Socrates was a Christian III

mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 17695 Location: under the bed

the lancet is one of the top-tier medical journals (along with the journal of the american medical association and the new england journal of medicine). i don't know much about the lancet personally (they've never published any of _our_ papers) - but i know the other two like to turn things around quickly - and there is a certain attraction to research that looks cutting edge. it really depends on the editor, though - JAMA went through a period a while ago when the editor got cold feet about anything that might bring political heat. but yes, papers have to pass peer-review to get in, and generally, those peers are people who work in that particular field. and sometimes that means the reviewers, even as a group, may have particular biases that may determine what gets published.

short answer: Scientists Are People Too. so they can make all the same mistakes as normal people. good on lancet for publishing both sides, and for acknowledging their mistakes.

and now you people are going to have me looking up lancet articles and figuring out the connection between fluoride and apitherapy. apitherapy - that's the one where you let bees sting you, right?
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Dogen · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 11002 Location: Bellingham, WA

There's no connection, they were just two discussions happening simultaneously.

When we were publishing a paper a couple of years ago we got the standard "n+1" problem ("it looks interesting, but you should do one more study") which may or may not exist outside social science, and then we got an anonymous reviewer who recommended against publication because he didn't like the statistical method we used... and I say "he" because there's only one person who analyzes the type of data we produced in the way he recommended. He's trying to get other people to use his method, but no one's biting... so I guess he figured this was his chance to try and force someone to try it. Instead, we did one more small study and resubmitted it with a cover letter to the editor explaining why we chose the methods we did (they're the preferred analyses in the field) and got it published.

Peer review is important, but researchers are definitely people first.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 17695 Location: under the bed

we don't tend to get "do one more study", we get "you should do these 6 additional analyses (only half involving parameters that weren't collected in the large, publicly available surveys we use)".

yeah, i think most reviewers do try to give an honest review, but we all have our herd of hobby-horses. and you gotta ride those things _sometime_.
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Dogen · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 11002 Location: Bellingham, WA

Because so much of psychological research in cognition is done on college students (read: relatively easy to collect data) people love to suggest that if you just did one more study, looking at the topic from this other angle, your paper would be so much more complete. Submit one big study, they suggest a second. Submit a paper with two studies, a third would be helpful, etc. There's got to be a rational limit, though. One of my favorite papers (Ross & Sicoloy, 1979) had five studies, and I doubt anyone suggested a sixth.

... anyway, research. Good times.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

Arc Tempest · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 4960 Location: Oregon

Apparently microwaves have the same effect on water as thoughts about Hitler.
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The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

Darqcyde · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:08 am Post subject:

Heretical Rants · Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 5344 Location: No.

I didn't know thoughts about Hitler could heat water

Always learning something new, eh?
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butts

stripeypants · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 6:05 am Post subject:

That will be helpful when the power goes out.

HITLER HITLER HITLER DING! Ramen's done!
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ShadowCell · Joined: 03 Aug 2008 Posts: 6218 Location: California

i wonder if i can do that in the break room at work when other people are monopolizing the microwave

"hey chris why are you standing there with your arm sticking up like that"
"oh i'm just thinking about hitler until my coffee heats up"

mouse · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 17695 Location: under the bed

Heretical Rants · Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 5344 Location: No.

my potatoes are totally still alive after I boil and mash them the good old-fashioned way, I'm sure of it

if you planted them, something would grow
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butts

Echo · Joined: 18 Jul 2013 Posts: 828

But would you then want to eat it?

WheelsOfConfusion · Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 12451 Location: Unknown Kaddath

Heck yeah! Mashed potatoes straight from the garden!

Unless it creates vermin via Spontaneous Generation.

stripeypants · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 10:37 pm Post subject:

Hitler would grow from your mashed potatoes.
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Samsally · Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 6703

One year at camp we decided to 'plant' a rainbow like in the skittles commercials and the next year all we had grown was the biggest ant hill I have ever seen.*

*true story.
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