Open Access to Scientific papers … the pressure is growing

The academic rebellion initiated by Cambridge mathematician Tim Gowers is growing in strength. First a bit of context. The Victorian model of academic publishing has become obsolete because of the Internet and so historical momentum is the only reason these publishers continue to own and profit from researchers’ copyrights, review work and editorial efforts. If … Read more

Liberating Science

There is some really encouraging news in the Guardian today concerning the highly annoying pay-walls that lock a lot of very interesting things away. In a pre-internet era it all made sense. Various publishers took responsibility for the printing and distribution of credible peer-reviewed journals. That obviously involved costs, so they charge, and of course … Read more

Intelligent Design examined – Peer Review

There is a thriving sub-culture of folks out there who dismiss evolution and instead promote an alternative known as, “Intelligent Design”. At the forefront of this movement is the Discovery Institute. Often when I hear such claims, I dismiss them with the observation that they have no actual evidence, hence its not science.

As a response to this observation, they have a list of claimed Peer-review articles that are supposed to be credible. The link to the list on their site is here, so lets take a look.

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Witty and funny Peer Review Comments

The peer review journal Environmental Microbiology has a panel of knowledgeable subject matter experts who review and comment on articles that have been submitted, and, as might be expected, nestled among the comment extremes that run from “What the frack is this crap” through to “Great job, approved for publication” you find some true gems. … Read more