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Comment by omnisci | Hacker News Reader

This is what worries me in all science (US included). While I don't think labs are actively going out of their way to make stuff up, I think critical thinking is being replaced "oh shit, I need to publish this before I submit XYZ grant". This is how/why basic research is getting sloppy. Someone publishes a study, it goes through he peer review system of the authors' friends, it gets published and even if everyone hates the paper, it stays out there.

My YC application was made specifically to address this issue and the more I read about this stuff, the more I am motivated to get to work.

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There's a lot of less credible journals out there, it seems, that exist mostly to sell tickets to expensive conferences. Published is published, I guess.

Their (often volunteer) subject matter boards basically rubber stamp whatever goes through. It seems like a lot of these conferences have fallen for SCIgen-generated nonsense papers.

Absolutely, even the concept of less credible journals should NOT exist. The idea that a study is not good enough for a journal with some credibility, so lets get it published in Joe-Shmoe's journal of bad science is insane. Hence why we need a more open, social media based (ie, real time communication) method to communicate scientific data. Aside from the benefits of speed, you have a community of scientist that can talk about the data and if something sucks, it can get called out. I'm hoping this reduces the BS science that gets published and we can start to reserve resources for studies that actually progress knowledge.

" you have a community of scientist that can talk about the data and if something sucks, it can get called out."

This is the entire justification for credible journals in the first place.

You can't wish non-credible journals out of existence.

"This is the entire justification for credible journals in the first place." Care to elaborate? I'm not sure I'm getting your point.

Re: You can't wish... You are absolutely correct, it's something that takes an active effort. I'm optimistic that we can lower the impact of poor science that is published in those journals with open communications in science.

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