘The Science’. They don’t actually delve into the reasons or scientific logic/analysis that support their assertions.
Importantly, they make a point of not expanding on any area where the results of a favoured piece of research can be shown to be doubtful. Peter Ridd does the opposite, and he does it with direct speech and in a clear manner.
The oft-used term, ‘The Science’ is problematic because people who use it appear do so from a position of a self-assured sense of ‘knowing’.
They use it as a putdown to those who, unlike them, do not understand (and cannot be expected to understand) their special, almost mystical knowledge of what they call ‘The Science’. What’s worse, the media often adopts and repeats this self-assured tone without criticism. Again, this is not the case with Ridd’s book.
... Because of the anonymity generally surrounding the peer review process, Ridd is unable to identify the reviewers of the published Reef papers. As he makes clear, this is a major flaw in the credibility of the whole science of the Reef because peer review is not a proof of anything. It is not even meant to be a final arbiter of the truth or otherwise of a paper.
Anonymity of the peer reviewers means there can be no accountability and no back-checking of the reviewer. It’s all done in the shadows.
... Ridd expands his doubts about the standard of Reef research to the scientific mainstream by linking the problem with the wider issue of the "replication crisis" in science generally.... In the part of the school curriculum involving the scientific method, we were exposed to the ideas that there were such things as hypotheses, and that a hypothesis, by itself, was not inherently true.
We learnt the concept of replication, and ‘got’ the idea that ‘no replication equals no validation’.
We were exposed to the concepts that science had to be open, that a researcher had to fully reveal to others the method used, the assumptions made, the raw data used and the results.
Things like error bars had to be defined and, above all, the experiment had to show the same results within margins of error when conducted by someone else.
This applied even if the ‘someone else’ was a vehement critic of the original hypothesis and the work of the original researcher."