The Journal Nature Requires Reproducibility In Submitted Papers

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"Thus, anyone doing science must be able to reproduce the outcome, by providing the data and methods for review by others to perform replication"

Tell that to Einstein.

The first sentence above is a false standard.
Even Einstein understood this premise. He always told people his equation was a hypothesis based on his observations and provided his work. Alarmists ... Not so much..
Bob, no one thinks you speak for Einstein.

You do not understand the scientific terms 'hypothesis' and 'theory.' He used the term theory, which does not mean what you think it means.

Once again, if you fail to answer the question, the reasonable poster will understand that you are a creationist, a young earther.

Come on, Bob, answer the question.
Standard alarmist Alynskie tactics..

Quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn about your belief's. Your attempt to denigrate me because of your internal biases outs you as a fool and nothing more than a troll.

Heck, you don't even know when Einstein's hypothesis was elevated to theory status. (hint: it was after many others replicated his work and math proving it reliably reproducible)
 
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  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

Interesting points...

None of which lend themselves to not publishing the data and methods used to derive the hypothesis. If one can not replicate what has been done and how it was done, the full view of significance is lost and relevant questions by other practitioners and scientists can not generate appropriate critiques of the process and outcome validity.

Peer review has become pal review and in some cases self review.. You don't get reasonable critique from an echo chamber. Being published should mean the science is open to all to critique and respond. Much credibility was lost when the hiding of data and method became an acceptable practice. Can you imagine if this was applied to drug and foods?
 
where matty to claim you are antiscience like he did when i posted this......
here is a corollary.....govt money increases the fraud.
Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data The IG has seen “a substantial increase” in misconduct and fraud cases, the watchdog reported in September, 2016. Investigators caught twice as many students falsifying their results during the 2011 to 2016 period as compared to the six years prior.

Read more: Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data
 
where matty to claim you are antiscience like he did when i posted this......
here is a corollary.....govt money increases the fraud.
Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data The IG has seen “a substantial increase” in misconduct and fraud cases, the watchdog reported in September, 2016. Investigators caught twice as many students falsifying their results during the 2011 to 2016 period as compared to the six years prior.

Read more: Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data

When grants determine what they want as an outcome, in order to receive further funding, you breed fraud... Requiring data and method for publication should out these types real fast. Again, echo chamber science at its best, exposed..
 
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where matty to claim you are antiscience like he did when i posted this......
here is a corollary.....govt money increases the fraud.
Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data The IG has seen “a substantial increase” in misconduct and fraud cases, the watchdog reported in September, 2016. Investigators caught twice as many students falsifying their results during the 2011 to 2016 period as compared to the six years prior.

Read more: Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data

No where are these cases identified as - or even associated with - climate research. The amount of climate research used in the IPCC's assessment reports and from which its conclusions are drawn that consists of students working on their doctoral degrees is trivial to microscopic.
 
The Journal Nature Requires Reproducibility In Submitted Papers

“Replication is something scientists should be thinking about before they write the paper,” says Ritu Dhand, the editorial director at Nature.

Now this will stop a lot of AGW crap from being spewed... Requiring all data and methods be disclosed is going to stop a lot of bullshit from being published. No more hiding the data or refusing to disclose your methods.. Finally!!! Real science might get accomplished and some integrity returned to science..

I have to say it's not altogether clear to me why this topic is in the Environment forum rather than, say, Science/Technology, Education, or perhaps Structured Debate. The thread's presence here in such a narrowly focused forum, given that Nature publishes papers covering the entirety of science disciplines, gives me pause insofar as I cannot help but sense the purpose of the thread is not to address inadequacies in the nature of Nature's published articles, but rather it exists to push an agenda pertaining to the climate change debate.

If the thread and OP-er's raison d'etre be that of advancing/advocating what appears (to me) to be a calumny theory premised upon notions of collusion of some set of actors in the debate over the politics of climate change, I don't really have something I care to share. I have nothing substantive to contribute in that regard not because I don't understand the matter, and not because I don't concur about the importance of reproducibility, for I absolutely do so concur. I don't because I know the futility of bothering here to engage in a climate change discussion. In a less petty environment, I might actively share my thoughts, or at least pose some thoughtful questions that may help advance the discussion.

If, on the other hand, the discussion theme is intended to be one of the technical merit of papers Nature (and by extension, competing science journals) publishes, I have the thoughts below to share as goes the peer review process.

integrity returned to science..

Before getting started, I have to say I think science and scientists have a good deal of integrity, but I'm not naive about the fact that there are lapses, material ones even at times. But that, I think, is a related but different discussion topic, so I will move on.

The current system of peer review is not perfect, and, while most scientists believe it is necessary, indeed, desirable, the core assumptions inherent in the process must be evaluated and adapted to the changing environment. While research has examined modifications to the process, biases, and other flaws, perhaps the purpose of peer review and some key assumptions should be examined. For example:
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

I think Nature's editorial board have content and intellectual integrity constantly in mind. In the mid-aughts and in response to suggestions from readers and contributors, Nature explored a new approach to its peer review process, the so-called open peer review approach. (Click the link to learn what the tested process entailed.) It found that while "open" reviewers contributed some editorially relevant feedback, very little technical input and critique resulted from the open review approach. The journal thus opted not to implement the open review process.

