|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total) |
| |
popoi | |
Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/0 |
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Journal Watch: How Could They Print/Not Print That? | |||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
To paraphrase Art Linkletter, sometimes science journals print the darndest things.
With some regularity, we come across instances where creationist points of view are published in peer-reviewed journals despite the lack of data or analysis. We also hear complaints from creationists about their inability to persuade peer-reviewed journals to publish their papers. Often these cases are discussed tangentially in other threads, and we see neither the controversy fully unfolded nor its resolution. I'd like this thread to track those cases as they arise, allowing us to ascertain what facts we can about the circumstances and then to discuss issues of peer review, bias, editorial judgment, etc. I think it would be particularly useful not only to learn about controversial cases but also to track them with updates, and perhaps sift out some common elements. For our delectation, from the Virology Journal: "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time". Tara C. Smith, an assitant professor of etiology, provides a concise summary in her Aetiology blog:
quote: In the comment section at Prof. Smith's blog, Virology Journal's editor-in-chief responds:
quote: So was this a case of a casual "bit of relief" being taken too seriously by its detractors? Should peer review (apparently it was recommended by 2 of 2 reviewers at this BioMed journal) have prevented publication? Were the authors naively engaging in a bit of historical speculation (Did arsenic kill Napoleon?) and science guys are overreacting--or were they sneaking the creationist camel's nose into the scientific tent? I'd say either Creation/Evolution in the News or Is It Science? NB: I follow her blog, and you should, too. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Adminnemooseus Administrator Posts: 3974 Joined: |
I'd like this thread to track those cases as they arise, allowing us to ascertain what facts we can about the circumstances and then to discuss issues of peer review, bias, editorial judgment, etc. I think it would be particularly useful not only to learn about controversial cases but also to track them with updates, and perhaps sift out some common elements. A big part of the "Proposed New Topic" (PNT) process is to have focus in the message 1. That at least gives us a starting point to try to have focus in the topic as a whole. I'd like to discuss the one individual case first. Perhaps we can diversify the topic later, or start new topics for new articles. What you are proposing will result in a jumble of messages as new articles are introduced but older messages are still responded to. Please modify your message 1, including having a specific relevant topic title. When done, please post a "changes done" type response to this message. Adminnemooseus
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Well, with all due respect, your proposed changes would eviscerate my intentions for the thread--focus is good, but not when it narrows so much we miss the larger view.
Nor do I see the single case in hand as being weighty enough to carry a thread on its own. I appreciate the thoughtful sincerity of your response, but...never mind. No harm, no foul: I enjoyed the process. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Admin Director Posts: 12998 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Wounded King requested promotion of this thread in his Message 306, and Adminnemooseus seems to be otherwise occupied at present, so I'll promote this thread to Is It Science? and we'll see how it goes. I understand the concern about the potential to end up discussing any and all topics related to the creation/evolution controversy, and so I request that the participants keep the primary focus on issues regarding the publication process rather than the topics of the papers themselves.
I believe Wounded King wanted to include this paper by Eugene V. Koonin in the discussion: The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life. There was some discussion about it in the Evolving the Musculoskeletal System thread, probably the best place to begin is with my deprecating comments as Percy in Message 279 and read the message chain forward.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Admin Director Posts: 12998 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Thread copied here from the Journal Watch: How Could They Print/Not Print That? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
I figured that before I start derailing your thread with my own examples I would address the one you give in the OP.
In terms of whether this was a "bit of relief" and solely an opinion piece, I can't see any reason why a reader should conclude this other than the article's daftness. As Tara Smith's comment pointsout, historical case studies are far from unheard of so I don't see why the editor felt that such a format should be treated as a joke.
Should peer review ... have prevented publication? Frankly I'm surprised it ever got off the editor's desk. Having said that, a brief google on case studies of fictional characters brought up one for Anakin Skywalker which is equally short, and I would suggest daft, although arguably it has a more substantial body of evidence to discuss. As to the authors intent; I don't think one has to look for a creationist agenda, as such, but they certainly seem to be coming to the case from a christian viewpoint, i.e. 'our lord Jesus Christ', and possibly a literalist one, although as I say case studies of fictional characters are not unknown. *ABE*On the Retraction watch blog they have a comment from one of the authors who says that it was originally only supposed to be a piece in the debate section, which seems a bit better, but only a bit.*/ABE* TTFN, WK Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Hi, WK: I don't think moving on immediately to another case will derail the thread at all. That is expressly what I want--opportunities to compare and contrast the merits of all perspectives on these controversies.
I chose the example in the OP precisely because it was so daft: as Tara Smith points out, its internal contradictions alone keep us from taking it seriously--the authors posit a miraculous cure, then attempt to diagnose the malady based on normal, non-miraculous clinical expectations.. I had hoped that even creationist critics of peer-reviewed journals could agree that this odd paper has no place in peer-reviewed journals, and we could move on to other examples they/we find less clear-cut. OTOH, one hears, "What harm does it do?" to defend such material, citing entertainment value, stimulus of the imagination, etc. That seems fairly simple-minded to me, since displacing more rigorous pages is reason enough to avoid daffy fluff that fails on its own terms, and, to my mind, nothing stimulates the imagination like good science. However, we seem to have no defenders for the paper, so perhaps my attempt to provoke discussion erred on the side of daftness. Please do bring another case. I think we can enjoy a finer analysis with multiple cases of all sorts. AbE: I realize the paper is not expressly creationist. Edited by Omnivorous, : add Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
I think another pretty clear example where we should almost all be able to agree that the trappings of peer review are being used as a creationist fig leaf is an article recently discussed on Panda's Thumb.
