"The Hype of Science: Leading journals including Science and Nature are exaggerating research novelty"
When original and interesting research is distorted to garner additional attention, both the work in question and previous studies can be shortchanged. Here, I will describe a recent and notable case from the journal Science in which the perceived novelty and importance of a study were significantly enhanced...
Update - sorry about that. The link requires (free) registration, and as I've done that some weeks ago, I didn't notice it wasn't a readily accessible page when I wrote the post.
Teaser below the fold, so you can decide for yourself if you want to go to the trouble to catch the rest...
In the 20 March, 2009, issue of Science, researchers from Genentech (Bostrom et al.) show that it is possible to select a new specificity for a therapeutic antibody with an established specificity while maintaining the original specificity.1 The authors started with an antibody (Herceptin) specific for the tumor antigen, HER2, in clinical use for patients suffering from breast cancer. After mutagenizing the gene encoding the light chain variable domain of the antibody, they were able to select a variant antibody that had gained the ability to bind another clinically-relevant target protein, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The new antibody bound both antigens with relatively high affinities. This paper is a technologically impressive, interesting, and potentially medically important study. However, the authors' claims for the novelty of their results are seriously overstated. Disappointingly, the reviewers, editors, and commentators involved with the paper all failed to recognize or acknowledge the extent to which their claims misrepresented the prior understanding in the field.
Bostrom et al. begin their abstract by claiming, "The interface between antibody and antigen is often depicted as a lock and key, suggesting that an antibody surface can accommodate only one antigen." This statement actually combines two different assertions: 1) the notion that antibody recognition is widely believed to conform to the metaphor of lock-and-key binding, in which the antibody combining site (or paratope) binds the antigen without significant structural adjustment, as opposed to adaptive fit binding, in which the paratope binds the antigen in conjunction with structural changes of varying extent, and 2) the idea that an antibody can bind one and only one antigen. While adaptive fit binding is generally regarded as more likely to be associated with the ability of a single antibody paratope to bind effectively to two or more antigens, lock-and-key binding is not necessarily mutually exclusive with binding effectively to two or more antigens. I will address these two issues separately.
"What would we do without scientists?"
A lot more walking, for one thing. Also, most of your readers would be dead by now, from tuberculosis or smallpox or cholera...
I'm jus' sayin'.
Hi Kate. Your link goes to a login page that requires membership.
It there a different link available?
This modern "climate science" is not a real science, all the rules of normal science have been suspended to allow an opinion to be passed off as proven fact.
If climate science was conducted under the rules of real science, we would have a much less hysterical message coming from the scientists to the general public. Sure, there is some risk of sea levels rising, we are after all somewhere in the middle of an inter-glacial period and no sensible person could say that sea levels would never rise higher than they are today.
On the other hand, there has been a long-term program of data massage and paradigm distortion going on in so-called climate science, to the extent that you cannot trust any of its pronouncements, because the best minds in the science are blacklisted and forced out of the science into some other area. Because the general public are not used to hearing from dissident chemists or physicists (because there are very few and not many urgent reasons to listen to them) they also don't listen to dissident climate scientists, but they should because their economic and political security is being threatened by this bogus science.
Once the leftists and cultural Marxists see how easy it is to delude people with climate science (prime exhibit, BC premier Gordon Campbell, hook line and sinker caught like a big old tuna) then they will advance various other dodgy ideas and schemes for our listless media to re-transmit.
Of course, this is already well underway with the hysteria surrounding The One and our own version, The Igg.
"Science" isn't anymore. "Nature" isn't science anymore either. Scientific American has been Unscientific UnAmerican since the early 1990's, and for the last ten years has been a Pinko/Greenie propaganda rag.
You want scientific news, go to Eureka Alert. The major journals are crap.
Here's how it really works. You publish is a refereed journal within your particular field, of which there are literally thousands. If the paper is "low impact", you publish in a lesser journal in order to improve your likelihood of acceptance. If you deem it to be solid research, you submit to a more prestigious journal within your field. If it is a one of your best contributions, you try to get it accepted to Nature. Chances are you won't, because Nature gets hundreds of top-notch submissions every year, so they have to use other criteria than simply scientific merit to determine what they will publish. Does politics and current fashion play a role in the decision-making process? Probably, but the recognition that comes with a Nature publication means it is still worth the effort. In any case, every paper in Nature is also published in greater detail somewhere else. The strict limits on length enforced by Nature ensure that you still have to submit a more complete version of the manuscript elsewhere.
But Nature uses politics to decide what gets published.
the recent edition, with the melting south pole ice caps scary graphic, the Steig article . . . crappy research, very poor methodology but right on the global warming politically correct target.
Tokk less than five days for the Climate Audit crew to completely fisk the article . . . it was and is pure crap, but it made the cover of Nature.
This is exactly what angers me the most, as a scientist, about this AGW fraud. It undermines the credibility of science as a whole. Heaven forbid the public come to see science like they are coming to see the MSM.
"Science" and "Nature" are, by no stretch of the imagination, "leading scientific journals". They're popular magazines like "Scientific American", "Mechanics Illustrated" and "Popular Mechanics". For real science, you have to go to the specialized journals of learned societies and professional bodies. Unfortunately, papers in such journals are usually so far over the heads of non-scientists as to be unintelligible.
"Science" and "Nature" provide an outlet for the "peer reviewed" nonsense of charlatans like Jim Hansen and Michael Mann who would have to clean up their acts in order to get into legitimate journals.