In light of Nature's sincere efforts to boost the qualitative value of the peer review process, I find that the publication's editors understand the importance of integrity. That said, they are science editors, not experts on every science topic about which they may receive submissions. As such they depend on the input of subject matter experts to participate in the review process. When that participation is lacking, as it was in the noted open review trial, what are the editors to do?

Now the editors are trying to force one (several) peer reviewers to perform replication exercises. Okay. It's a different approach and a new standard that manuscript authors must meet. Like the "standard" peer review processes, it too has pros and cons. Pragmatically speaking, the replication obligation is for some manuscripts fitting and for others, well, not so much.
  • Should a researcher who's made a preliminary discovery need to meet the requirement? Often scientists come by ideas they explore incompletely, but they publish papers about the idea for the sake of engendering further research into the matter. Essentially they do so to say, "Hey. I just noticed 'this' and looked into it to the following extent...What I found suggests XYZ and I think it'd be worth looking into further." What such researchers observed/examined could well be an anomaly, or it could be that it's not an anomaly but not a frequent or reproducible-at-will thing. The natural world operates under a set of rules, but it's not software either.
  • Should prohibitively expensive experiments also be reproducible? Ditto re: data collection? Sometimes what a scientist publishes is the story of an experiment s/he performed for the purpose of collecting data. For instance, a physicist researching gamma ray bursts is constrained by the mere occurrence of the event. Should her paper not be published because nobody else has seen another burst, or because no burst has yet occurred?
What I'm getting at is that scholarly publication is scholars' way of debating. One researchers says, "This is what I've seen and what I conclude from it." Another takes the idea and explores it from a different angle and publishes to say, "I accept part of what you say, but I looked into it 'this' way and found ABC, which it think attenuates or invalidates your conclusion." The next guy, having read both papers performs his own research inspired by the "debate" and shows how one of them is "right" given X-weighting of the factors in play, while the other is "right" given Y-weighting of them. Yet a fourth examiner looks into it and finds that there is a new factors that none of the earlier researchers noticed or considered and show that element to be the thing that defines the cause of the varying results earlier researchers found.

In short, scholarly publication is as much about the specific technical findings as it about the process of expanding a discipline's body of knowledge. The process may not go as quickly as some might like. It may be imperfect, and Nature seems to be attempting to mitigate an aspect of the imperfection. I just hope they don't go too far with the replication "thing" that by enforcing unreasonable demands that squelch idea expressions they hinder scientists' ability to have, as they do now via the paper publication process, widely accessible discussions that inspire among others innovative thought .
The point is far easier and has basic scientific practice in its basis.

Science is the act of presenting facts, derived from the observation of physical reactions. Thus, anyone doing science [is obliged to facilitate others being able to reproduce the experiment and obtain the same] outcome, by providing [their] data and methods.... Failure to provide the material should bring into question the validity of the hypothesis presented. ie: Mann et al and his refusal to produce any of the data which has been shown fraudulent. aka: The Hockey Stick

A great deal of policy has been constructed from this fraud which has destroyed many economies and stopped others from growing.

  1. Mann who? What/whom are you talking about? Is there something you meant to include in your OP and did not? Did you not intend your OP to stand on its own merit?
  2. There appear to be two Reproducibility Projects -- one for psychology and one for cancer biology -- and they examine and tries to reproduce the results of an assortment of studies. That being the case, as I noted before, one's extrapolating the results of the Projects to an environment-related assertion (God only knows what that assertion is, for I don't see it in the OP) seems quite a stretch. The heart of such a claim -- at least right now, given what I've read in the OP -- is this: Psychology and Cancer Biology replicability tests by the two Reproducibility Projects have very low success rates; therefore one should infer the replicability of environmental science is similarly unreproducible. Well, I'm sorry, but there's a lot of ground to cover before that assertion can taken as even remotely plausible.
  3. I looked at the Conclusion and Discussion of one of the psychology project's reviews. Basically the "testers" note that differences in the tested sample of individuals could account for the variance between their results and those of the original researcher. Okay....that seems reasonable. Reasonable or not, however, they did get different results, so they declared they were not able to replicate the experiment. They had to categorize that test as they did; I get that and I get why. Assuming the nature of outcomes the Project obtained for most of its tests is similar, I'm not convinced that merely looking at the absolute outcome -- reproduced or not reproduced -- provides a fair representation of what's going on.
  4. As I stated before, I don't take exception with reproducibility principle. You responded to my post and amplified a point you made earlier, but that point is one with which I in my post concurred.

    What I am taking exception with is what you appear to be claiming because what I see is incoherence and inapplicability. You introduced someone (?) named "Mann" who/that is of neither your OP nor my reply to it. Additionally, you have a huge unsubstantiated claim in your reply to me -- you offer not so much as even a linked bullet list of studies that support your assertion of national economy destruction.

    You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
 
The Journal Nature Requires Reproducibility In Submitted Papers

“Replication is something scientists should be thinking about before they write the paper,” says Ritu Dhand, the editorial director at Nature.

Now this will stop a lot of AGW crap from being spewed... Requiring all data and methods be disclosed is going to stop a lot of bullshit from being published. No more hiding the data or refusing to disclose your methods.. Finally!!! Real science might get accomplished and some integrity returned to science..

I have to say it's not altogether clear to me why this topic is in the Environment forum rather than, say, Science/Technology, Education, or perhaps Structured Debate. The thread's presence here in such a narrowly focused forum, given that Nature publishes papers covering the entirety of science disciplines, gives me pause insofar as I cannot help but sense the purpose of the thread is not to address inadequacies in the nature of Nature's published articles, but rather it exists to push an agenda pertaining to the climate change debate.

