I was taught that science (Science!) depended on the free flow of information (e.g. data) and that should be available for everyone. But when even the authors in elite journals don't look at the data, it shows we are very far from that ideal.
People have this ideal image of peer review where the experiment is meticulously recreated and the data verified in order to be published in a journal, in reality peer review is a professor checking that their methodology looks good enough between weeder class lectures. If you want to recreate the experiment that comes after it is published, most aren't, and there is actually a crisis of failing to reproduce experiments. Published social "science" studies might as well be op ed. And that's what this is disguised as a clinical trial.
Peer review is essentially a process of bribery for the majority of the reviewers. A buddy of theirs needs some more citations for their paper so you cite them. Some people actually go in and really look at the data but mostly it's just rewriting a sentence 20 times so it says exactly the same thing but with different words.
I've read enough papers in my undergrad days to know that you can't recreate shit from most of the crap that is published. Documentation in the methodologies sections are so half assed that you wouldn't know how they did what. It is guaranteed that everyone attempting to recreate an experiment would have wildly different approaches.
The only things you can really hope to glean from these types of scientific papers is their data and conclusions.
Peer review is BS. The "reviewers" are either pals of the publishers of the paper, or their employees, or their supervisors, or someone who would like some positive "peer review" for their own papers in return for the favor.
Scientists have no obligation to look at the data or take it seriously. Scientists don't have skin in the game. They are totally immune to the consequences of their work. If thousands die because a scientist made an error in his research, nothing will happen to the scientist. At most, he'll have to publish a retraction, say "errors were made", say that this is how science progresses, maybe throw a joke in between. He might even end with an award. Compare with the engineer. If the plane crashes or the bridge collapses, the engineer will be immediately arrested, charged with homicide, sued out of the gains from his life's work, humiliated, and prevented from working as an engineer again.
I was taught that science (Science!) depended on the free flow of information (e.g. data) and that should be available for everyone. But when even the authors in elite journals don't look at the data, it shows we are very far from that ideal.
People have this ideal image of peer review where the experiment is meticulously recreated and the data verified in order to be published in a journal, in reality peer review is a professor checking that their methodology looks good enough between weeder class lectures. If you want to recreate the experiment that comes after it is published, most aren't, and there is actually a crisis of failing to reproduce experiments. Published social "science" studies might as well be op ed. And that's what this is disguised as a clinical trial.
Peer review is essentially a process of bribery for the majority of the reviewers. A buddy of theirs needs some more citations for their paper so you cite them. Some people actually go in and really look at the data but mostly it's just rewriting a sentence 20 times so it says exactly the same thing but with different words.
I've read enough papers in my undergrad days to know that you can't recreate shit from most of the crap that is published. Documentation in the methodologies sections are so half assed that you wouldn't know how they did what. It is guaranteed that everyone attempting to recreate an experiment would have wildly different approaches.
The only things you can really hope to glean from these types of scientific papers is their data and conclusions.
Peer review is BS. The "reviewers" are either pals of the publishers of the paper, or their employees, or their supervisors, or someone who would like some positive "peer review" for their own papers in return for the favor.
In fact, they were blinded with it
I'd say double-blinded.
Scientists have no obligation to look at the data or take it seriously. Scientists don't have skin in the game. They are totally immune to the consequences of their work. If thousands die because a scientist made an error in his research, nothing will happen to the scientist. At most, he'll have to publish a retraction, say "errors were made", say that this is how science progresses, maybe throw a joke in between. He might even end with an award. Compare with the engineer. If the plane crashes or the bridge collapses, the engineer will be immediately arrested, charged with homicide, sued out of the gains from his life's work, humiliated, and prevented from working as an engineer again.