Article Link: What Is 'peer Review', And How Does It Work?

[Guest]

Actually, I have read some on it, and while I'm not 100% convinced, I wouldn't dismiss the shaman's claims out of hand. The aboriginal people did great things health and healing wise with roots and herbs for 1000s of years before "science" came along and told them "it's all nonsense". Take a look at the history of pharmacology and see how many useful drugs (such as aspirin) were derived from simple, natural sources.

Thanks Mulder, I'm already aware.

[kitakaze]

So Mulder, you have some evidence of rejection notifications for those bigfoot submissions to scientific journals? I'm skeptical.

RayG

In February 1969, Heuvelmans published, in the Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium, a paper entitled, "Notice on a specimen preserved in ice of an unknown form of living hominid: Homo pongoides."

Sanderson committed his findings to paper in the report "Preliminary Description of the External Morphology of What Appears to be the Fresh Corpse of a Hitherto Unknown Form of Living Hominid" (Genus, Vol. XXV, N.1-4,1969).

That's two scientific journals that did not reject publishing papers on living apemen.

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/articles/iceman.htm

[Huntster]

Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right.

Yeah. Like Galileo.

Determined "right" long after his persecution and death.

So being "right" has no time limit, does it, Oh Impatient One?

[Guest RayG]

You should ask Wegener. Oh, and you still have to be right.

RayG

[southernyahoo]

Here's a quick hypothetical, for those interested , Lets assume you were the senior editor for a popular journal , what would you want from a scientist or team of scientists that claims to have studied and vetted evidence pointing to an undiscovered population of apemen, aside from the manuscript? And lets just say this is DNA from hair and tissue samples. What would give you confidence to publish the teams manuscript?

[Guest]

What would give you confidence to publish the teams manuscript?

Three positive reviews of the work by independent experts I've hand-picked to critically evaluate the manuscript.

[southernyahoo]

Okay, what if you were a reviewer in the above scenario. What would you want to see?

[Guest]

Okay, what if you were a reviewer in the above scenario. What would you want to see?

I'd want to be convinced that the analysis pointed unambiguously to a heretofore undescribed species of extant hominin.

[southernyahoo]

What would convince you? To see and observe the work being done and evaluate the processes in person? If you are right to be skeptical of the results from the onset of the submission, then there must be something you want to happen to be convinced other than just taking their word for it or double checking their math or statistics.

[bipedalist]

Here's a quick hypothetical, for those interested , Lets assume you were the senior editor for a popular journal , what would you want from a scientist or team of scientists that claims to have studied and vetted evidence pointing to an undiscovered population of apemen, aside from the manuscript? And lets just say this is DNA from hair and tissue samples. What would give you confidence to publish the teams manuscript?

Employment of sound methodological design by competent, qualified researchers. Discussion that eliminates as many "other" possible explanations other than the conclusion of extant hominins per Saskeptic. Sampling/replication/sequencing techniques that are industry standard or that have some patent pending if novel. Replication/repeatability that is indisputable across samples if it involves DNA from multiple biological samples from multiple locations. Statistical analysis that shows high precision and very low values of experimental/experimenter error. Well, it's a start.

[Guest]

What would convince you?

What bipedalist said.

If our hypothetical involves DNA analysis of suspected bigfoot tissue, then we're talking about something well outside my competency to review and I have no ability to list for you some of the standard, proprietary analytical procedures for such an approach. I would hope to see in such a paper, however, some kind of a phylogenetic diagram illustrating exactly where the genetic signature of the sample best fits in the context of the genera Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Pan, Gorilla, Pongo, Gigantopithecus, etc.

[southernyahoo]

Employment of sound methodological design by competent, qualified researchers. Discussion that eliminates as many "other" possible explanations other than the conclusion of extant hominins per Saskeptic. Sampling/replication/sequencing techniques that are industry standard or that have some patent pending if novel. Replication/repeatability that is indisputable across samples if it involves DNA from multiple biological samples from multiple locations. Statistical analysis that shows high precision and very low values of experimental/experimenter error. Well, it's a start.

Thats pretty good right there Bipedalist. I was curious if it would be standard procedure to require witnessing any of the above in person as a reviewer. Maybe Saskeptic could comment on that.

Edited May 2, 2011 by southernyahoo

[Guest parnassus]

There are a couple of things that need to be said. First, editors and reviewers for scientific journals are exceedingly serious about their work. It's not a hobby or a game. They don't want to endorse a fraud and they don't want to miss a great discovery. Either way, their reputations are at risk. In many cases, careers will be affected by their decisions. Large sums of money might be affected. The entire direction of research in their field might be affected. Lives may be at risk. The process has evolved into a pretty good system. The people who do it are really smart and not driven by profit motives.

Researchers who don't respect editors and reviewers, people who have contempt for the system and are continually bashing it, have zero chance of succeeding in that process. In short, these bashers are arrogant and fingerpointers and losers. Stay away from them if you want to succeed.

One other general comment. The subject of Bigfoot is strongly associated with mistaken impressions and hoaxing. Scientific papers generally inerpret their findings and try to exclude alternative explanations. Any paper in this area should show robust methods that would be expected to detect fakery. And no, some guy saying "this couldn't be faked," is not enough. Chain of custody is almost useless in this regard. Association with shady researchers is very problematic.

Edited May 2, 2011 by parnassus

[Guest]

Chain of custody would have it's uses if you are dealing with hair samples and photographic evidence, I would think. Nothing you do will guarantee that what you have is sasquatch evidence but it would work towards weeding out hoaxers.

[Guest parnassus]

Chain of custody would have it's uses if you are dealing with hair samples and photographic evidence, I would think. Nothing you do will guarantee that what you have is sasquatch evidence but it would work towards weeding out hoaxers.

Not unless the hoaxers are hoaxing after the sample is collected. So far that hasn't been the case.

Example: what if a certain California researcher is a hoaxer and has collected 8 uncut hair samples from pony tails of members of the Hupa tribe and then mails them to Dr Ketchum from different places in the PNW under different names. How does Ketchum's lab protocol for chain of custody prevent the hoax?