If the thread and OP-er's raison d'etre be that of advancing/advocating what appears (to me) to be a calumny theory premised upon notions of collusion of some set of actors in the debate over the politics of climate change, I don't really have something I care to share. I have nothing substantive to contribute in that regard not because I don't understand the matter, and not because I don't concur about the importance of reproducibility, for I absolutely do so concur. I don't because I know the futility of bothering here to engage in a climate change discussion. In a less petty environment, I might actively share my thoughts, or at least pose some thoughtful questions that may help advance the discussion.

If, on the other hand, the discussion theme is intended to be one of the technical merit of papers Nature (and by extension, competing science journals) publishes, I have the thoughts below to share as goes the peer review process.

integrity returned to science..

Before getting started, I have to say I think science and scientists have a good deal of integrity, but I'm not naive about the fact that there are lapses, material ones even at times. But that, I think, is a related but different discussion topic, so I will move on.

The current system of peer review is not perfect, and, while most scientists believe it is necessary, indeed, desirable, the core assumptions inherent in the process must be evaluated and adapted to the changing environment. While research has examined modifications to the process, biases, and other flaws, perhaps the purpose of peer review and some key assumptions should be examined. For example:
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

I think Nature's editorial board have content and intellectual integrity constantly in mind. In the mid-aughts and in response to suggestions from readers and contributors, Nature explored a new approach to its peer review process, the so-called open peer review approach. (Click the link to learn what the tested process entailed.) It found that while "open" reviewers contributed some editorially relevant feedback, very little technical input and critique resulted from the open review approach. The journal thus opted not to implement the open review process.

In light of Nature's sincere efforts to boost the qualitative value of the peer review process, I find that the publication's editors understand the importance of integrity. That said, they are science editors, not experts on every science topic about which they may receive submissions. As such they depend on the input of subject matter experts to participate in the review process. When that participation is lacking, as it was in the noted open review trial, what are the editors to do?

Now the editors are trying to force one (several) peer reviewers to perform replication exercises. Okay. It's a different approach and a new standard that manuscript authors must meet. Like the "standard" peer review processes, it too has pros and cons. Pragmatically speaking, the replication obligation is for some manuscripts fitting and for others, well, not so much.
  • Should a researcher who's made a preliminary discovery need to meet the requirement? Often scientists come by ideas they explore incompletely, but they publish papers about the idea for the sake of engendering further research into the matter. Essentially they do so to say, "Hey. I just noticed 'this' and looked into it to the following extent...What I found suggests XYZ and I think it'd be worth looking into further." What such researchers observed/examined could well be an anomaly, or it could be that it's not an anomaly but not a frequent or reproducible-at-will thing. The natural world operates under a set of rules, but it's not software either.
  • Should prohibitively expensive experiments also be reproducible? Ditto re: data collection? Sometimes what a scientist publishes is the story of an experiment s/he performed for the purpose of collecting data. For instance, a physicist researching gamma ray bursts is constrained by the mere occurrence of the event. Should her paper not be published because nobody else has seen another burst, or because no burst has yet occurred?
What I'm getting at is that scholarly publication is scholars' way of debating. One researchers says, "This is what I've seen and what I conclude from it." Another takes the idea and explores it from a different angle and publishes to say, "I accept part of what you say, but I looked into it 'this' way and found ABC, which it think attenuates or invalidates your conclusion." The next guy, having read both papers performs his own research inspired by the "debate" and shows how one of them is "right" given X-weighting of the factors in play, while the other is "right" given Y-weighting of them. Yet a fourth examiner looks into it and finds that there is a new factors that none of the earlier researchers noticed or considered and show that element to be the thing that defines the cause of the varying results earlier researchers found.

In short, scholarly publication is as much about the specific technical findings as it about the process of expanding a discipline's body of knowledge. The process may not go as quickly as some might like. It may be imperfect, and Nature seems to be attempting to mitigate an aspect of the imperfection. I just hope they don't go too far with the replication "thing" that by enforcing unreasonable demands that squelch idea expressions they hinder scientists' ability to have, as they do now via the paper publication process, widely accessible discussions that inspire among others innovative thought .
The point is far easier and has basic scientific practice in its basis.

Science is the act of presenting facts, derived from the observation of physical reactions. Thus, anyone doing science [is obliged to facilitate others being able to reproduce the experiment and obtain the same] outcome, by providing [their] data and methods.... Failure to provide the material should bring into question the validity of the hypothesis presented. ie: Mann et al and his refusal to produce any of the data which has been shown fraudulent. aka: The Hockey Stick

A great deal of policy has been constructed from this fraud which has destroyed many economies and stopped others from growing.

