Drama Vote: Voice your opinion on the recent drama.

[the last yatto]

SPACE JELLO

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If you were really trolling, you need to work on your technique. Basically all you managed to do was piss everyone off while I made fun of you. Just sayin.

I'm just lucky you didn't do worse.

[the last yatto]

[Kai]

Well, the question might be, how did the medical methods change; and could knowing that help us in implementing new methods and ideas for agriculture?

Good question.  I am not entirely certain how exactly medical methods changed.  Admittedly, most likely NOT by committee.   

Define "by committee." A lot of change in the medical field was done using the boring peer review methodology that makes up science (as well as conferences and such). But, there's a definite difference in values between a group of scientists and a group of average people (even when that group includes scientists). Mostly because science is one of the few places were rationality matters more than presentation. So, yeah, a big part of why there's progress in medicine is because they recognized their monkey aspects and in acknowledging them, were able to see the flaws and actively work to counter them.

There is nothing wrong with being a monkey, it just is, but there is something wrong when you forget you're a monkey.

I don't consider the peer review process a committee.  In a committee things are voted for, and opinion takes a certain place in the proceedings.  In science either it works and is verifiable and repeatable, or it isn't. 

Eh...

I think you should investigate just what goes on with peer review. It's just as opinionated as a jury, but just like a jury it's necessary.

Not that I want to derail this thread any further with a discussion of the pitfalls of peer review. Just pointing out the monkey in the process.

This thread was never railed to begin with, so please, enlighten me to how to the peer review system works.

1. Person writes a paper, and sends it to journal. Or it is introduced by a member of the society (as in PNAS) and bypasses the peer review process entirely.

2. Paper is sent out, usually with a short deadline, to 3-5 members of the group which have at least some interest and knowledge in it's contents.

3. Reviewers supposedly carefully read the paper and objectively provide clear and useful information on the validity of the methods and conclusions as well as needed corrections and improvements before it is published. I say "supposedly" because often the reviewers have little time and barely read the paper. Maybe they have a bone to pick with the author, and because it's anonymous peer review they call it shit and it never gets published. My advisor has told me about publications which have been rejected, and then years later the reviewer publishes their own paper on the topic and by that point the author has moved on and doesn't care anymore.

4. Author received back either, this is good, make corrections or this is crap.

5. Author makes corrections and sends it back.

6. Often step 3-5 is repeated.

7. Maybe it gets published. Maybe the journal doesn't have enough room, so it doesn't. Maybe one of the reviewers doesn't like the senior author of the paper so he says they didn't meet the standards for corrections.



Moral: Monkeys are everywhere.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sometimes, maybe the paper is completely sound but it's an unpopular theory that effectively turns earlier theories by more respected scientists on their ears, and politics exist in every field, so the paper is not published in order to retain the status-quo.

[Kai]

Sometimes, maybe the paper is completely sound but it's an unpopular theory that effectively turns earlier theories by more respected scientists on their ears, and politics exist in every field, so the paper is not published in order to retain the status-quo.

Indeed. I didn't even go to the less underhanded things with my explanation.

[Vene]

7. Maybe it gets published. Maybe the journal doesn't have enough room, so it doesn't.

This is part of why I like organizations like the public library of science. They don't look at the significance of the paper, just whether or not it is scientifically sound (even if retains the same issues as your previous points).

[Kai]

7. Maybe it gets published. Maybe the journal doesn't have enough room, so it doesn't.

This is part of why I like organizations like the public library of science. They don't look at the significance of the paper, just whether or not it is scientifically sound (even if retains the same issues as your previous points).

Same with Zootaxa. And in addition to publishing as much as possible, both make at least some of their papers available to the public for free.

[Telarus]

On the farming practices topic, I found an article on farming in Cuba (they've had to deal with farming in a post Soviet-industrial reality, where the petrochemical fertilizers and lack of cheap oil/fuel for farm equipment has lead to serious breakthroughs in farming technique not seen for a long long time). They basically had to ditch the large monoculture model due to serious changes in their resources.

Here we go.

The Cuba diet: What will you be eating when the revolution comes?
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/04/0080501

[Eater of Clowns]

Cuba is fascinating.  The way they adapted to survive what could have been a disaster scenario is very, very impressive.  Urban gardening, increased public transportation, it's awesome.  It isn't perfect, and they still struggle, but I'm not certain every nation could have dealt with it so effectively.

For any World War Z fans, Max Brooks had a section about Cuba and their role post-apocalypse that was largely based on this.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

If you were really trolling, you need to work on your technique. Basically all you managed to do was piss everyone off while I made fun of you. Just sayin.

I'm just lucky you didn't do worse.

I think I did OK.
\

/
We should probably drop this though.

[Doktor Howl]

We should probably drop this though.

Would be nice.  Don't make me get all Run DMC on your collective asses.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

...rock a rhyme?

[Doktor Howl]

...rock a rhyme?

No, that's too tricky.

I'll just make a sucka bounce.

[Freeky]

...rock a rhyme?

No, that's too tricky.

I'll just make a sucka bounce.

I've only heard that it's tricky to rock a rhyme on time.