Scientific Peer Review

[sjastro]

It’s regrettable the OP of this thread decided to close it down as it left a few unanswered questions particularly with regards to peer review.
One of the misconceptions of peer review if a work is published in a high quality journal such as Science or Nature then it is a rubber stamp for a paradigm change.

The peer review process can be summarized as follows.

Nature’s criteria for publication are as follows;

(1) Provides strong evidence for its conclusions.
(2) Novel (we do not consider meeting report abstracts and preprints on community servers to compromise novelty).
(3) Of extreme importance to scientists in the specific field.
(4) Ideally, interesting to researchers in other related disciplines.

When a work is published in a high quality journal it is considered to be a trusted source.
Peer-reviewed work isn't necessarily correct, but meets the standards of science.
Once a work passes through peer review and is published, science must deal with it, by incorporating it into the established body of scientific knowledge, building on it further, figuring out why it is wrong, or trying to replicate its results.

The reason why this work on “The Correlation Between Solar Activity and Large Earthquakes” was published in Nature is that it meets Nature’s criteria.
The feedback from the scientific world however has not been entirely favourable and certainly does not signal a paradigm change.

By comparison Ben Davidson’s Earth capacitor model "Relationship Between M8+ Earthquakes Occurrences and the Solar Polar Magnetic Fields" fails even before the criteria are applied.

The reviewer will note the Earth’s magnetic field is a dipole approximation.

​

In the Earth capacitor model one can apply Maxwell’s 4th equation.

With j=0 since the Earth is an insulator, the magnetic B will instead circulate around the insulator as found in a capacitor.

What this means is if the Earth is a capacitor, compasses would be useless as there are no magnetic poles!!!!

 

[Ophiolite]

My perception of peer review is that it is a two step process:

• Stage 1: The Formal Peer Review - This is conducted exactly as described in your graphic
• Stage 2: The Informal Peer Review - This is evaluation and comment conducted post publication
  • Some via letters published in the journal
  • Some via criticism and questioning at conferences
  • Some via papers revisiting some or all of the data or experiments
  • Some via research building upon, or disassembling the original conclusions
  • Etc.

Only once those Stage 2 reviews have taken place will the concept be incorporated into the mainline view, or amended, or discarded.
(In case it's not clear, I'm agreeing with you. )

 

[sjastro]

My perception of peer review is that it is a two step process:

• Stage 1: The Formal Peer Review - This is conducted exactly as described in your graphic
• Stage 2: The Informal Peer Review - This is evaluation and comment conducted post publication
  • Some via letters published in the journal
  • Some via criticism and questioning at conferences
  • Some via papers revisiting some or all of the data or experiments
  • Some via research building upon, or disassembling the original conclusions
  • Etc.

Only once those Stage 2 reviews have taken place will the concept be incorporated into the mainline view, or amended, or discarded.
(In case it's not clear, I'm agreeing with you. )

You are quite right about a stage 2 process which a barometer for the acceptance of the paper in the scientific community.

Incidentally isn't your background geology?
One of those instances of a peer reviewed paper that did trigger a paradigm change which led to the science of plate tectonics is this.
Using magnetic field reversals to determine sea floor spreading which drove continental drift was absolutely brilliant.

 

[Brightmoon]

Wow does that bring back memories. I was about 10 when I first heard about this due to a Nat Geo magazine article.

 

[sjastro]

Wow does that bring back memories. I was about 10 when I first heard about this due to a Nat Geo magazine article.

You are showing your age (like me).

 

[Brightmoon]

You are showing your age (like me).

. Hey , I’m one of those wild great grandmothers who do ballet and dance all night . I heard that 45 record about the hot rodding granny back in the day and decided she had the right idea on how to get old . Go granny , go granny, go granny, go!

 

[sjastro]

. Hey , I’m one of those wild great grandmothers who do ballet and dance all night . I heard that 45 record about the hot rodding granny and decided she had the right idea on how to get old. Go granny , go granny, go granny, go!

I did Geology as an undergraduate (which I flunked).
At the time Plate Tectonics was labelled as an "emerging science" which makes me feel like a fossil today.

 

[Brightmoon]

I was still picking up rocks in my backyard and I remember how fascinated I was with the idea of the continents moving around .

I absolutely loved undergrad geology literally used to dance into the classroom.

 

[sjastro]

I was still picking up rocks in my backyard and I remember how fascinated I was with the idea of the continents moving around .

I absolutely loved undergrad geology literally used to dance into the classroom.

I'm glad one of us enjoyed the subject.

