Originally posted by Panic2k11
Not my intention to offend you by correcting you again
Not at all offended. I didn't make myself clear enough this time either.
Scientific information is not dependent of peer-reviewing, scientific facts are. Peer-review is simply a process o reevaluating the claims, tests and experiences.
I thought about writing "or it isn't science", which I then changed to "scientific information" because it is also wrong to say it isn't science (in progress) when pending review.
Anyhow, "scientific facts" I should have said and nothing else.
Note also that peer-reviews have their own issues, for instance if we look at medical trials, rarely is a repetition of the experience done, so peer-reviews have also a high degree of fragility and often depend on accreditation of the author and can be affected by group think. Papers that seem to conform with the perceived consensual view get less attention than those that are antagonistic to it.
Your example of a peer-review is in breach of responsible behavior and I know this is rather common in Medicine for some reason. Why applied sciences choose to work this way I do not know, except for perhaps pure practical reasons combined with an over-confident trust on each other? Do you know?
Also, there is obviously examples in probably all sciences of clear problems seeping through after peer-reviews, it cannot be avoided as long as human beings are responsible.
The issue however in this topic was rather that peer-review makes it quite difficult to pass many instances of incorrect information in order to cover up observations on the moon, and make it all fit.
edit on 14-9-2012 by Consequence because: (no reason given)
