So What Can We Actually Learn From Climategate?1

2010-07-29 14:59

 

So What Can We Actually Learn From Climategate?1

On a related note, the Muir Russell report also has a fascinating discussion of peer review. One of the allegations against the CRU scientists, recall, is that they somehow subverted the peer-review process to exclude papers they didn't like from various journals. (For their part, the researchers claimed they were excluding papers that were scientifically shoddy.) The report notes that none of the CRU researchers behaved improperly here, but there is an interesting appendix essay written by Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, who makes some good points about peer review in general.Office 2007 key is very convenient!

Peer review is often assumed to be some sort of guarantor of scientific validity—plenty of people assume that if it's been published in a journal and made it past the gatekeepers, it must be right. But that's not the case. Shoddy papers do squeak by. And sometimes journal referees and editors reject important papers. There's plenty of evidence that peer review is a flawed process. What it does is help sharpen and clarify those ideas that do get published (as well as keep out obvious dreck). Still, Horton notes, it's no substitute for the broader and continuous give and take of science:Office 2010 download is available now!

The best one might hope for the future of peer review is to be able to foster an environment of continuous critique of research papers before and after publication. Many writers on peer review have made such a proposal, yet no journal has been able to create the motivation or incentives among scientists to engage in permanent peer review. Some observers might worry that extending opportunities for criticism will only sustain maverick points-of-view. However, experience suggests that the best science would survive such intensified peer review, while the worst would find its deserved place at the margins of knowledge.Buy Office 2007 you can get much convenience.