Social Researchers wrote intentionally dumb papers to prove that academic journals will accept them

From dog rape to white men in chains: We fooled the biased academic left with fake studies

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1575219002
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Never forget. Any story that says it has been peer reviewed, that isn't physics, chemistry, math, aka hard science, is absolutely suspect, and should be given no weight unless you have read the study yourself.

The phrase peer reviewed study, should be given no appeal to authority. If anything, that phrase should make you suspect.

You can peer review a new way to measure gravity. Either those measurements are accurate, or they aren't.

How does one peer review the way a mass shooting is counted?

How does one peer review if Dr. Suess is racist?

Social science is to science, as the WWE is to fighting.

Discuss.......
 
There certainly are a good many terrible studies that have been published.
 
OverPressure said:
Some bad studies have been published. That means the rest are suspect or fraudulent.
Click to expand...

That means you have to read it yourself to determine if it has any value.

When someone argues a peer reviewed study on social behavoir means something, that should not be accepted without scrutiny.
 
If you don’t pay attention, this kind of stuff becomes irrelevant in ones life..
 
VivaRevolution said:
That means you have to read it yourself to determine if it has any value.

When someone argues a peer reviewed study on social behavoir means something, that should not be accepted without scrutiny.
Click to expand...
Peer-reviewed studies are rarely accepted without scrutiny, that's what peer review is.
 
VivaRevolution said:
Never forget. Any story that says it has been peer reviewed, that isn't physics, chemistry, math, aka hard science, is absolutely suspect, and should be given no weight unless you have read the study yourself.

The phrase peer reviewed study, should be given no appeal to authority. If anything, that phrase should make you suspect.

You can peer review a new way to measure gravity. Either those measurements are accurate, or they aren't.

How does one peer review the way a mass shooting is counted?

How does one peer review if Dr. Suess is racist?

Social science is to science, as the WWE is to fighting.

Discuss.......
Click to expand...
There are clearly some issues with the peer review thing, especially in social sciences.

As I see it, the major issues are :
- overreliance in social science on "great masters" or great theoricians that aren't that great (Freud, Lacan, Girard...). These great masters sold simplistic theories that seems to explain everything for cheap. Human mind complexity ? Forget it, Oedipus complex blah blah. It's a cheap way to gain knowledge.
- the publish or perish system.
- the predatory open access publishing.
- the slow and ineffective system the university construct to determine the truth on some controversies. Basically, in social sciences, when a controvery emerges on a subject, when you have two sides on the subject, they will publish to attack each other often with bad faith. But the "winner" of the fight isn't officially declared, this isn't a MMA fight with the referee raising the hand. You discover the winner 25 years later when other scholars use his theory/works and seems to have forgotten the loser. These others scholars are a silent mass that looked at the fight, had read the works of the two sides, and determined who has the soundest arguments.

But in science, the meta analysis weight far more than the peer review. The are more interesting and robust.
 
OverPressure said:
Peer-reviewed studies are rarely accepted without scrutiny, that's what peer review is.
Click to expand...

That’s what Peer review is SUPPOSED to be. Their experiment clearly demonstrated otherwise.
 
Gunny said:
That’s what Peer review is SUPPOSED to be. Their experiment clearly demonstrated otherwise.
Click to expand...
Shit slips through.
Doctor review boards make mistakes. That doesn't mean they're all fraudulent or suspect.
This is taking the conclusion of one study and applying the results to everything.
Some priests are diddlers, so they all must be corrupt and evil.
See?
 
OverPressure said:
Shit slips through.
Doctor review boards make mistakes. That doesn't mean they're all fraudulent or suspect.
This is taking the conclusion of one study and applying the results to everything.
Some priests are diddlers, so they all must be corrupt and evil.
See?
Click to expand...

Not gonna work. There’s no excuse for the shit they published. That was the result of blind ideology and nothing else.
 
VivaRevolution said:
From dog rape to white men in chains: We fooled the biased academic left with fake studies

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1575219002
________________________________'

Never forget. Any story that says it has been peer reviewed, that isn't physics, chemistry, math, aka hard science, is absolutely suspect, and should be given no weight unless you have read the study yourself.

The phrase peer reviewed study, should be given no appeal to authority. If anything, that phrase should make you suspect.

You can peer review a new way to measure gravity. Either those measurements are accurate, or they aren't.

How does one peer review the way a mass shooting is counted?

How does one peer review if Dr. Suess is racist?

Social science is to science, as the WWE is to fighting.

Discuss.......
Click to expand...

Got to disagree here.

Social Science is real. Uses the scientific method. You can peer review things by looking at a large enough sample, in poli sci was in a complicated class where we discussed this(comparative politics). I do think some of the theories are BS "Democratic Peace Theory" is blatantly wrong and relies on a bunch of "that's not really a monarchy" or that's not really a democracy" exceptions. But there is an empirical basis there. It's not the same as physical science because physical shit is a lot easier to test(in terms of 100% accuracy) and is not held prisoner to arbitrary definitions(for example "mass shooting" and racist", if we could objectively define those things with a cut off then yeah those studies would make a lot more sense). IMO the weakness of definitions to tampering is the main weakness of social science. Build strong consistent definitions for things and it becomes much stronger.
 
ferrisjso said:
Got to disagree here.

Social Science is real. Uses the scientific method. You can peer review things by looking at a large enough sample, in poli sci was in a complicated class where we discussed this(comparative politics). I do think some of the theories are BS "Democratic Peace Theory" is blatantly wrong and relies on a bunch of "that's not really a monarchy" or that's not really a democracy" exceptions. But there is an empirical basis there. It's not the same as physical science because physical shit is a lot easier to test(in terms of 100% accuracy) and is not held prisoner to arbitrary definitions(for example "mass shooting" and racist", if we could objectively define those things with a cut off then yeah those studies would make a lot more sense). IMO the weakness of definitions to tampering is the main weakness of social science. Build strong consistent definitions for things and it becomes much stronger.
Click to expand...

Then why did those studies in the op get peer reviewed, and passed?

Don't get me wrong. The WWE is real too. It causes real pain. Takes real athletes. It is a profession.

In many ways the WWE stacks up with the UFC, but it isn't real competition. It isn't real fighting.

That doesn't mean Brock Lesner can't compete as a real fighter in the UFC, it simply means that the WWE isn't the UFC, and pro wrestlers shouldn't be given the same respect as pro fighters.

In a vacuum, social science is preferable to nothing. It isn't that it has no value. It's just that it shouldn't be treated as the equal of hard science.
 
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OverPressure said:
Peer-reviewed studies are rarely accepted without scrutiny, that's what peer review is.
Click to expand...

That isn't what the story in the op says.

The story in the op says you can get the most absurd shit in the world peer reviewed, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, again.
 
OverPressure said:
Shit slips through.
Doctor review boards make mistakes. That doesn't mean they're all fraudulent or suspect.
This is taking the conclusion of one study and applying the results to everything.
Some priests are diddlers, so they all must be corrupt and evil.
See?
Click to expand...

That isn't what happened. They wrote studies that should raise questions from an 8 year old. Not once, not twice, but over and over again.

They were blown away that the studies were all accepted. These guys were looking to expose this, and ended up shocked by how bad it actually was.
 
VivaRevolution said:
That isn't what the story in the op says.

The story in the op says you can get the most absurd shit in the world peer reviewed, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, again.
Click to expand...
I recall Carl Sagan quoting a similar study in one of his essays about a psychology magazine review board, a guy wrote psycho-babble and it got published.
That was forty years ago and we haven't been able to trust any peer review since.
 
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