In truth, its not a good thing that people can get past peer review. I cringed when papers about "midichlorians" got published in three "scientific" journals. gizmodo.com/scientific-jou…
And that was right after another scandal, where a fake doctor (whose name literally translated Dr. Fraud) was accepted to the editorial board of 48 journals. gizmodo.com/sting-operatio…
Now, you probably haven't heard of these things. You probably haven't heard of the instances of actual fraud caught far too late, or embarrassing mistakes. That's because these weren't stunts made up for political points- they were scientists who actually gave a shit about
real problems in peer review, internally working to bring attention to (and hopefully fix) those problems. No working academic I have ever encountered thinks peer review is without issues- some of them serious. But almost all of them believe in the value of peer review overall.
But sometimes people lie and commit fraud NOT to try to help science be the best it can be, but to discredit it for political reasons. They know that laypeople don't have the understanding of how peer review works or its flaws: they here 'silly paper got published' and are
willing to take that and discredit ENTIRE FIELDS, which does not follow. Finding out the famous 'prison' studies were faked doesn't discredit psychology; the Schon scandal didn't discredit physics, the Star Wars paper didn't discredit chemistry.
Ultimately, the real fraud that is being perpetrated by Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose is not against the journals alone, who they of course did lie to and were able to trick- it is against the public at large.
Hmm- follow up: I went to look up a twitter convo I had with James Lindsay about his conceptual penis paper (which I remember him specifically saying he was proud of because of the way feminists got mad at it) and it turns out he and Peter have scrubbed their twitters.
Its all gone. Dozens of tweets, from what I can see- long convos that appear to be people talking to themselves because the responses no longer exist.
One wonders why....
(No one doesn't, rly, its cuz sometimes they laid their own biases bare and they don't want peeps to know).
One wonders why....
(No one doesn't, rly, its cuz sometimes they laid their own biases bare and they don't want peeps to know).