The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds. Douglas Axe. BIO-complexity, Vol 2010 Now we know Doug Axe gets published in the proper, real, grown up peer reviewed literature, but this doesn't seem to be one of those times. BIO-complexity seems to essentially be the Biologic istitutes in-house journal. Amongst its editors are Douglas Axe, Michael Behe, David Snoke, Richard Sternberg, Jonathan Wells, and William Dembski, a veritable who's who of ID luminaries. Their Copy-editor is Ann Gauger, who some of you may remember as the Biologic institute researcher put in the embarassing position of essentially reporting having observed a novel beneficial mutation arising in her lab at the Wistar conference a few years ago. As it currently stands the only 2 articles ever published in BIO-complexity are Axe's one and one with Ann Gauger as first author and another editorial board member Ralph Seelke as the last author. To be honest Gauger's paper looks like it could easily have got published in a proper peer reviewed journal somewhere if the article was a bit less pushy and not so keen to make emphatic statements especially in the discussion, with no citation to back them up. TTFN, WK
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
I see that both papers are viewable as PDFs via your BIO-Complexity link; I'm wading through Axe's now.
The incestuous impersonation of peer-review you describe is striking; it is, as observed in some of the Panda's Thumb comments, akin to the Discovery Institute's tactic of obtaining campus appearance sponsorship from a religious student group, then trying to portray that as acceptance or even endorsement by that university's science faculty. I do think they need to beef-up their copy-editing at BIO-Complexity; emphasis added to the amusing homophonic error in Axe's introduction:
quote: He seems to have wedded a false dilemma to incredulity, but I want to finish the paper before I make that "seems" an assertion. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
I've finished Axe's paper. While I can't pretend to understand everything he writes about protein folds (and I'll accept corrections of my misunderstandings humbly), a few things stood out that suggest to me that he is merely dressing up the incredulity of irreducible complexity with big numbers.
He depicts the (more than) literally astronomical number of possible protein folds, then argues that the difficulty of forming a de novo functional fold from that set is a search/sampling problem--finding a gemstone in a vast desert. He refers to (but does not cite) one estimate of the possible physical events in the universe since the Big Bang, notes only a fraction of those events could have pertained to protein folds, compares the two numbers, and concludes there is a vast probability disparity that is a problem for evolution. He also makes this observation:
quote: So it seems to me that he presents familiar ID arguments of irreducible complexity and incredulity dressed up with misleading quantitative analogies. First, he presents the odds of a particular successful protein fold mutation event as comparable to a search of the probability space of protein folds. This sounds awesome--until one considers how many microorganisms, for example, enjoy opportunities for mutation. So he tilts the scale impression by describing a singular search of a vast space, rather than a vast population searching a vast space. He puts his thumb firmly on the scale again when he chooses for consideration protein folds functional in contemporaneous organisms, rather than postulating a simpler protein fold that could benefit a proto-organism, and thus provide grist for evolution's mill. Instead, he blithely describes a world with abiotic amino acids, then notes, "In our world things are strikingly different." That seems particularly disingenuous, since the planet we have does not exhibit the characteristics of the planet when life must first have appeared. So...I don't want to get bogged down in the specifics of his paper, but it seems to me that a solid editorial process and rigorous peer review would at a minimum have excised some of his rhetorical sleights of hand. Perhaps that is why, despite the paper's six month online lifespan at BIO-Complexity, there are only three comments, all with little to no substance. The DI wants the appearance of peer review; unfortunately for them, the appearance is not persuasive, given your outline above--and by settling for appearances, this paper, at least, fails to benefit from the close critiques peer review would have provided. Edited by Omnivorous, : clarity Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
caffeine Member (Idle past 1024 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
But in our world things are strikingly different. Here we see a planet with amino acids of strictly biological origin This bit's simply not true. There are amino acids on meteorites. Unless the author's claiming to know something we don't about extraterrestrial life, I don't think you can call that a strictly biological origin.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
caffeine writes: Axe writes:
This bit's simply not true. There are amino acids on meteorites. Unless the author's claiming to know something we don't about extraterrestrial life, I don't think you can call that a strictly biological origin. But in our world things are strikingly different. Here we see a planet with amino acids of strictly biological origin That didn't occur to me--you're right. From Wiki, regarding the Murchison Meterorite (emphasis added):
quote: Perhaps some authentic peer review would have raised that objection prior to publication. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Omnivorous writes:
As I read it, the text that you quoted does not assert that the amino acids are of biological origin. It only asserts that some of them are useful for biology.
Perhaps some authentic peer review would have raised that objection prior to publication.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Again, with emphasis added:
Axe writes: But in our world things are strikingly different. Here we see a planet with amino acids of strictly biological origin... The quote seems clear to me. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Omnivorous writes:
Okay. But I am not seeing anything wrong with that.The quote seems clear to me. As stated, it does not exclude that we also see amino acids of non-biological origin. I am not arguing for the Axe paper. I am just questioning why that particular assertion about amino acids is seen as a problem.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024