Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pkang0202]

I am reading the book "Next" by Michael Crichton and he brings up a good point. He said a lot of scientific papers get peer reviewed, even though the information isn't REALLY looked at. Hwang Woo Suk, the Koeran scientist who faked Stem Cell research, had his findings peer reviewed.

It wasn't until AFTER the scandal broke that he used his assistant's ovaries in the research that the light started to shine on his deception. Before that, many people read his research and findings and gave their stamp of approval.

How many other articles of Science pass the "Peer Review" stamp, only to be trashed/debunked soon after?

I'm a scientist, obviously, I have buddies in the same field. I wouldn't just mail my paper to random people and tell them to review it. I'll just say, "Hey bob, can you do me a favor. You know that research I was doing? Yeah, well I'm finished. You mind just putting yoru name on this thing so I can get it published. My department has been on my ass about increasing the amount of research that gets published."

Professors/researchers at Universities are under a lot of pressure to publish publish publish. They want more research money, they'd better publish more things. More publishings mean more publicity for the University.

I just question the peer review system. Its far better than having no system at all, but when someone shows me something and says, "Its been peer reviewed", I'm skeptical and make a point that just because its peer reviewed, doesn't make it truth.

[Zenas]

Kinda like those AAA ratings Moody, S&P and Fitch's gave those sub prime mortgage packages, eh?

"This bundle of gold plated dog turd has a Triple A - must be good. "



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[Bigfeet]

[doc_ido]

Was Crichton's book peer-reviewed before it was published?

I agree with Bigfeet - peer review isn't about co-authorship, it's more about whether the research has been done properly. The system isn't designed to detect deliberate fraud, which was pointed out numerous times when the Hwang Woo Suk scandal happened.

I think the pressure to publish generally leads to poorer quality papers - but any journal with a shred of credibility won't accept things for publication that are blatantly flawed. As soon as a few ridiculous articles are published, no scientist is going to want his/her name associated with the journal - in a way, the system is self-correcting.

I don't know how much effort people asked to review papers actually put into it, but, judging from conversations had with professors back in the UK, it seems like they genuinely want to advance the field and make sure what does get published is as robust as possible. When things are proven wrong or improved on, refinements and/or retractions get published - but sadly the media generally choose to ignore subsequent research in favour of what's sensational (the MMR/autism debacle in the UK is a good example of this).

[Paji eh Wong]

[mindmetoo]

Peer review is not a stamp that says "this is 100% correct and for all time". It's merely the first pass. Peer review means:

1) Some qualified people have looked at it and tried to do their best to weed out problems in method and question if the authors have over reached in their findings. Humans are doing this and results are sometimes mixed.

2) It's been judged as interesting enough that it deserves a place in the limited and expensive pages of a journal.

A value of a paper and the veracity of its claims is ultimately proven out by how many scientists base their research upon that paper and the results they get.

And as noted above, there's a great level of trust involved. But if you violate that trust and are found to be cooking your data, your career is over, over, over. You will never be looked at again by an established journal. Politicians and preachers can screw up and keep the gravy train growing, not so in science. It is very unforgiving. Hwang isn't ever going to get another paper published in an established international journal ever again.

Criton doesn't believe in global warming. Global warming's major cudgel is the vast bulk of peer reviewed science. His point of attack? Cast doubt on peer review.

Further, how much fraud exactly? Lots of papers turn out to be wrong in the long run, but then you can't just lump all papers into one big basket. For example, medical research and lots of research involving human subjects typically use a p value of .05, or there's a 1/20 chance that the effect is just random noise. On that level of chance alone you're going to find a lot of papers that get it wrong. Human subjects are notoriously variable and science typically sets an easier p value, risking a higher false positive in return for finding a valuable result that may have escaped a stricter p value used in a harder science like physics.

[knee-highs]