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→Can we write a better header?: to JDWpianist
Any suggestions? [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 08:38, 3 December 2009 (EST)
Any suggestions? [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 08:38, 3 December 2009 (EST)
:The definition favored by Wikipedia is of a particular sort of prepublication review which can be credibly said to produce reliable scientific knowledge (or at least [[consensus science]]). It has nothing to do with the actual, real-world purpose of independent review: i.e., to subject results to the scrutiny of other equally knowledgeable people who can and will expose any any errors in the work.
:If you are promoting an ideology, then peer review would be unrelated to finding errors; ideology is by definition something that is promoted, not something which is compared against reality or checked for accuracy and correctness. That is why the president of Harvard was forced to resign when he questioned feminist ideology. He dared to propose that scientists rigorously test the feminist assumption that difference in academic success in math-related fields was due primarily (or only) to anti-female prejudice and discrimination.
:Real scientists '''welcome''' review of their work. Having others check your work is the highest compliment anyone can pay you. It means what you are doing is important, and might even be true. The science works, the only way you can find out if a hypothesis or theory is worthwhile is to try like the dickens to '''disprove''' it (see [[falsification]]). You try as hard as you can to prove the theory false, and if you fail then you can say there is a degree of confidence in the idea. (Note that an idea which cannot possible be proved false, no matter what tests are done, is not science. If you assert such an idea, while saying that you'll continue to hold the idea no matter what counterexamples are shown you, then whatever you doing it's not science.
:Anyway, we need to distinguish between (a) the kind of independent checking done by experts who help advance scientific knowledge by weeding out mistaken ideas and (b) the business of handing out papers to the editor's cronies, who might share his biases and give an article a pass when it doesn't deserve it or give him a reason to [[spike]] it even if it deserves to be published.
:For nearly a dozen years, I have seen abuse of the [[peer review]] process by supporters of [[global warming]] and opponents of [[DDT]]. We need to expose these abuses, by comparing them to the way science is actually supposed to work. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 19:46, 5 December 2009 (EST)