Peer-to-peer

Mark Henderson in The Times yesterday (25 October 2007, page 36) reported the results of a survey of 204 researchers drawn from all levels in science, from the heads of major institutions to postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates, concluding that "excessive regulation of science is damaging public confidence in research by creating a misleading impression that most of it is dangerous or ethically dubious."
According to the Institutue of Ideas survey, scientists feel that strict laws covering experiments on animals, embryos and human tissue have a negative, rather than positive, effect on public perceptions of their work. The study will be discussed on Sunday 28 October as part of the Battle of Ideas festival, sponsored by The Times, at the Royal College of Art, London (tickets available via the link). There is a long list of speakers, from all walks of life including science, the arts, politics and journalism, which can be seen at this page. Other scientific topics to be discussed include climate change, particle physics, and the teaching of evolution.
The Battle of Ideas festival describes itself as "An initiative to bring together different strands of social, political, scientific, academic and cultural discussion into an annual festival." The survey will be debated in the session "What are the barriers to science in the 21st century?" Tony Gilland, of the Institute of Ideas, who organised the survey, told The Times: “If we really want value for money from publicly funded scientists then we have to be willing to allow them to pursue their curiosity and see what comes of it. A scientist’s peers are best placed to judge whether their work is excellent or mediocre. Today the mark of a ‘good’ scientist seems to be all about whether they are prepared to doff their cap to the externally imposed constraints of ethics committees and regulators or the Government’s demands for short-term economic or social benefits from their work.”

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 26, 2007
Categories: Ethics, Policy and Public | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Nature Precedings forum on Nature Network is featuring a stimulating and thoughtful discussion about how to handle pseudoscience postings. Santosh Patnaik writes: "Though Nature Precedings screens submissions for pseudo-scientific content, it is possible for such a submission to get through. An example might be this article on Nature Precedings: this website suggests that the authors are supporting “creationism/intelligent design.” This leads one to wonder how pseudo-science is identified, and what the policy is towards accepted articles that are later identified as pseudo-scientific."
Timo Hannay responds: "Nature Precedings does not accept pseudo-science. Spotting this and other inappropriate content is the job of our curators. In the month since launch they have already filtered out many such examples. In this particular case, the curator handling the contribution was concerned about the nature of the content and so consulted a senior journal editor with very considerable expertise in this area. In their opinion, it is not pseudo-science and is worth posting for community comment."
The discussion that follows touches on how to define and identify pseudoscience; whether preperint server managers should block postings of it; what tools can be used by the community to indicate quality; how an inchoherent writing style can obscure meaning; and the role of scientists in helping to promote "real" science and identify the flaws in pseudoscience, for the wider public.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 24, 2007
Categories: Quality and value, Technical solutions | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is the question asked by Ai Lin Chun of Nature Nanotechnology , at the journal's Nature Network forum.
She writes: "In the past year, a few people have ask ‘how do I referee a paper?’. It took me by surprise the first time I heard it mainly because it’s not something that has occurred to me before. It is clearly a valid question given it is not a subject taught in graduate school. Over time, we all seemed to have “learned” how to referee a paper by doing one for our supervisor(s) at some point. Should we be formally taught how to referee a paper? Or are we happy with the way things are?"
Please go to the forum to provide your comments, or do so here.
As regular readers of Peer to Peer may recall, the Nature journal’s peer-review pages include editors’ advice about what makes a good review and lists the essential and desirable criteria. Nature also runs a mentoring awards programme, the latest of which led a feature and to this editorial about good peer-review—there are several comments from readers, and, as ever, we welcome more. Last year’s peer-review debate, in which 22 authors write about various aspects of how the internet is changing or could change peer-review, also includes perspectives on this question, as does the "Ask the Nature editor" group on Nature Network, where we have been discussing peer-review in the forums.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 22, 2007
Categories: Mentoring and training | Permalink | Comments (0)

A High Court judge today ruled that Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth can be shown in UK schools only if it is accompanied by a disclaimer to explain nine scientific errors. The Times Online carries a list of the nine errors specified by the judge.
In The Times newspaper edition today (11 October), Lewis Smith, the paper's environment correspondent, reports that despite the errors, the judge said "many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC”. "
Is this the first time that peer-review has helped to decide what can be shown, and taught, in schools in the United Kingdom?
Climate Feedback, the blog of Nature Reports Climate Change, features some more details of the story, together with some links to other articles and opinions.
The Royal Society's overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change is here.

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 11, 2007
Categories: Policy and Public | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark Chillingworth, the Editor of Information Week Review, writes in the October issue that there are debates on how to improve peer review, alludes to a recent PRISM statement about the need to protect it, but that "nowhere is there anyone laying out the true costs of peer review". He suggests that these costs need to be calculated as part of any informed way forward to maximize the benefits of the system.
Martin Blume, then Editor-in-Chief of the American Physical Society, wrote in the first of Nature's web debates on access to the literature in 2001:
"Peer review is expensive, and although reviewing by scientists is voluntary, we need to pay our editorial staff. It is more time consuming and hence more costly to review the 10,000 rejected articles than it is to review those that are accepted. Consideration is being given to other forms of peer review, but no savings are as yet obvious if quality is to be maintained."

Posted by Maxine Clarke on October 05, 2007
Categories: Quality and value | Permalink | Comments (0)