 

[Brightmoon]

Started by picking up the pretty rocks . I just wanted to know what they were ! Ended up eventually taking 2 semesters of geology classes in college. And I’m still fascinated with the subject ( and pretty rocks)

 

[Minister Monardo]

By comparison Ben Davidson’s Earth capacitor model "Relationship Between M8+ Earthquakes Occurrences and the Solar Polar Magnetic Fields" fails even before the criteria are applied.

The reviewer will note the Earth’s magnetic field is a dipole approximation.

​

In the Earth capacitor model one can apply Maxwell’s 4th equation.

With j=0 since the Earth is an insulator, the magnetic B will instead circulate around the insulator as found in a capacitor.

What this means is if the Earth is a capacitor, compasses would be useless as there are no magnetic poles!!!!

This is not relevant to the discussion, because the study was based on observations made at the
occurrence of M8+ earthquakes, a localized event along a fault line. Not in any way a global effect, that would suggest the entire earth was acting like a capacitor. That was your erroneous conclusion. Even so,
trying to draw an analogy to capacitive effects was indeed flawed. That is the reason for the Nature
article provided. A paragraph from the article was included in the post, which describes the observations
as a piezoelectric effect. This results from crystalline structures being compressed, and are found in
many formations, especially granite. This is also widely considered to cause luminous observations at
the time of large earthquakes, often called "earthquake lightning".
Finally, the thread was closed due to flaming by one of the participants in the discussion, who thought
he could simply edit his comments back out later. However, editing is annotated in the posts.
Your summary of peer review process is very helpful. Clearly a five minute YouTube brief, or anything
written to accompany his views would lack that necessary peer review before anyone would consider it
a paradigm shift. Ironically, you were the only one to address it as such, so that you could dismiss the
notion. No one else involved in the discussion said anything to that effect, such as, "hey, this is a real
paradigm shift". As it was clearly pointed out and ignored, if and when any seismic updates are included
on the daily report, it is accompanied by a plate tectonics map just as the one you provided. This has
been standard for decades. Space weather is still an emerging science, being promoted and advanced
by NASA, the NOAA and JPL, among others. It is most enlightening that your own credentials, as stated,
are based on a failed geology class you were forced to take and resented. I guess this is your way of
repenting of that fateful decision. Welcome to the 21st century.

 

[sjastro]

This is not relevant to the discussion, because the study was based on observations made at the
occurrence of M8+ earthquakes, a localized event along a fault line. Not in any way a global effect, that would suggest the entire earth was acting like a capacitor. That was your erroneous conclusion.

From Davidson’s paper.

To explain the connection between earthquakes and the changes in SPF, we consider modeling the Earth as a capacitor (Hill, 1971; Gregori, 2002; Ustundag, 2005) which could temporarily store energy to be triggered later by changes in the SPF. The SPF may also dictate how the electromagnetic characteristics of the solar wind help charge or discharge the earth. The ionosphere, an electrically conductive layer, could be treated as one plate of the capacitor while the other conducting plates exist in or below the ground. Two plates are separated by the Earth’s atmosphere and mantle crust, which are treated as leaky insulations. In this model, electrical movements in the ionosphere in longitude (compression/expansion) or tangential (circulation) directions can result in significant changes in Earth’s electric fields or magnetic fields which propagate into the Earth’s crust, as part of the capacitor.

Yes it is relevant to the discussion and a global effect as the excerpt explains the Earth’s crust is part of the capacitor.
Not only does the excerpt make it perfectly clear there is nothing in common with plate tectonics, it leads back to my original question why aren’t earthquakes randomly distributed in the capacitor model, as the rest of the paper does not offer any explanation why magnitude 8+ earthquakes should occur along plate boundaries.
Plate tectonics on the hand does explain this.

The other point that kills off the capacitor model is how does it explain underwater earthquakes in subduction zones?
In case you didn’t know seawater is highly conductive and therefore does not form an insulator.
Ironically the Nature article proposes a possible mechanism the stress strain pulses which causes the piezoelectric effects is due to the high conductivity of the water saturated faults which contradicts the capacitor model.

Even so,
trying to draw an analogy to capacitive effects was indeed flawed. That is the reason for the Nature
article provided. A paragraph from the article was included in the post, which describes the observations
as a piezoelectric effect. This results from crystalline structures being compressed, and are found in
many formations, especially granite. This is also widely considered to cause luminous observations at
the time of large earthquakes, often called "earthquake lightning".

