From: Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca (Mischa Sandberg)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Peer review
Date: 5 Sep 92 21:12:44 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

One pillar of scientific inquiry is peer review. In the face of an onslaught
of poor data, pseudo-data and out-and-out wishful thinking in numeric form,
it seems to have become much more common that the worst of this stuff spills
out into the popular press, esp. if its producers become caught up in
the notion that Their Discovery is of Earthshaking Importance, and cannot
wait for general verification. This sort of spill tends to be accompanied
by acrimonious statements about hidebound colleagues and journal editors,
not to mention immediate requests for exceptional funding.

Well, peer review certainly has its warts. Worse, it has limited capacity.
Even worse, in these times of really tough funding and an administrative
view that "businesspeople can do it better", there's plenty of incentive
to sidestep the system altogether.

If it weren't for the fact that businesses find it easiest feeding at
the public trough, I'd say, bring on the phlogiston generators and
perpetual motion machines: "business" can enjoy the less abstract
side of natural selection for a change, too. But the reality is, the more
pseudo-science impresses the marketing department, the more we all
suffer.

Yes, I'm sure none of this is news to sci.skeptics. My point is,
the notion of what good science is, needs promotion, in simple terms,
loud and clear, wherever we have the public ear. Every day, I deal
with people who have pretty vague notions about causality, to say
nothing of repeatability. To paraphrase an old saw, you can lead
them to conclusions, but you can't make them think ...and yet,
that's exactly what I try for. I think it's important to encourage
one another, not just to tsk tsk at the "TOP SECRET PHOTO OF UFO"
tabloid headline, but to realize that at least one person in the
check-out line is seeing that and thinking, "wow! for real!".
Either you find the point at which you can speak out for rationality,
or no one does.

I hope that this is not out of line for sci.skeptics --- which of late
seems to be carrying more ad hominems and quadruple-quoted postings
than usual. But the notions of reasonability, provability and skepticism
are NOT what I see in the high school and university graduates among which
I live; and I suspect that such notions are pretty thinly understood
by a lot of the people that you the reader know. CSICOP and skeptics
in general are getting a public reputation as people who like to
get together and snicker, with little actual skepticism evident, and
little new information presented and defended. Such reputation I
have heard from a local newspaper reporter, who feels that it is
proper that she give equal space to itinerant graphologists, psychics
and such, but that skeptics occasionally feed her a printable sarcastic
one-liner response.

Well, I've said my bit. Think about the consequences of general unreason,
and about what is not beyond your doing; then try to rationalize why
you aren't doing it :-).

--
Mischa Sandberg ... Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca
                 or uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Mischa_Sandberg
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Engineers think equations are an approximation of reality.
Physicists think reality is an approximation of the equations.
Mathematicians never make the connection.