🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@anonymoose

Fair, though in every other place you refered to it simply as "Sokal".. honest enough mistake.

Either way your assertion is still erroneous since we are talking about papers submitted to journals that lacked academic credibility to start with. For Sokal to be a demonstration of the general community one would have to actually randomly select credible journals. Handpicking a handful of small journals you feel are most likely to post nonsense is not a demonstration of the scientific community as a whole.

No one is arguing that there arent journals out there that happen to post with a lack of scientific rigour. Of course they exist, doesnt mean they are the norm.

@djsumdog @natsock

@natsock

No it is 100% democratic. All issues are held to public votes and the result is binding. This includes article edits when there is a conflict as well as wikipedia policy itself.

Peer-review is open in the sense that anyone can submit peer-review. In doing so your feedback is included and must be responded to. The result is that it goes on record with he article and thus. demonstrates the credibility of the process (or lack thereof).

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@anonymoose

Also one important note is that, as I stated earlier, good peer review and good journals are not about only accepting correct conclusions, it is only about ensuring the **empirical** evidence presented is correct and scientific.

Notice in the incident we are discussing wrong emperical evidence **was** in fact rejected from the papers. Those that were accepted may have had absurd premise or conclusion, but were empirically sound. There is a reason this incident had to focuse exclusively on gender studies topics rather than something like physics.

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

No wikipedia was completely correct... The issue is you linked a page on a topic that was not the topic being discussed.. funny how that might cause problems huh?

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

No the link and screen shot you just published was **not** the Sokal Affair. The Sokal Affair was submitted to non-peer reviewed sources. You are referring to a different effort that was inspired by the Sokal Affair but in but sometime later, its a different incident.

In the case of the Grievance Studies Affair they did submit to peer-reviewed journals, but not ones that were respected by the community at large. This is a huge distinction, the original Sokal affair wasnt peer reviewed but had published experts in the past. In this case it was peer-reviewed but no one with expertise, established or otherwise, was in on the peer review process. They picked fringe journals that already were known for posting nonsense and lacked rigerous **expert** review.

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

Are you nuts, the entire conversation (once we started mentioning journals) was about peer-reviewed journals.

So now your just saying "there are examples of random scientists writing papers that reflect their own opinions that lack intellectual rigor"... yea no shit, we have peer-review for a reason.

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

Never claimed experts are angels or perfect, this is why the system is open to anyone objecting and thus reviewed... But yes, you do need to be an expert on a subject if you wish to have any valuable contribution to the bleeding edge of a topic (research)

I have read everything Feynman has published, I have read nothing Neil Degrasse Tyson has published... nice try.

@djsumdog @natsock

@natsock

Wow you really are struggling here.. no I didnt say anything remotely like that.

Wikipedia is democrat and open to all to vote. Ergo the original assertion that there is gate keeping by academics is erroneous.

Similarly journals have value because anyone can submit peer-review and objections and that peer-review process is discussed, usually openly. Thus ensuring that any objections or corrections are considered and open to the reader to review and thus judge the merit of the journal.

Its about open processes, not democracy.

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@anonymoose

You do realize the Sokal Affair involved the submission of a nonsense paper to a **non-peer reviewed** publication right? Even if it was submitted to a peer-reviewed publication it is not an indication of the entire community or all publications in that community anyway.

So no I dont deny the Sokal incident, it just isnt remotely relevant to the discussion of peer-review

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

Its almost like experts would rather be more productive by working with other experts than to waste all day arguing with a flat-earther who insists they are right because they dont know any better.... Funny that.

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

To be more specific, experts tend to prefer systems that have experts... yes. Experts do love being in communities where they can be productive and get to the bottom of facts without all the noise of uneducated people who cant even make an evidence based argument that isnt riddled with obvious errors.

@djsumdog @natsock

@anonymoose

Except that you havent proven that that is the norm in the scientific community, so no, you havent "proven" anything. You just stated it as proven and expect people to accept that assertion.

@djsumdog @natsock

@crazypedia Sounds like a use case for a semantic wiki actually. I have considered something like this many times.

@natsock

No I'm not.. peer review is open, but the weight of your arguments comes from the expertise demonstrated by your arguments. If you cant make your argument with the level or rigor and correctness that an expert can then your argument will not be considered valid. Doesnt make it any less open to you.

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@natsock

While I kind of expect people who lack expertise but still think they are scientists to share your opinion. I'd also expect the people who worked hard to become experts and are recognized as such to agree with the system.

So you really arent saying anything useful there, yes, I'd expect wanna be scientists who lack expertise to complain that people see them for what they are.

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@natsock

You really are

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@strawberryfieldsforever One of his more powerful lines for sure.

@natsock

I think your confusing clout with proven expertise and mastery of a subject.

@djsumdog @anonymoose

@strawberryfieldsforever glad you enjoyed :)