An interesting (if over a decade old) article

which, pretty much emphasises the points I was making.

There are huge numbers of peer-reviewed papers published, the majority of which are fine.

In the handful of examples given bits were extracted from the papers and misrepresented. Or, where the papers were dubious, they were torn apart in the letters pages *of the journals in question*.

the article itself has two responses from the people it criticises.

Scientific research is (despite some public perception) never black and white, but it is open, widely scrutinised and proportionally robust.

Comparing some outlying cases in niche fields with the scrutiny that the Covid vaccines were placed under isn't really like for like.

The are, self-evidently, significant problems with the scientific publication process and the way in which it is run. The conclusions that you're drawing from that debate don't really map on to the points or concerns that prompted the discussion.

(my ex is a professor and regularly scrutinised/reviewed papers in her field - for all the flaws in the system, it works, but perhaps not in the way that people not involved in research would expect it to).

Communication of science and research is a really tricky and unfortunately often poorly done thing.

Posted By: Cardiff Canary, Jan 18, 12:06:27