  1. Mann who? What/whom are you talking about? Is there something you meant to include in your OP and did not? Did you not intend your OP to stand on its own merit?
  2. There appear to be two Reproducibility Projects -- one for psychology and one for cancer biology -- and they examine and tries to reproduce the results of an assortment of studies. That being the case, as I noted before, one's extrapolating the results of the Projects to an environment-related assertion (God only knows what that assertion is, for I don't see it in the OP) seems quite a stretch. The heart of such a claim -- at least right now, given what I've read in the OP -- is this: Psychology and Cancer Biology replicability tests by the two Reproducibility Projects have very low success rates; therefore one should infer the replicability of environmental science is similarly unreproducible. Well, I'm sorry, but there's a lot of ground to cover before that assertion can taken as even remotely plausible.
  3. I looked at the Conclusion and Discussion of one of the psychology project's reviews. Basically the "testers" note that differences in the tested sample of individuals could account for the variance between their results and those of the original researcher. Okay....that seems reasonable. Reasonable or not, however, they did get different results, so they declared they were not able to replicate the experiment. They had to categorize that test as they did; I get that and I get why. Assuming the nature of outcomes the Project obtained for most of its tests is similar, I'm not convinced that merely looking at the absolute outcome -- reproduced or not reproduced -- provides a fair representation of what's going on.
  4. As I stated before, I don't take exception with reproducibility principle. You responded to my post and amplified a point you made earlier, but that point is one with which I in my post concurred.

    What I am taking exception with is what you appear to be claiming because what I see is incoherence and inapplicability. You introduced someone (?) named "Mann" who/that is of neither your OP nor my reply to it. Additionally, you have a huge unsubstantiated claim in your reply to me -- you offer not so much as even a linked bullet list of studies that support your assertion of national economy destruction.

    You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
Nature is specifically looking at all science sent to them for publication. Not just Cancer or whatever else.. They are looking at how they handle all science wanting to be shown as credible. My example of Michael Mann was an obvious choice. He used dubious methods allowing a desired result that even the IPCC now has walked away from.
 
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where matty to claim you are antiscience like he did when i posted this......
here is a corollary.....govt money increases the fraud.
Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data The IG has seen “a substantial increase” in misconduct and fraud cases, the watchdog reported in September, 2016. Investigators caught twice as many students falsifying their results during the 2011 to 2016 period as compared to the six years prior.

Read more: Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data

No where are these cases identified as - or even associated with - climate research. The amount of climate research used in the IPCC's assessment reports and from which its conclusions are drawn that consists of students working on their doctoral degrees is trivial to microscopic.
Dont think I reffed climate science, if thats some sorta justification for fraud and waste it fails
 
Interesting points...

None of which lend themselves to not publishing the data and methods used to derive the hypothesis.

Of course they don't. I didn't and don't disagree with that proposition. This is now the third time I've said as much. Dude....what's it going to take to get that across to you? Can we advance the discussion, please?
 
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

Interesting points...

None of which lend themselves to not publishing the data and methods used to derive the hypothesis. If one can not replicate what has been done and how it was done, the full view of significance is lost and relevant questions by other practitioners and scientists can not generate appropriate critiques of the process and outcome validity.

Peer review has become pal review and in some cases self review.. You don't get reasonable critique from an echo chamber. Being published should mean the science is open to all to critique and respond. Much credibility was lost when the hiding of data and method became an acceptable practice. Can you imagine if this was applied to drug and foods?
OK, buddy boy, replicate a magnitiude nine subduction quake for me.

Much of science is done from observation. From the Theory of Relativity to the deep structure of the Earth. AGW has both observations and solid physics to support the Theory. We see that the temperature of the Earth is higher when the CO2 is high, and lower when it is low. Paleontological records from the prior ice ages, and from deep time. We understand the physics of how GHGs warm the atmosphere and surface of the Earth from the absorption spectra of the GHGs. In fact, there is only one other scientific theory that has that kind of support, evidence and observation, and that is Evolution.

As far as Nature improving the review of it's articles, Xelor critiqued that well enough that I have nothing to add to his statements.
 
where matty to claim you are antiscience like he did when i posted this......
here is a corollary.....govt money increases the fraud.
Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data The IG has seen “a substantial increase” in misconduct and fraud cases, the watchdog reported in September, 2016. Investigators caught twice as many students falsifying their results during the 2011 to 2016 period as compared to the six years prior.

Read more: Feds Won’t ‘Speculate’ About How Many Taxpayer-Funded Scientists Fake Data
You are saying because some students engaged in fraud, that means that scientists are engaged in fraud? What kind of fucked up logic is that? And how many of those students that engage in fraud make it to graduation, or publish after graduation?
 
"Thus, anyone doing science must be able to reproduce the outcome, by providing the data and methods for review by others to perform replication"

Tell that to Einstein.

The first sentence above is a false standard.
Even Einstein understood this premise. He always told people his equation was a hypothesis based on his observations and provided his work. Alarmists ... Not so much..
Bob, no one thinks you speak for Einstein.

You do not understand the scientific terms 'hypothesis' and 'theory.' He used the term theory, which does not mean what you think it means.

Once again, if you fail to answer the question, the reasonable poster will understand that you are a creationist, a young earther.

Come on, Bob, answer the question.
Standard alarmist Alynskie tactics.. Quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn about your belief's. Your attempt to denigrate me because of your internal biases outs you as a fool and nothing more than a troll. Heck, you don't even know when Einstein's hypothesis was elevated to theory status. (hint: it was after many others replicated his work and math proving it reliably reproducible)
You are engaged in pushing an erroneous definition of what constitutes appropriate examples of reproductibility in papers submitted for professional publication.

Since you won't answer me, then answer Old Rocks and Xelor, please.

Addenda: the discussion below clearly demonstrates who understands what is required for the submission of scientific papers.
 
