Sorry PaulK, can I just add a little bit.
quote:
Sometimes a crank idea can be proposed by a scientist and even make it into a peer-reviewed journal, like the recent paper discussed here...
—PaulK
One thing a lot of people don't realize (and creationist organisations don't want to tell people; for them it is bread sent from heaven if one of them manages to publish something), is that getting published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is just the first baby step in the peer-review process. In that first step an article is peer-reviewed by a handful of people. Some mistakes slip through.
Convincing a few people is a lot easier than convincing the bulk of the scientific community. The peer-review process actually happens after the publication.
The scientific community is the one that ultimately decides whether your paper was nonsense or not. And, boy, do they analise every word written in that article! Everything. From the first word in the abstract right through to the last word in conclusions. There's always someone who will call the bluff the moment a scientist writes nonsense.
When someone passes that peer-review process scientists know that they've arrived. It's not just by getting published. Being published means very little. It's getting your conclusions obtained from your research accepted by the scientific community that matters.
Edited by Pressie, : Added sentences
Edited by Pressie, : Added sentences
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.