On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 6:54 PM, Ross Walker <ross.rosswalker.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Jiri,
>
> I agree these days a lot of people are scared to say things controversial
> - it's a shame and in my opinion science is suffering because of it. A lot
> of the issue with the quality of papers though I believe comes because
> these days the peer review process is more or less at breaking point, if
> not already broken.
I'd love to hear a better idea.
In the big picture, science evolves via natural selection. If someone gets
away with falsifying a study, it's because that study wasn't worth
repeating and disproving. So who cares? If someone falsifies something
important, others will try to reproduce it and the study will be eventually
disproven (see Wakefield et al., 1998). Sure, the peer review process
isn't perfect. But it's better than any alternative I can think of and
science has a built-in correction mechanism that has proven that it works
for centuries. I think the current rate of scientific progress is rather
exciting (and that it proceeds despite all its problems is rather
encouraging).
--
Jason M. Swails
BioMaPS,
Rutgers University
Postdoctoral Researcher
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Received on Sun Jun 21 2015 - 10:00:03 PDT
