This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors.
The Nature Network week column is archived here.
Just imagine 5 clinical trials with a new drug where one trial will show an advantage for the new treatment, writes Martin Fenner. “This trial will be published in a nice journal, probably one negative trial will be published in a small journal and the remaining 3 trials will remain unpublished. Just looking at the published literature will of course give the wrong impression, but these are the only data that are available to most people.” Martin goes on to outline the ways in which ‘science is shouted about’, from the perspective of a drug company, an insurer, the media and the patient.
If you are in Toronto on 26 January, drop in for the Nature Network pub night. Eva Amsen provides a taster of the agenda. And from 12 to 15 February, Bob O’Hara notes that participating bloggers around the world will be celebrating the bicentennary of Charles Darwin’s birth (12 February 1809) with a ‘blog swarm’, in which posts will be aggregated on Blog for Darwin to be kept as a resource for educators, students, and others – all are welcome to join in.
Are scientists good at making decisions? So questions Craig Rowell, who writes: “I would like this to be a fairly serious and critical look at the process of decision making by Scientists and if there is anything of inherent value or is there anything lacking in how we train scientists to make decisions.” Read his post and contribute your own answers.
Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Nature.com’s science blogs index and tracker
Nature Network’s many blogs and forums