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You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
What has the US economy done under Obama and his boot to the throat of business done to our GDP? The Obama EPA has put in place onerous regulations killing major industry using the CO2 endangerment finding of the EPA, who failed to follow even their own rules on scientific review and integrity. The EPA failed to have independent review of their reasoning and an open debate.

GDP rise has shrunk under the last eight years of heavy regulations based on error derived, fallacious, science. If we take into account massive debt spending, GDP is negative.

Which President Rang Up the Highest Deficit?
 
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The Journal Nature Requires Reproducibility In Submitted Papers

“Replication is something scientists should be thinking about before they write the paper,” says Ritu Dhand, the editorial director at Nature.

Now this will stop a lot of AGW crap from being spewed... Requiring all data and methods be disclosed is going to stop a lot of bullshit from being published. No more hiding the data or refusing to disclose your methods.. Finally!!! Real science might get accomplished and some integrity returned to science..

I have to say it's not altogether clear to me why this topic is in the Environment forum rather than, say, Science/Technology, Education, or perhaps Structured Debate. The thread's presence here in such a narrowly focused forum, given that Nature publishes papers covering the entirety of science disciplines, gives me pause insofar as I cannot help but sense the purpose of the thread is not to address inadequacies in the nature of Nature's published articles, but rather it exists to push an agenda pertaining to the climate change debate.

If the thread and OP-er's raison d'etre be that of advancing/advocating what appears (to me) to be a calumny theory premised upon notions of collusion of some set of actors in the debate over the politics of climate change, I don't really have something I care to share. I have nothing substantive to contribute in that regard not because I don't understand the matter, and not because I don't concur about the importance of reproducibility, for I absolutely do so concur. I don't because I know the futility of bothering here to engage in a climate change discussion. In a less petty environment, I might actively share my thoughts, or at least pose some thoughtful questions that may help advance the discussion.

If, on the other hand, the discussion theme is intended to be one of the technical merit of papers Nature (and by extension, competing science journals) publishes, I have the thoughts below to share as goes the peer review process.

integrity returned to science..

Before getting started, I have to say I think science and scientists have a good deal of integrity, but I'm not naive about the fact that there are lapses, material ones even at times. But that, I think, is a related but different discussion topic, so I will move on.

The current system of peer review is not perfect, and, while most scientists believe it is necessary, indeed, desirable, the core assumptions inherent in the process must be evaluated and adapted to the changing environment. While research has examined modifications to the process, biases, and other flaws, perhaps the purpose of peer review and some key assumptions should be examined. For example:
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

I think Nature's editorial board have content and intellectual integrity constantly in mind. In the mid-aughts and in response to suggestions from readers and contributors, Nature explored a new approach to its peer review process, the so-called open peer review approach. (Click the link to learn what the tested process entailed.) It found that while "open" reviewers contributed some editorially relevant feedback, very little technical input and critique resulted from the open review approach. The journal thus opted not to implement the open review process.

In light of Nature's sincere efforts to boost the qualitative value of the peer review process, I find that the publication's editors understand the importance of integrity. That said, they are science editors, not experts on every science topic about which they may receive submissions. As such they depend on the input of subject matter experts to participate in the review process. When that participation is lacking, as it was in the noted open review trial, what are the editors to do?

Now the editors are trying to force one (several) peer reviewers to perform replication exercises. Okay. It's a different approach and a new standard that manuscript authors must meet. Like the "standard" peer review processes, it too has pros and cons. Pragmatically speaking, the replication obligation is for some manuscripts fitting and for others, well, not so much.
  • Should a researcher who's made a preliminary discovery need to meet the requirement? Often scientists come by ideas they explore incompletely, but they publish papers about the idea for the sake of engendering further research into the matter. Essentially they do so to say, "Hey. I just noticed 'this' and looked into it to the following extent...What I found suggests XYZ and I think it'd be worth looking into further." What such researchers observed/examined could well be an anomaly, or it could be that it's not an anomaly but not a frequent or reproducible-at-will thing. The natural world operates under a set of rules, but it's not software either.
  • Should prohibitively expensive experiments also be reproducible? Ditto re: data collection? Sometimes what a scientist publishes is the story of an experiment s/he performed for the purpose of collecting data. For instance, a physicist researching gamma ray bursts is constrained by the mere occurrence of the event. Should her paper not be published because nobody else has seen another burst, or because no burst has yet occurred?
What I'm getting at is that scholarly publication is scholars' way of debating. One researchers says, "This is what I've seen and what I conclude from it." Another takes the idea and explores it from a different angle and publishes to say, "I accept part of what you say, but I looked into it 'this' way and found ABC, which it think attenuates or invalidates your conclusion." The next guy, having read both papers performs his own research inspired by the "debate" and shows how one of them is "right" given X-weighting of the factors in play, while the other is "right" given Y-weighting of them. Yet a fourth examiner looks into it and finds that there is a new factors that none of the earlier researchers noticed or considered and show that element to be the thing that defines the cause of the varying results earlier researchers found.

In short, scholarly publication is as much about the specific technical findings as it about the process of expanding a discipline's body of knowledge. The process may not go as quickly as some might like. It may be imperfect, and Nature seems to be attempting to mitigate an aspect of the imperfection. I just hope they don't go too far with the replication "thing" that by enforcing unreasonable demands that squelch idea expressions they hinder scientists' ability to have, as they do now via the paper publication process, widely accessible discussions that inspire among others innovative thought .
The point is far easier and has basic scientific practice in its basis.

