Nevertheless, for all of its flaws, what Churchill said of democracy can also be said applied to peer review: it is the worst system for judging research, except for all of the other alternatives that have ever been tried. (161 chapter 9 IANS)
It's a good idea to be suspicious of monocausal explanations. (174 chapter 10 IANS)
In pretty much all of my English classes I have ever taken the one thing that is essentially the same with them all is having your-mine-our peers look over our work to find and correct mistakes. So what is wrong with this now, if it's good for the goose, then why not the gander? But I can see the hiccup, I mean what if the peers reviewing this material isn't, shall he say the brightest bulb in the bunch, and what if all the peers were a little dimmer-would that harm the outcome, or the findings? probably. So again with the skepticism-could we please look at something optimistically. So while it may cause fear and paranoia, there really isn't anything else, so smile a little. Now for this monocausal idea-it is more then if the glove don't fit you must acquit-there needs to be more than one view, one interpretation, one everything.
Bonus bonus!
from what song and artist is this line: If the sun don't shine, then the son don't shine.
Comments (2)
Finally, another optimist! While peer reviewed articles can of course be viewed as skeptical data (as per this book, what can't, really?), what else do we have to go by? Statistics- wrong. Polls and surveys- wrong. Peer reviewed articles- wrong. There's always error; nothing is perfect. Just keep that in the back of your head when reading or reporting though- the information isn't 100%, but at least it's close.
Posted by Nessa | October 31, 2007 9:08 PM
Posted on October 31, 2007 21:08
We have all been taught that it is better for others to review our work, for they may be able to catch mistakes we cannot. we knew what we wanted to say, and sometimes when we read our own writing, we hear in our head what we wanted to say instead of what is actually on the page. But, what precisely makes our peers credible? They are not perfect,and may miss mistakes as well. Or, what if they are wrong about something, but we remove it from our paper becasue we assume that a peer's suggestion is vaild?
about the glove: moisture makes leather shrink. So, if the glove was covered in blood, it would have shrunken. Maybe this is why it didn't fit?
Posted by Daniella Choynowski | November 1, 2007 10:18 AM
Posted on November 1, 2007 10:18