Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPeer Review

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Nobel Prize Medal on a Velvet background

University Science War: Ideas vs “Dollars per Net Square Footage”

Katalin Karikó, obscure and mistreated at the University of Pennsylvania, won the Nobel Prize. Shouldn’t we have some questions?
Karikó’s story, as outlined in her book, highlights a big problem with universities: ideas matter less than sheer numbers of papers published. Read More ›
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A peer review process illustrated through a meeting of experts discussing research papers, surrounded by laptops and notes

AI Peer Review Called “Inevitable” by Some, “Disaster” by Others

The whole debate raises a question: How much original thought goes into peer review anyway? And what purpose does it ultimately serve?
Meanwhile, 76 of AI scientists surveyed said fundamental limitations prevent current AI models from ever thinking like humans. Scientists’ jobs are not at risk. Read More ›
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young asian daughter comforting elderly mother

Fallout From Alzheimer Research Failures: Does Anything Work?

Other research suggests that treating poor oral health, vision loss, and hearing loss might delay or reduce the effects of cognitive decline
Perhaps, instead of seeking a single cause-effect pattern, we should look at overall cognitive decline and health neglect. Many elements are treatable. Read More ›
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Team of scientists working in a laboratory, carefully conducting experiments and analyzing data. Generative AI

New Science Journal Strives for Openness, Fairness, In Peer Review

Skeptics worry that the new journal "will be used to sow doubt about scientific consensus"
We are told that a dozen of the scientists involved are in the top 1% of their fields in terms of citations so qualifications don’t seem to be an issue. Read More ›
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Social media, cancel culture and women online, internet or influencer friends on a studio blue background. Negative, bad and graphic words for banned or fail for public or political opinion or voice

Cancel Culture Dissected by One of Its Victims

Researchers are beginning to study the sociology of Woke mobs demanding the firing or silencing of whoever vexes them — with some interesting results
Canadian lawyer Collin May looked at recent research on Cancel mobs and found that the witnesses in an institution tend to go along with the cancellation. Read More ›
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Exceptionally zoomed macro images of neural cells in the human brain

Scandal! Science Journal Busts Allegedly Bogus Neurological Science

If these leading dementia studies’ images are indeed falsified, many years of follow-up research by others may have been wasted
Dementia is not politically sensitive. But if the topic were, say, gender dysphoria, would honesty be likewise demanded? No wonder so many doubt science now. Read More ›
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Egg standing at the edge of the table. 3D illustration

The Government-Debt Tipping Point Is Nonsense

There are serious problems with the economics paper by Reinhart and Rogoff, whose recommendations were widely followed
Reinhart/Rogoff’s dismissal of criticism of their deeply flawed study as “academic kerfuffle” is unconscionably cavalier. Read More ›
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Man presenting a poster at a scientific conference during pandemic, Generative AI

How Science Can Slowly Morph Into Junk. Or not.

Science can become entangled in many things — politics and the self-interest of funding sources, for example — and chatbots will likely make things worse
It’s not an opinion that science is becoming less trustworthy; it’s an everyday fact. And the public’s deepening loss of trust in science is also a fact. Read More ›
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Canceled word on a red enter key of the black pc keyboard. Concepts of cancel culture, ostracism and call-out culture social media and in the Internet. Computer enter key with message.

The Cancel Culture Mob Comes for the Psychologists

The response “It’s complicated,” chosen by nearly half of psychology profs, is a roundabout confession of cowardice in the face of mobs threatened by findings they hope to stifle
Cancel Culture at universities aims to protect a set of core beliefs from challenge by new evidence. If a discipline is to thrive, it must defeat the Cancel mob Read More ›
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EU Office buildings in Brussels, Belgium

Don’t Believe in “International Community”? You’re Hardly Human!

Who said that? Not a streetcorner doomsday crank. No, it’s the editor of a highly respected medical journal
In reality, the public's loss of “belief” is the natural consequence of the international system’s failing and betraying those it was designed to serve. Read More ›
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Blue jigsaw puzzle as a human brain. Creative idea concept. 3d illustration

Is Psychology Heading for Another Big Replication Crisis?

