« Now How Did She Do That? | Main | Mexican Lasagna »
June 28, 2006
The Voodoo of Peer Review
One thing I've always failed to understand about Republicans, and actually most non-academics for that matter, is the lack of understanding of the Peer Review process in Scientific Journals. To hear your average Republican talk about the matter their crackpot theories are just as credible as anyone else's. And that's not exactly what one would refer to as either true or sane, but I digress. I'm going to go on the assumption that people just don't know how it works and that's the problem.
Let's say I was going to write a work for peer review. The process is pretty straight forward. I write up my theory, provide the supporting evidence, and I submit it to a distinguished Journal. Now a Scientific Journal isn't like a crappy traditional media outlet, they have something called "standards". Now I know this will come as shocking to you Republicans out there, so try to suspend disbelief and come along with me. Beyond just using proper grammar and spelling, which the you can't guarantee from your average traditional media outlet at all, they require that the statements made be confirmed by other experts in the field. Now what it takes to be an expert is related to how much peer reviewed materials you have published and the acknowledgement of your peers as being on the leading edge of the theories in your field. So believing you're right very strongly, that doesn't make you an expert, that just makes you a normal person.
Anyway, some number of these experts are consulted to review my document. The number is variable depending on the field and the workloads of the experts. So what happens is these experts without knowing me or any of the other experts looking at the theory, review it critically looking for holes in what I've suggested. This can take months and maybe even years, the more complex the theory and methods used, the more time it takes. Some experts may even try to reproduce the experiments involved to confirm the results, it all depends on their determination of the validity of the subject matter. After some period of time, the experts send back a ruling on the results. The editor of the Journal then reviews the independent work on the theory and sees if there is some consensus among these independent reviews of the process. Suggestions of improvements are passed along to the submitter of the article for review and the reviewers have options from approval after the suggested improvements are made, or total rejection, or total acceptance, and many shades of gray in-between depending on the Journal. Since this all done anonymously, there is little reason for these people to lie about the problems with a theory. Since these are the experts in their fields they can provide supporting evidence why the results suggested don't provide the suggested theory. Those the make it through peer review are printed and we have the body of rigorously reviewed science that provides the foundation for generations of scientific advancement for years to come.
That brings us back to why the Republicans have attacked this process. In their minds anything that doesn't support what they believe is inherently wrong. No amount of evidence is ever going to be enough to change their minds, because it's what they believe. And folks, that's just not Science. That's just not how it works, that's called faith. Science is built on reproducible results. If you can make something happen over and over again, then what you have is a scientific fact.
Now I can already hear you inbred America haters screaming at the top of you lungs that sometimes Science is talking about things that haven't happened yet. Using the Global Warming "debate" as an example. The idiot Republicans in Congress threw out a hate filled diatribe about not approving of the AP new release on the wide support of the Global Warming numbers among scientists. Science facts show trend lines, based off of many thousands of years worth of data. Science says trend lines are good science, good science says that when things vary from the norm massively something is going on. And if you have two variables following the same trend lines that are connected to one another, history tells us that you can't go wrong predicting that they are related to one another. And just because a bunch of oil company cronies come in and say they want to believe something different and a bunch of gullible fools decide to believe that as well, but it doesn't change the facts that science sees...It just doesn't happen.
Bascially I think it's just a reflection of the lack of intelligence your average Republican has. On the one hand there are those in their number that profit from the lies, so they are happy to lead the gullible along until they skip town when things turn out just like science said. Hate, fear and greed are all what motivate them and they will not let anything get in the way of that agenda. It's just as simple as that. And having corruption Republicans in Washington, DC spouting oil company propaganda speaks volumes to the real agenda of the Republican party. Who ever pays them the most, will determine their talking points. Scientists on the other hand are held to a much higher stand of behavior. They have to back up what they say with evidence and their peers won't allow them to have leaps of faith. There is no magic in the Scientific theories that the average Republican can't grasp. It just takes an open mind and the ability to think for yourself, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Read more about Peer Review over at Wikipedia and more about the Republican efforts to attack science over at Think Progress.
Posted by Jamison at June 28, 2006 5:19 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.daffodillane.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/6466