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posted by n1 on Wednesday November 19 2014, @01:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the peer-reviewed-study-confirms-it dept.

Phys.org is running a story on some of the issues with modern peer review:

Once published, the quality of any particular piece of research is often measured by citations, that is, the number of times that a paper is formally mentioned in a later piece of published research. In theory, this aims to highlight how important, useful or interesting a previous piece of work is. More citations are usually better for the author, although that is not always the case.

Take, for instance, Andrew Wakefield's controversial paper on the association between the MMR jab and autism, published in leading medical journal The Lancet. This paper has received nearly two thousand citations – most authors would be thrilled to receive a hundred. However, the quality of Wakefield's research is not at all reflected by this large number. Many of these citations are a product of the storm of controversy surrounding the work, and are contained within papers which are critical of the methods used. Wakefield's research has now been robustly discredited, and the paper was retracted by the Lancet in 2010. Nevertheless, this extreme case highlights serious problems with judging a paper or an academic by number of citations.

Personally, I've been of the opinion that peer review is all but worthless for quite a while. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has issues with the process.

 
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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @03:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @03:26AM (#117502)

    Science is hopelessly broken because scientists are just gossipy promiscuous twitter jerks with advanced degrees. They sleep with their students and suck cock for citations. I've seen it happen.

    Human nature is the problem. Period.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @03:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @03:43AM (#117510)

    Can somebody please fix that incorrect moderation? The parent is obviously not "flamebait".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:04AM (#117516)

    Was this figurative cock sucking that you witnessed, or was it literal cock sucking?

    • (Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Wednesday November 19 2014, @06:49PM

      by art guerrilla (3082) on Wednesday November 19 2014, @06:49PM (#117796)

      *sigh*
      in case you had not gotten the meme-o, they are both the same now...
      'literally' literally means 'figuratively' these days, the dictionary mavens have cried uncle and given in to the illiterati...

      wait a minute, so 'literally' is not literally 'literally' anymore, but since it has been abused so much, it now figuratively means literally, or literally means figuratively ? ? ?
      fuck, this world is confusing me (literally?) more and more... crap, i'm screwed... (figuratively ?)

      for me, *that* factoid alone is sufficient to mark the end of western civilization...
      words no longer have meaning, they have intent...

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:04AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:04AM (#117517) Journal

    They sleep with their students and suck cock for citations.

    [Citation needed]

    (ducks)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:10AM (#117520)

      Here's the citation [soylentnews.org] that you requested.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:24AM (#117526)
        Recursion and self-references are so out of fashion, they're not longer funny.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @04:37AM (#117527)

          I wasn't sure if you were correct or not, so I did some research on my own. At least one of the sources I referred to [soylentnews.org] confirms what you're saying.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 19 2014, @05:29AM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 19 2014, @05:29AM (#117542) Journal
            (a hat tip to you, sir)
            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford