Democracy, checks and balances vs $$$cientific peer review process

[morse86]

What is the difference?

In both systems, you have mob rule. In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage studies.

So if the checks and balances can be "controlled", why can't the peer review$$ process?

 

[Erik Nelson]

Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: The present phase of stagnation in the foundations of physics is not normal

there is nothing that can stop them. They review each other’s papers. They review each other’s grant proposals. And they constantly tell each other that what they are doing is good science. Why should they stop? For them, all is going well. They hold conferences, they publish papers, they discuss their great new ideas. From the inside, it looks like business as usual, just that nothing comes out of it.

This is not a problem that will go away by itself.​

 

[Bungle_Bear]

What is the difference?

In both systems, you have mob rule. In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage studies.

So if the checks and balances can be "controlled", why can't the peer review$$ process?

Do you have a point to make, or just trying to goad?

 

[Ophiolite]

What is the difference?

In both systems, you have mob rule. In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage studies.

So if the checks and balances can be "controlled", why can't the peer review$$ process?

So much nonsense to deal with; so little time.

Exercise for the Student: How many rhetorical devices can you identify in the OP? Identify those that are irrelevant to the implicit argument. (Hint - all of them.)

 

[Gene2memE]

What is the difference?

One is an adversarial process conducted by experts, that is considered the minimum hurdle for an idea in the sciences to overcome before it is generally accepted within the field.

The other is a political process with a varieties of systems that generally, but not always, means that the most popular political candidate is elected by a group of people to be their representative or chosen lawmaker.

In both systems, you have mob rule.

You've clearly never been involved in producing a study for peer review, or been peer reviewed, or engaged in assessing the validity of peer reviewed study, if you think the peer review system bears any resemblance to mob rule.

I've been engaged in co-authoring a paper for review (economics), editing papers on behalf of others ahead of review (history and medicine) and also critiquing peer reviewed studies in the literature (transport economics).

What you've written has very little to do with the reality of the situation.

In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage studies.

In one system, you don't have any studies. Democracy is an elective process that creates no scientific output.

In the other system, you have a sliding scale of "garbage" studies. Generally speaking the 'harder' (read, more empirically verifiable and/or important) the lower the tolerance for rubbish.

So if the checks and balances can be "controlled", why can't the peer review$$ process?

The peer review process is controlled, and it does have its own internal checks and balances. Some existing circumstances have undercut some of those, but they're still there.

I'm really curious about why you're raising this topic. Reading what you've written, it appears to me that you've got no experience in the sciences and the process of preparing a paper for review or having it reviewed and then defending it and expanding on it after publication. What it seems to me is that you are regurgitating some biased second or third hand reworkings of (valid) criticisms of the shortcomings of the peer review process, further worked through a lens of your own bias, and then are presenting it here.

There are PLENTY of things you could do to improve the peer review process, the quality of submissions, editorial review and articles, the validation/replication cycle and the subsequent critique/response/discussion period. There are (literally) thousands of OpEds, articles, conference keynotes and even scientific studies out there on this.

Go there, read those, learn them and THEN come back for informed discussion.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

What is the difference?

In both systems, you have mob rule. In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage

That seems to describe the government spending (or actually any spending by anyone) in general. Some funding is garbage for everyone, and some funding is garbage for somebody while beneficial for someone else.

It also hardly matters if it is inviduals or committees that are squandering the money. There are plenty of cases in both categories.

Think the best we can try to manage is that most of the funding is beneficial for majority of the people in long term. Also sometimes it is pretty hard to say if the funding is beneficial in long term or not.

Are the US bases around the world beneficial or garbage ? Something between ? In what situations ? etc. etc.

I would guess that lots of money transferred to religious activities also get sidetracked to purposes not intended by the donators.

 

[Kaon]

What is the difference?

In both systems, you have mob rule. In both systems you have tax payer funded garbage studies.

So if the checks and balances can be "controlled", why can't the peer review$$ process?

Neither is controlled except for money. But, engineering psychology is more important than science - which is why you have studies that say crossing the street is dangerous. It is to groom your mind into depending on what you are told rather than thinking for yourself.

No one is born stupid; you have to be taught how to think in a way that neglects your own God-given intelligence, and trust someone else with your life, mind and psychology. For carnal entities, only money will shave layers of garbage to get to the truth; knowledge (academics), as it were, is engineered thinking meant for a specific paradigm - it gets you only as far as the paradigm of modernity. That is why knowledge has to be "peer reviewed". If it was truth, it would stand on its own as all truth does.

 

[Jimmy D]

In both systems, you have mob rule.

This suggests to me that either...

A) You don't understand the peer review process.
B) You don't understand the meaning of "mob rule"
C) You are intentionally goading.

My money's on "C". Which raises the question of what you are hoping to achieve? If you actually hoped for a discussion of the merits and issues of the peer review process, I suggest re-writing your post without the inflammatory rhetoric and try to ask pertinent questions that demonstrate at least a little understanding of the subject.

You have succeeded in making yourself look ignorant, but failed in terms of provoking an angry reaction so it's a bit of an own goal really.

 

[Brightmoon]

Peer review is imperfect and science eventually corrects its mistakes. Ok ....and?

 

[essentialsaltes]

What we need are kings who rule by divine right, and a scientist-pope who declares truths about the world through the interpretation of divine revelation.

 

[Kaon]

What we need are kings who rule by divine right, and a scientist-pope who declares truths about the world through the interpretation of divine revelation.

Pick your system.

At one point, as you know, that was the learned way. At one point, you were a fool for not believing in gods, demons and monsters. Today, if you don't believe science you are a fool.

Every paradigm has its time; in a couple of decades I suspect the academic way will be replaced by a "more learned" way thought to be archaic.

 

[Nithavela]

Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: The present phase of stagnation in the foundations of physics is not normal

there is nothing that can stop them. They review each other’s papers. They review each other’s grant proposals. And they constantly tell each other that what they are doing is good science. Why should they stop? For them, all is going well. They hold conferences, they publish papers, they discuss their great new ideas. From the inside, it looks like business as usual, just that nothing comes out of it.

This is not a problem that will go away by itself.​

I think that one possible reason why the foundations of physics aren't really changing a lot is that maybe we got it right this time. Or at least as right as we can with our current level of technology.

 

[Freodin]

If it was truth, it would stand on its own as all truth does.

Really?

As a scientist yourself, you should know that "truth" is something that needs to be seen... and if nobody is looking at it, it won't get seen at all.

So it can "stand on its own" as much as you want to... if there is no one to see the tree falling in the forest, it is completely irrelevant if it did or didn't.

 

[Kaon]

Really?

As a scientist yourself, you should know that "truth" is something that needs to be seen... and if nobody is looking at it, it won't get seen at all.

A tree still emits electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves when it agitates the ground, breaks the bonds of its chemical composition to snap, and the branches of its body interact with the air currents and each other. And, that is just we notice when a tree falls in our presence - extrapolated to the event in abstentia.

Truth stands alone.

I know what you mean about science, but this is also the problem I see in academia - that people rely on sight too much, which is due to our failure of a psychological verification system. We have at least 5 other senses to use to gauge truth, and archive it's purpose and quality. However we handicap ourselves with logic and reason - negating the quality of our senses beyond our comprehension. We worship our naivete and crudeness in knowledge - claiming it is the best we can do in this paradigm so we should embrace the alleged substance thereof.

So it can "stand on its own" as much as you want to... if there is no one to see the tree falling in the forest, it is completely irrelevant if it did or didn't.

See above. The electromagnetic radiation is in creation forever once the sound is emitted. It does not depend on the observer. You can seek out the signature frequency of the tree fall, and determine the temporal and spacial location of the object based our crude technology alone.

 

[Kaon]

Peer review is imperfect and science eventually corrects its mistakes. Ok ....and?

That would be fine if academia didn't assert itself as truth, and set up a paradigm to deride people that choose another school of thought.

Aryuveda medicine works a lot better than Western medicine for a lot of people in the West; few people would express their use of this type of alternative medicine that works because the people are so controlled by Western psychological academic statutes and codes that must be enforced by people.

So, it is a big deal when academics say, "we are wrong sometimes - so what?" when people put their trust in the strength of science, as it were, and scientists just "let them," instead of being completely transparent.

(Western or Eastern) science is crude; it always has been. And, while people wait for science to vindicate the world around them, they neglect their own God-given knowledge - something academics in their crudeness of knowledge fail to perceive (so it is considered imaginary).

The philosophy of science does damage to people who use it to make decisions in their lives, because of the lack of transparency and the need to affirm a measure of authority in truth. Truth stands alone; you don't need other people to deride others to get them to believe the truth.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... in a couple of decades I suspect the academic way will be replaced by a "more learned" way thought to be archaic.

Why the scare quotes? are you saying this hypothetical way won't really be more learned?

If you're saying that society will revert to a prescientific way of thinking & working, that seems possible, if unlikely; but science will still remain the best means we have of gaining reliable knowledge about the world, whether we use it or not.

 

[Freodin]

A tree still emits electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves when it agitates the ground, breaks the bonds of its chemical composition to snap, and the branches of its body interact with the air currents and each other. And, that is just we notice when a tree falls in our presence - extrapolated to the event in abstentia.

