AiG comments on peer review

[damitall]

Periodically, I swallow my bile and have a peek at the AiG website.

Today I found this http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v1/n1/theology-peer-review

and I invite comments from readers.

I have none at present, save only to say that my experience of creationists to date suggest that they should take due note of the remarks on "Honesty"

[Obd]

We find that peer review is rooted in several Christian virtues, such as reflecting Christ, being honest, seeking wisdom, humbly submitting, showing Christian love, correcting error, and being accountable.

AiG is a very unchristian site apparently.

[damitall]

We find that peer review is rooted in several Christian virtues, such as reflecting Christ, being honest, seeking wisdom, humbly submitting, showing Christian love, correcting error, and being accountable.

AiG is a very unchristian site apparently.


Yes, I should have added an irony meter safety warning - mine, a mil-spec, heavily shielded model, with huge input attenuators and encased in diamond slabs, simply vapourised.

[RAFH]

A theology of peer review? A study of religion of peer review?

I guess I just don't get it. But I guess it makes sense from their point of view, that an anthology of selected anonymous essays and oral traditions and an appropriated back story based upon anonymous transcriptions of ancient oral traditions primarily forming the cultural history of a presumably destroyed ethnic group cobbled together as their source of all authoritative information should probably be incorporated in their attempts at using science, a methodology that holds nothing sacred or beyond interrogation and places the validation of hypothesis by repeatable empirical experiment above all else.

But you would think they would sort of see the conflict there, that you either accept a book as the ultimate authority, a book that is held to be immune to investigation or you accept a methodology that stresses investigation and empirical validation and that acknowledges no restraints. It's one or the other. They are at odds with each other. Either you bow to closed authority or you bow to open investigation. There can be no middle ground, no compromise because compromise of either destroys their integrity.

[Martin B]

Holy crap. (No pun intended). I couldn't be bothered to read that tripe. What is it with creationists and their ability to produce such profoundly boring literature?

Anyway, RAFH, I think what they mean by a "theology of peer review" is the formation of a perspective on peer review that accords with their theology. Or, rather, the adoption of a theological perspective that incorporates peer review or somehow accommodates it. Hence all the babble citations in there.

Whatever makes them happy. At best, it might improve teh quality of their lies. And for us, the fact that the lies published in their journals will have been reviewed by their friends makes them all more accountable and makes it easier for us to make broad, sweeping generalizations about their dishonesty.

Should be fun.

[Febble]

Holy crap. (No pun intended). I couldn't be bothered to read that tripe. What is it with creationists and their ability to produce such profoundly boring literature?

Anyway, RAFH, I think what they mean by a "theology of peer review" is the formation of a perspective on peer review that accords with their theology. Or, rather, the adoption of a theological perspective that incorporates peer review or somehow accommodates it. Hence all the babble citations in there.

Whatever makes them happy. At best, it might improve teh quality of their lies. And for us, the fact that the lies published in their journals will have been reviewed by their friends makes them all more accountable and makes it easier for us to make broad, sweeping generalizations about their dishonesty.

Should be fun.

Well, hiding underneath all the pompous theology is a pathetic attempt to justify the unjustifiable - selecting reviewers from a highly restricted pool of opinion. At its worst, that's what's WRONG with peer-review, not what's right with it.

[Gagundathar Inexplicable]

This is from the tripe in the linked article:
"Despite this need to detect and correct error, formal peer review has serious shortcomings. For example, Callaham et al. (1998) described an experiment in which a manuscript with 23 deliberate flaws was sent to 124 reviewers. Ten of these flaws invalidated the entire study, and thirteen were less severe. The reviewers detected an average of 3.4 of the major flaws and 3.1 of the minor flaws. Altman (2002) describes many serious errors that appear in the published medical research literature. These results suggest that peer review fails to eliminate error."

Gee, I guess we should discard the entire idea of peer-review and depend upon the 'holiness' of the author for the veracity of the ideas presented in a paper.

That is a lot easier than the tedious process now employed and has the wonderful added benefit of limiting the sources of scholarly work to only those folks deemed to be 'holy'.

Now, how do we decide who is 'holy'?

Perhaps by a consensus of others who have been judged to be 'holy'.

Yeah... that seems to work fine.

[Mike PSS]

This is from the tripe in the linked article:
"Despite this need to detect and correct error, formal peer review has serious shortcomings. For example, Callaham et al. (1998) described an experiment in which a manuscript with 23 deliberate flaws was sent to 124 reviewers. Ten of these flaws invalidated the entire study, and thirteen were less severe. The reviewers detected an average of 3.4 of the major flaws and 3.1 of the minor flaws. Altman (2002) describes many serious errors that appear in the published medical research literature. These results suggest that peer review fails to eliminate error."

I read that too, and this thought didn't "DING" until a second ago.

What a bunch of slimey statistics bastards these guys are.

What should be important in this case is whether during the review ALL the deliberate flaws were identified, or at least all of the invalidating flaws.

Averages mean nothing in this case. Bastards.

[Gagundathar Inexplicable]

<splutter>
But, Mike... what are you saying?

Surely you don't mean to impugn these wonderful Christians!

I mean, after all, they are 'holy', or at least 'holy' enough to decide who is 'holy' and who isn't.

And if it is good enough for God, well then it should be good enough for you!

Shame on you!

(Was that enough bangs?)

[Mike PSS]

There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics!!!

Christian has nothing to do with it. But if you abuse Statistics like this then the first two items above match your image also.