The use of Amazon’s MTurk in survey research risks a second scandal in which findings are low quality and can’t be replicated, critics warn
In the first big replication crisis, the effort to root out a 2011 paper supporting ESP turned up the fact that only 36% of approved papers could be replicated. Read More ›
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Female empowerment in science: Arabic woman scientist with a veil working with a microscope in a high-tech laboratory

Religious Scientists Balance Work and Faith — on a Knife Edge

A recent article in Nature both sums up — and typifies — the problems they face, weaving around the presumption of atheism
What benefits does the presumption of atheism provide? So many disciplines reel under peer review scandals while trust in science has diminished over the years. Read More ›
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Happy business woman giving excellent rating for online satisfaction survey

Science Writer: Maybe We Need Fewer Scientists, Science Journals

Cameron English sees a rise in partisan advocacy as part of the problem of increasing retractions in science journals
English argues that science research, which is already mostly paid for by taxpayers, should be open access so more of us can see what's happening. Read More ›
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Caution warning sign indicates a potential error danger in the digital technology system. Symbol exclamation, system failure or trouble. Notice important website maintenance and available on internet

Can AI Help Stem the Tide of Fake Science Papers?

One problem is that science journals don’t do a very good job of establishing author identities. Chatbots are bound to make things worse
AI can help detect fake papers but it is not going to save researchers from a partly AI-driven dystopia. Read More ›
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Businessman keeping the growth in economy

Is There a Solution to Low Quality Research in Science?

Molecular biologist Henry Miller and statistician Stanley Young explain why statistical techniques like meta-analysis won’t solve the basic problem
It doesn’t sound as though any solution that doesn’t tackle the basic honesty problem is likely to work. Meanwhile, the public should not be blamed for doubt. Read More ›
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Businessman holding tablet and showing holographic graphs and stock market statistics gain profits. Concept of growth planning and business strategy. Display of good economy form digital screen.

Retracted Paper Is a Compelling Case for Reform

The credibility of science is being undermined by misuse of the tools created by scientists. Here's an example from an economics paper I was asked to comment on
In my book Distrust (Oxford 2023), I recommend that journals not publish data-driven research without public access to nonconfidential data and methods used. Read More ›
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Magazines

How Data Can Appear in Science Papers — Out of Thin Air!

At Retraction Watch, Gary Smith explains how one author team apparently copy pasted missing data about green innovation in various countries

Recently, Retraction Watch, a site that helps keeps science honest, noted some statistical peculiarities about a paper last September in the Journal of Clean Energy, “Green innovations and patents in OECD countries.” The site was tipped off by a PhD student in economics that “For several countries, observations for some of the variables the study tracked were completely absent.” But that wasn’t the big surprise. The big surprise was when the student wrote to one of the authors: In email correspondence seen by Retraction Watch and a follow-up Zoom call, [Almas] Heshmati told the student he had used Excel’s autofill function to mend the data. He had marked anywhere from two to four observations before or after the missing values Read More ›

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Archaeological excavations and finds (bones of a skeleton in a human burial),   a detail of ancient research, prehistory.

Scientists Spar Over What a Netflix Science Documentary Should Be

Should “Ancient Apocalypse” be relabeled “science fiction” if archeologists don’t think the documentary writer’s claims are valid?
Berger’s confidence about homo Naledi’s intelligence rankles colleagues but he is as entitled to a documentary for his case as they are to oppose it. Read More ›
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Team of scientists working in a laboratory, carefully conducting experiments and analyzing data. Generative AI

A Case Study in Why Peer Review May Be Unreformable

McIntosh and Hudson Vitale illustrate, by their very zeal to eliminate pro-life researchers, the built-in corruption of the peer review process
The excruciating difficulty for peer review is Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Bias makes it all worse. Read More ›