Truth stands alone.

I know what you mean about science, but this is also the problem I see in academia - that people rely on sight too much, which is due to our failure of a psychological verification system. We have at least 5 other senses to use to gauge truth, and archive it's purpose and quality. However we handicap ourselves with logic and reason - negating the quality of our senses beyond our comprehension. We worship our naivete and crudeness in knowledge - claiming it is the best we can do in this paradigm so we should embrace the alleged substance thereof.



See above. The electromagnetic radiation is in creation forever once the sound is emitted. It does not depend on the observer. You can seek out the signature frequency of the tree fall, and determine the temporal and spacial location of the object based our crude technology alone.

And you completely missed the point.
It is not about what is... it is about what we - humans, people, beings who hold such a concept - know about what is.

The tree is either fallen or it is not. That's reality. Fact.
But which is it? That's where the "truth" comes in... the correspondance between our "knowledge" and "reality".

Facts stand on their own. Truth does not. Truth has to be discovered, evaluated, stated. If it isn't, it becomes irrelevant. Meaningless. Not "true", not "false"... just meaningless.

 

[Freodin]

And, while people wait for science to vindicate the world around them, they neglect their own God-given knowledge - something academics in their crudeness of knowledge fail to perceive (so it is considered imaginary).

People insisting on their "God-given knowledge" usually deny the "God-given knowlegde" of other people. Almost as if God gives different "knowledge" - or "truth" - to different people. Or almost as if he doesn't do it at all.

Knowledge is gained. Not given.

 

[Brightmoon]

Academia doesn’t set itself up as “truth” . Sometimes they have opinions that make good popular books written for laymen. The evidence might or might not agree with them . Over time these opinion books get pushed to the side . I’ve got this very old bestseller called Vitamin C and You. The some of the opinions in that book are based on pseudoscience . No one pays any attention to that book and the only reason I hadn’t discarded it was because I was just too used to seeing it on the shelf .
Sometimes these opinions bleed over into legitimate research. If they turn out to be incorrect then they eventually get discovered and corrected (or mostly ignored) as better data comes in .

There are also confirmed established facts that some members of the public just refuse to accept . The ridiculous furor over Evolution is a good example of that .

And by the way Kaon sound is not electromagnetic radiation because sound is a pressure wave . What you hear is the air molecules pushing against your eardrums after being pushed by the tree falling . No medium to propagate through, no sound and the sound of the tree falling will eventually get overwhelmed by other sounds as the wave extends out . So not forever either.
If you want forever ( at least until the photons hit something) shine a flashlight into the sky

 

[Kaon]

And you completely missed the point.
It is not about what is... it is about what we - humans, people, beings who hold such a concept - know about what is.

The tree is either fallen or it is not. That's reality. Fact.
But which is it? That's where the "truth" comes in... the correspondance between our "knowledge" and "reality".

This is why science is crude at best: you all can barely overcome the paradoxes and dualities of quantum mechanics - since it is the best thing in science so far. A tree that falls has fallen; the context wasn't about the probability of its fall. The context was whether or not it fell/makes a sound if there is no observer - a philosophical idea turned quantum phenomenon that still boggles the minds of the world.

The tree emits sound when it falls if you want to assume the laws of physics still hold - independent of an observer. The truth is the tree fell, because its electromagnetic signature can be determined independent of our ability as a species to do so. That is just one way we can measure the truth according to our acceptable quality. An academic can still find comfort in arguing against the truth.

Facts stand on their own. Truth does not. Truth has to be discovered, evaluated, stated. If it isn't, it becomes irrelevant. Meaningless. Not "true", not "false"... just meaningless.

You are splitting half of hairs stylistically and philosophically. You can change and nuance a word however you like, but truth stands on its on. Facts, as it were, are based on subjectivity and perception - things that lie, especially since everyone has their "own truth" (if it were possible to have individual "truth"). Individual facts are what you are looking for, since facts are also conditional and situational. The fact remains is an allusion to the ephemeral of the observations that can yield one to gauge a fact.

The "fact" that you can and must discover truth shows that it exists independent of us in the first place. The entire lot of us are confused at best, and we limit our minds into adhering to this crude science we call [ultimate] perfection. Truth is absolute.

My entire position is that humans do not have to be handicapped by this system; truth is independent of dogma, systems and human influence. Each and every human needs to find the truth for themselves - not from other people, and not from a system that relies on passive-aggressive intimidation and [grant] money to vindicate itself. I realize not everyone wants to be independent in all of its implications, because it can be scary. That is why I am being matter-of "fact".