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Neurobiologist and Open Access proponent Björn Brembs has an article, Reliable novelty: New should not trump true, in PLoS about the quality of scientific journals, both new and old.
Although a case can be made for rewarding scientists for risky, novel science rather than for incremental, reliable science, novelty without reliability ceases to be science. The currently available evidence suggests that the most prestigious journals are no better at detecting unreliable science than other journals. In fact, some of the most convincing studies show a negative correlation, with the most prestigious journals publishing the least reliable science. With the credibility of science increasingly under siege, how much longer can we afford to reward novelty at the expense of reliability? Here, I argue for replacing the legacy journals with a modern information infrastructure that is governed by scholars. This infrastructure would allow renewed focus on scientific reliability, with improved sort, filter, and discovery functionalities, at massive cost savings. If these savings were invested in additional infrastructure for research data and scientific code and/or software, scientific reliability would receive additional support, and funding woes—for, e.g., biological databases—would be a concern of the past.
[...] There is a growing body of evidence against our subjective notion of more prestigious journals publishing "better" science. In fact, the most prestigious journals may be publishing the least reliable science. Therefore, it may not be pure coincidence that, in the fields in which the hierarchy of journals is playing an outsize role in rewarding scholars, the replication of scientific findings, or the lack thereof, is receiving more and more attention. Abandoning the expensive anachronism of journals may not only allow us to regain control over the important scholarly communications infrastructure and refocus it towards reliability, but it will also free sufficient funds to implement current technologies that will service our research data and scientific code and/or software such that, e.g., biological databases would never face money-related closures again. Funders may play an important role in the transition from the legacy to the modern system in that they could require the institutions of grant applicants to join the modern system before any applications are reviewed (i.e., a "Plan I", for infrastructure).
[We have had stories on Open Access journals before. What, if anything, is new here? --Ed.]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @06:09PM (2 children)
Trump is not True, therefore that which is New may be Correct.
Joke aside, I wasn't aware that publication in a peer reviewed journal ever constituted proof of anything in regards to reliability. Instead publication is that simply somebody-or-somebodies making a statement. Publication is and always has been merely an assertion until those assertions are tested. Maybe Mr. Brembs is a "scientist" who doesn't believe that.
I thought that I read somewhere that replication of results is what mattered towards proof that something is true. (And, corollary, that which is built up on those posited conclusions and is tested may be a tendency to confirm results also, though not necessarily). Citation counts can also be a way to gauge the respectability of an article's claims, though that isn't absolute either. Just because the profit motives of both publishers *and* authors makes replication not prestigious or unprofitable doesn't negate any of that.
Silly me, being all scientific and everything. But maybe one of the reasons a prestigious journal is prestigious is that it has built up a reputation for being a source which should be consulted. Like PLoS is hoping to be.
Now can we talk about the reliability of somebody who actually uses the phrase TL/DR in an academic journal article [and thus apparently doesn't understand the word "abstract"]? Or cites Breitbart for anything, including what a supposed 'opposition' says. Or publishes an article about publishing in a Biology journal - yes, that makes me really confident about PLoS Biology's scope of authority.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 13 2019, @07:15PM (1 child)
Yes, we are in the process of people trying to destroy science by pushing to replace independent replication with peer review and making accurate predictions with significant p-values.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 13 2019, @09:24PM
Thought so. After all, I wasn't the one who wrote this up in an abstract: "With the credibility of science increasingly under siege, how much longer can we afford to reward novelty at the expense of reliability? Here, I argue for replacing the legacy journals with a modern information infrastructure that is governed by scholars." In other words, scholarly governance of the information infrastructure will replace replication as the way that science's credibility is established.
And no thought given that peer review was actually how information reliability has been governed through now, and anyone with half a brain for critical thinking can recognize how that can be corrupted. About as easily as a "scholarly governance of the information infrastructure" can be. Rah, rah, open source! There won't be any editors to decide what will be published after that. Oh, wait.....
Guess we haven't learned much since Galileo after all.
This sig for rent.