Science is the act of presenting facts, derived from the observation of physical reactions. Thus, anyone doing science [is obliged to facilitate others being able to reproduce the experiment and obtain the same] outcome, by providing [their] data and methods.... Failure to provide the material should bring into question the validity of the hypothesis presented. ie: Mann et al and his refusal to produce any of the data which has been shown fraudulent. aka: The Hockey Stick

A great deal of policy has been constructed from this fraud which has destroyed many economies and stopped others from growing.

  1. Mann who? What/whom are you talking about? Is there something you meant to include in your OP and did not? Did you not intend your OP to stand on its own merit?
  2. There appear to be two Reproducibility Projects -- one for psychology and one for cancer biology -- and they examine and tries to reproduce the results of an assortment of studies. That being the case, as I noted before, one's extrapolating the results of the Projects to an environment-related assertion (God only knows what that assertion is, for I don't see it in the OP) seems quite a stretch. The heart of such a claim -- at least right now, given what I've read in the OP -- is this: Psychology and Cancer Biology replicability tests by the two Reproducibility Projects have very low success rates; therefore one should infer the replicability of environmental science is similarly unreproducible. Well, I'm sorry, but there's a lot of ground to cover before that assertion can taken as even remotely plausible.
  3. I looked at the Conclusion and Discussion of one of the psychology project's reviews. Basically the "testers" note that differences in the tested sample of individuals could account for the variance between their results and those of the original researcher. Okay....that seems reasonable. Reasonable or not, however, they did get different results, so they declared they were not able to replicate the experiment. They had to categorize that test as they did; I get that and I get why. Assuming the nature of outcomes the Project obtained for most of its tests is similar, I'm not convinced that merely looking at the absolute outcome -- reproduced or not reproduced -- provides a fair representation of what's going on.
  4. As I stated before, I don't take exception with reproducibility principle. You responded to my post and amplified a point you made earlier, but that point is one with which I in my post concurred.

    What I am taking exception with is what you appear to be claiming because what I see is incoherence and inapplicability. You introduced someone (?) named "Mann" who/that is of neither your OP nor my reply to it. Additionally, you have a huge unsubstantiated claim in your reply to me -- you offer not so much as even a linked bullet list of studies that support your assertion of national economy destruction.

    You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
Nature is specifically looking at all science sent to them for publication. Not just Cancer or whatever else.. They are looking at how they handle all science wanting to be shown as credible. My example of Michael Mann was an obvious choice. He used dubious methods allowing a desired result that even the IPCC now has walked away from.
Links? To credible sources? Mann's work has stood up very well. And that is why the denialists hate him. More than a dozen independent studies support his original study. The Academy of Science of the United States did an independent study of his disputed stastistical methods, and used their own stastistical methods. Their graph looked almost exactly like the original one.

What you are doing, Silly Billy is trying to tar the whole of the scientific establishment using just one paper, and you are not even correct about the validity of that paper. Nature is doing what science is continually doing, trying to improve their methods and the result of those methods.
 
The Journal Nature Requires Reproducibility In Submitted Papers

“Replication is something scientists should be thinking about before they write the paper,” says Ritu Dhand, the editorial director at Nature.

Now this will stop a lot of AGW crap from being spewed... Requiring all data and methods be disclosed is going to stop a lot of bullshit from being published. No more hiding the data or refusing to disclose your methods.. Finally!!! Real science might get accomplished and some integrity returned to science..

I have to say it's not altogether clear to me why this topic is in the Environment forum rather than, say, Science/Technology, Education, or perhaps Structured Debate. The thread's presence here in such a narrowly focused forum, given that Nature publishes papers covering the entirety of science disciplines, gives me pause insofar as I cannot help but sense the purpose of the thread is not to address inadequacies in the nature of Nature's published articles, but rather it exists to push an agenda pertaining to the climate change debate.

If the thread and OP-er's raison d'etre be that of advancing/advocating what appears (to me) to be a calumny theory premised upon notions of collusion of some set of actors in the debate over the politics of climate change, I don't really have something I care to share. I have nothing substantive to contribute in that regard not because I don't understand the matter, and not because I don't concur about the importance of reproducibility, for I absolutely do so concur. I don't because I know the futility of bothering here to engage in a climate change discussion. In a less petty environment, I might actively share my thoughts, or at least pose some thoughtful questions that may help advance the discussion.

If, on the other hand, the discussion theme is intended to be one of the technical merit of papers Nature (and by extension, competing science journals) publishes, I have the thoughts below to share as goes the peer review process.

integrity returned to science..

Before getting started, I have to say I think science and scientists have a good deal of integrity, but I'm not naive about the fact that there are lapses, material ones even at times. But that, I think, is a related but different discussion topic, so I will move on.

The current system of peer review is not perfect, and, while most scientists believe it is necessary, indeed, desirable, the core assumptions inherent in the process must be evaluated and adapted to the changing environment. While research has examined modifications to the process, biases, and other flaws, perhaps the purpose of peer review and some key assumptions should be examined. For example:
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

I think Nature's editorial board have content and intellectual integrity constantly in mind. In the mid-aughts and in response to suggestions from readers and contributors, Nature explored a new approach to its peer review process, the so-called open peer review approach. (Click the link to learn what the tested process entailed.) It found that while "open" reviewers contributed some editorially relevant feedback, very little technical input and critique resulted from the open review approach. The journal thus opted not to implement the open review process.