Who are you trying to fool with this spin story?
In your opening post it was clearly obvious you were unaware the Space Weather News site for earthquakes is based on Davidson’s capacitor model.
As I have shown Davidson’s paper has nothing in common with plate tectonic theory let alone adding to it.
Along with you ignoring this inconvenient fact, the Nature article is a red herring and a change of goalposts which not only has nothing to do with the original post but as shown contradicts it.

Now in a stroke of pure irony by claiming the “capacitive effects” (electrical and electronic engineers take note) are flawed you have pointed out what other posters have also stated, the Space Weather News Site is based on pseudoscience.

Finally, the thread was closed due to flaming by one of the participants in the discussion, who thought
he could simply edit his comments back out later. However, editing is annotated in the posts.

The final post indicates the moderator closed the thread as per your request.
I should report you for publicly calling me out for flaming which is against forum rules and is an issue between the moderators and me.

Your summary of peer review process is very helpful. Clearly a five minute YouTube brief, or anything
written to accompany his views would lack that necessary peer review before anyone would consider it
a paradigm shift. Ironically, you were the only one to address it as such, so that you could dismiss the
notion. No one else involved in the discussion said anything to that effect, such as, "hey, this is a real
paradigm shift". As it was clearly pointed out and ignored, if and when any seismic updates are included
on the daily report, it is accompanied by a plate tectonics map just as the one you provided. This has
been standard for decades. Space weather is still an emerging science, being promoted and advanced
by NASA, the NOAA and JPL, among others. It is most enlightening that your own credentials, as stated,
are based on a failed geology class you were forced to take and resented. I guess this is your way of
repenting of that fateful decision. Welcome to the 21st century.

Let me give you some friendly advice, I suggest you devote some time tidying up your poor grammar because I am not going to waste my time on deciphering.

If you want to post misleading material in this forum which is either pseudoscience or non mainstream under the guise the science is settled you will be challenged.

Space weather involves the following;
Auroras, Coronal Holes, Coronal Mass Ejections, Earth's Magnetosphere, F10.7 cm Radio Emissions, Galactic Cosmic Rays, Geomagnetic Storms, Ionosphere, Ionospheric Scintillation, Radiation Belts, Solar EUV Irradiance, Solar Flares (Radio Blackouts), Solar Radiation Storm, Solar Wind, Sunspots/Solar Cycle, Total Electron Content.
Note earthquakes are not the list.

The pseudoscience capacitor model doesn’t count; the Nature article which emphasizes correlation not causation is very much non mainstream and is not universally supported.
It belongs in the other forum.

Finally claiming my credentials are based on a failed geology class is nothing more than a cheap shot.

 

[Minister Monardo]

http://suspicious0bservers.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Paper-1.pdf

 

[sjastro]

http://suspicious0bservers.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Paper-1.pdf

This says it all.
You are blissfully unaware this link and references to it have cropped up frequently in this and your closed thread.
What it indicates is you have zero comprehension of the subject because you couldn’t even recognize the link’s role in both threads while also inadvertently rejecting it due to “capacitive effects”.
It also confirms your ongoing claim of the consistency with plate tectonics is pure bogus which you made up.

 

[sjastro]

Started by picking up the pretty rocks . I just wanted to know what they were ! Ended up eventually taking 2 semesters of geology classes in college. And I’m still fascinated with the subject ( and pretty rocks)

Since you are interested in rocks you will find this interesting.

I found this small stone on a granite intrusion.

The rock on the left is imaged under natural light, the right under 365 nm UV.
Since the rock appeared to have a black fusion crust and an SG of 2.9, I sent the left hand image to Randy Korotev who is a planetary scientist and expert on meteorites.
Randy was dubious about the rock being a meteorite to put it mildly until I sent him the UV image.
Since I am in Australia, he recommended a lab in Western Australia which would perform a blind test and send the results to Washington University for analysis all free of charge.

Unfortunately the lab which relied on the mining industry went out of business as the mining industry experienced an economic downturn at the time.
Attempts to have the rock tested elsewhere have failed because of the ridiculously high costs being quoted.
Even my old university showed no loyalty to an alumnus.......

At this stage testing is in limbo.

 

[Aaron_Bethlhm]

At this stage testing is in limbo.

Have you compared it to hackmanite under uv light ? (just looked up similar images online)

 

[sjastro]

Have you compared it to hackmanite under uv light ? (just looked up similar images online)

Thanks for your feedback.
I should also have added the stone is strongly magnetic which led to my suspicions it might be a meteorite and has a hardness > 5.5 (it scratches glass).

I have used this site as a reference but have found no matches.