In light of Nature's sincere efforts to boost the qualitative value of the peer review process, I find that the publication's editors understand the importance of integrity. That said, they are science editors, not experts on every science topic about which they may receive submissions. As such they depend on the input of subject matter experts to participate in the review process. When that participation is lacking, as it was in the noted open review trial, what are the editors to do?

Now the editors are trying to force one (several) peer reviewers to perform replication exercises. Okay. It's a different approach and a new standard that manuscript authors must meet. Like the "standard" peer review processes, it too has pros and cons. Pragmatically speaking, the replication obligation is for some manuscripts fitting and for others, well, not so much.
  • Should a researcher who's made a preliminary discovery need to meet the requirement? Often scientists come by ideas they explore incompletely, but they publish papers about the idea for the sake of engendering further research into the matter. Essentially they do so to say, "Hey. I just noticed 'this' and looked into it to the following extent...What I found suggests XYZ and I think it'd be worth looking into further." What such researchers observed/examined could well be an anomaly, or it could be that it's not an anomaly but not a frequent or reproducible-at-will thing. The natural world operates under a set of rules, but it's not software either.
  • Should prohibitively expensive experiments also be reproducible? Ditto re: data collection? Sometimes what a scientist publishes is the story of an experiment s/he performed for the purpose of collecting data. For instance, a physicist researching gamma ray bursts is constrained by the mere occurrence of the event. Should her paper not be published because nobody else has seen another burst, or because no burst has yet occurred?
What I'm getting at is that scholarly publication is scholars' way of debating. One researchers says, "This is what I've seen and what I conclude from it." Another takes the idea and explores it from a different angle and publishes to say, "I accept part of what you say, but I looked into it 'this' way and found ABC, which it think attenuates or invalidates your conclusion." The next guy, having read both papers performs his own research inspired by the "debate" and shows how one of them is "right" given X-weighting of the factors in play, while the other is "right" given Y-weighting of them. Yet a fourth examiner looks into it and finds that there is a new factors that none of the earlier researchers noticed or considered and show that element to be the thing that defines the cause of the varying results earlier researchers found.

In short, scholarly publication is as much about the specific technical findings as it about the process of expanding a discipline's body of knowledge. The process may not go as quickly as some might like. It may be imperfect, and Nature seems to be attempting to mitigate an aspect of the imperfection. I just hope they don't go too far with the replication "thing" that by enforcing unreasonable demands that squelch idea expressions they hinder scientists' ability to have, as they do now via the paper publication process, widely accessible discussions that inspire among others innovative thought .
The point is far easier and has basic scientific practice in its basis.

Science is the act of presenting facts, derived from the observation of physical reactions. Thus, anyone doing science [is obliged to facilitate others being able to reproduce the experiment and obtain the same] outcome, by providing [their] data and methods.... Failure to provide the material should bring into question the validity of the hypothesis presented. ie: Mann et al and his refusal to produce any of the data which has been shown fraudulent. aka: The Hockey Stick

A great deal of policy has been constructed from this fraud which has destroyed many economies and stopped others from growing.

  1. Mann who? What/whom are you talking about? Is there something you meant to include in your OP and did not? Did you not intend your OP to stand on its own merit?
  2. There appear to be two Reproducibility Projects -- one for psychology and one for cancer biology -- and they examine and tries to reproduce the results of an assortment of studies. That being the case, as I noted before, one's extrapolating the results of the Projects to an environment-related assertion (God only knows what that assertion is, for I don't see it in the OP) seems quite a stretch. The heart of such a claim -- at least right now, given what I've read in the OP -- is this: Psychology and Cancer Biology replicability tests by the two Reproducibility Projects have very low success rates; therefore one should infer the replicability of environmental science is similarly unreproducible. Well, I'm sorry, but there's a lot of ground to cover before that assertion can taken as even remotely plausible.
  3. I looked at the Conclusion and Discussion of one of the psychology project's reviews. Basically the "testers" note that differences in the tested sample of individuals could account for the variance between their results and those of the original researcher. Okay....that seems reasonable. Reasonable or not, however, they did get different results, so they declared they were not able to replicate the experiment. They had to categorize that test as they did; I get that and I get why. Assuming the nature of outcomes the Project obtained for most of its tests is similar, I'm not convinced that merely looking at the absolute outcome -- reproduced or not reproduced -- provides a fair representation of what's going on.
  4. As I stated before, I don't take exception with reproducibility principle. You responded to my post and amplified a point you made earlier, but that point is one with which I in my post concurred.

    What I am taking exception with is what you appear to be claiming because what I see is incoherence and inapplicability. You introduced someone (?) named "Mann" who/that is of neither your OP nor my reply to it. Additionally, you have a huge unsubstantiated claim in your reply to me -- you offer not so much as even a linked bullet list of studies that support your assertion of national economy destruction.

    You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
Nature is specifically looking at all science sent to them for publication. Not just Cancer or whatever else.. They are looking at how they handle all science wanting to be shown as credible. My example of Michael Mann was an obvious choice. He used dubious methods allowing a desired result that even the IPCC now has walked away from.
Links? To credible sources? Mann's work has stood up very well. And that is why the denialists hate him. More than a dozen independent studies support his original study. The Academy of Science of the United States did an independent study of his disputed stastistical methods, and used their own stastistical methods. Their graph looked almost exactly like the original one.

What you are doing, Silly Billy is trying to tar the whole of the scientific establishment using just one paper, and you are not even correct about the validity of that paper. Nature is doing what science is continually doing, trying to improve their methods and the result of those methods.
No matter how many time you scream and cry it will not make Mann's lie true. Funny how you want the mantle of being the arbiter of what is credible when you are not..
 
You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
What has the US economy done under Obama and his boot to the throat of business done to our GDP? The Obama EPA has put in place onerous regulations killing major industry using the CO2 endangerment finding of the EPA, who failed to follow even their own rules on scientific review and integrity. The EPA failed to have independent review of their reasoning and an open debate.

GDP rise has shrunk under the last eight years of heavy regulations based on error derived, fallacious, science. If we take into account massive debt spending, GDP is negative.

Which President Rang Up the Highest Deficit?
Now Silly Billy, this does not belong in this thread at all. How about sticking to the subject? You are definenately earning your name running from the subject in the middle of your own thread.
 
  • Should manuscript peer review emphasize the validity of the science or its merit? While peer review is often viewed as the gatekeeper to the realm of truth, a staff of editors and reviewers cannot make that distinction in a few months.
  • In terms of interesting assumptions overlooked, does the process of peer review require a true peer or expert in the field?
  • Would unfettered publishing of findings lead to more efficient or faster progress in science?
  • What does the stamp of peer review mean to the readers of the literature?

Interesting points...

None of which lend themselves to not publishing the data and methods used to derive the hypothesis. If one can not replicate what has been done and how it was done, the full view of significance is lost and relevant questions by other practitioners and scientists can not generate appropriate critiques of the process and outcome validity.

Peer review has become pal review and in some cases self review.. You don't get reasonable critique from an echo chamber. Being published should mean the science is open to all to critique and respond. Much credibility was lost when the hiding of data and method became an acceptable practice. Can you imagine if this was applied to drug and foods?
OK, buddy boy, replicate a magnitiude nine subduction quake for me.

Much of science is done from observation. From the Theory of Relativity to the deep structure of the Earth. AGW has both observations and solid physics to support the Theory. We see that the temperature of the Earth is higher when the CO2 is high, and lower when it is low. Paleontological records from the prior ice ages, and from deep time. We understand the physics of how GHGs warm the atmosphere and surface of the Earth from the absorption spectra of the GHGs. In fact, there is only one other scientific theory that has that kind of support, evidence and observation, and that is Evolution.

As far as Nature improving the review of it's articles, Xelor critiqued that well enough that I have nothing to add to his statements.

LOL..

Scientists provide their work and data for others to replicate and critique. Warmists do not... GHS's and their actions in our atmosphere are very unsettled science and HIDING DATA AND METHODS IS THE MARK OF LIARS.
 
You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
What has the US economy done under Obama and his boot to the throat of business done to our GDP? The Obama EPA has put in place onerous regulations killing major industry using the CO2 endangerment finding of the EPA, who failed to follow even their own rules on scientific review and integrity. The EPA failed to have independent review of their reasoning and an open debate.

GDP rise has shrunk under the last eight years of heavy regulations based on error derived, fallacious, science. If we take into account massive debt spending, GDP is negative.

Which President Rang Up the Highest Deficit?
Now Silly Billy, this does not belong in this thread at all. How about sticking to the subject? You are definenately earning your name running from the subject in the middle of your own thread.

LOL.. Exposing scientific fraud in a thread about credibility of science is running from the subject? Showing the results of poor science in policy is running from the subject? You really are an ignorant fool..

Basic Information about Scientific Integrity | Programs of the Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) | US EPA
 
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You want to have a discussion about the speciousness of scientific research, and I'm willing (for now at least) to engage with you in that discussion. Great, but you need to step up the strength of your claims and supporting arguments....that is unless you don't want to discuss the actual substance (or lack thereof) of the claim(s) you've made about scientific research.
What has the US economy done under Obama and his boot to the throat of business done to our GDP? The Obama EPA has put in place onerous regulations killing major industry using the CO2 endangerment finding of the EPA, who failed to follow even their own rules on scientific review and integrity. The EPA failed to have independent review of their reasoning and an open debate.

GDP rise has shrunk under the last eight years of heavy regulations based on error derived, fallacious, science. If we take into account massive debt spending, GDP is negative.

Which President Rang Up the Highest Deficit?
Deflection. The OP is about appropriate material for publication of submitted scientific papers, not our current GDP.
 
Using pseudoscience was the hallmark of the Obama admin who's whole goal was wealth redistribution and command and control.


"Recent EPA rules will cost billions of dollars and place a heavy burden on American taxpayers. These egregious EPA rules will diminish the ability of businesses throughout the United States to compete globally.

EPA’s political agenda is to rearrange the American economy, instituting “command and control” by the Obama administration.

The House Science Committee’s investigations have revealed an EPA that intentionally chooses to ignore sound science. EPA cherry-picks the science that fits its agenda and ignores the science that does not support its position. When the science falls short of EPA’s predetermined outcomes, the agency resorts to a propaganda campaign designed to mislead the public."

Again this is why requiring data and methods of work to be published is paramount. It ends up being bad science pushing an agenda.

Rep. Lamar Smith: Dear EPA, stop acting like a bully and start following the rule of law
 
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