Science has allowed itself to become stained by politics. As a result, it has committed suicide.
Political interests have usurped science in the hope that the science would lend credence to the political interest. But the opposite has happened. Science has become sullied as a result. As the old saying goes, "you can't clean something without making something else dirty".
Too bad that science has allowed this to happen.
"What would we do without scientists?"
I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that after reading that article, my brain hurts.
Ow...
There is a lot of interesting reading at climatedepot.com
RM (5:09 PM): There's a difference between real science (reproducible experimentation leading to technological innovation) and social science, in all its permutations.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, go get an engineering degree.
This problem with gaining high profile for papers and journals hits everywhere. The CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) is a rag and no serious medical research is published in it. But there's no shortage of soft and politically correct pseudo-scientific fluff appearing in its pages.
I dropped my subscription to Scientific American a few years ago as it degenerated into a left-wing, Bush-bashing, political-correcto propaganda piece. It's a shame because it was, at one time, a reasonably rigorous journal with a good range of articles for the lay scientist.
I think what happens, as happens with organizations like Amnesty International, is that they follow a cycle. They start as well-intended, rational, and rigorous publications or organizations. The lefties, lacking the ability to put forward any credible product on its own merits, invade like viruses, take over the organization or publication thereby borrowing on the credibility it earned before their infection of it. The organization/publication becomes a full blown left-wing propaganda organ, loses all credibility and dies a slow, lingering death. The lefties then move on to the next host.
The news media further this process by citing left-leaning "experts" in this and that who wrap themselves in the various flags of science, impartiality or whatever without subjecting themselves to the discipline of science or rigorous investigative technique. The media being composed mainly of scientific illiterates drink the kool-aid and hysterically spew it out as gospel.
Hopefully science and climate science in particular will be able to survive the current assault with its credibility and understanding of its method intact. And indeed, the scientists themselves are the ones most frustrated with the current nonsense. As someone pointed out, science is the best defense we have against self-deception. To abandon it will leave human minds at the mercy of their limbic systems -- not an attractive prospect.
Highly, highly recommended book to read:
"Scared to Death From BSE to Global Warming, How Scares are Costing Us the Earth"
Christopher Booker & Richard North.
If you read the EU Referendum blog, you'll love this book. How science & politics & big money overlap.
Just terrific
Mistah Kurtz*, da "Science researchers", is decrying.
The horror. The horror.
The best plea they have is that dead cliche: "huge steps backward".
...-
"Science researchers decry funding cuts
More than 2,000 researchers, including some of the country's most respected scientists, have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister calling the funding cuts in the January budget “huge steps backward for Canadian science.”"
(nnw)
*H/T J. Conrad)
Hmm, a whole group of anti-science wannabees and not a scientist among them.
Well, if you know nothing about science, it's much easier to just go to motives and appeal to emotion. Well done.
Yo, Gary - there's a link at the left of the page under "best of SDA" that lists the occupations of readers here. I suggest you check it out.
While you're at it, maybe check the names of the authors here, as well.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15091321
O/T but scroll down and watch the Hitler Bunker Clip:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
Sorry, Kate, too lazy today to send in an e-mail with linky. :-)
I've a substantial number of peer-reviewed publications. They include Science, Physical Review Letters, and the top optics and IEEE journals. My citations are in the (low) triple digits. I review my share of papers. I agree with my medical colleague from Case Western. While the situation in the life sciences is particularly bad (there's more money involved), the same observation can be made for most other disciplines.
And then there is the problem of the "least publishable unit".
Kate
They are talking about you and LGF at Atlas Shrugs.
"What Would We Do Without Scientists?"
Well, you definitely wouldn't be running a blog, that's for sure.
"least publishable unit" is one of my pet peeves. My ideal is to do a large, long-term study and publish all of the results at once. Guess how it's done in the real world of medical publishing? As many papers as possible from one study. So aggravating. Makes the researchers look more productive when really they're just milking the study for all it's worth and the journals play along.
I left the American College of Epidemiology after they published an article about women committing suicide in Iran (I think) where areas with more inbreeding had more "suicide" by burning. Duh ... maybe honor killings? It's like the editors and reviewers were wearing PC blinders.
Thanks for the link.
This article is really about some scientists failing to give credit to others --
"the statement quoted above may be interpreted by readers without extensive knowledge of the relevant literature to mean that Bostrom et al. deserve credit for the overturning the former (and much more fundamental) thesis."
For real bloviating, you want press releases, where cancer is cured weekly --
Jonathan Eisen [...] gave the Rutgers University press office one of his "Overselling genomics awards" yesterday for a press release it wrote about three Rutgers professors who sequenced the genome of duckweed, a common aquatic pest.
On Eisen's blog, "The Tree of Life," he comments on the release's hyperbolic title and subtitle -
"Duckweed genome sequencing has global implications: Pond scum can undo pollution, fight global warming and alleviate world hunger."
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/104.page
So next time you are called pond scum ....
What'samatta Gary? Ya think CONservatives don't know nuttin' about nuttin'?
You juuuust keep thinkin' that. There's a good boy.
So now banks and auto companies are discovering what scientists have understood for years...he who pays the piper....
"Hmm, a whole group of anti-science wannabees and not a scientist among them."--- Well ,GaryB,I think what you have here,is a whole group of people who believe in science,therefore place facts,data,and research, ahead of opinion. This is not being a 'anti-science wannabee'. This is what makes science credible. Skepticism is a very large brick in science's foundation. I suggest that you re-think your previous post,and check out the knuckledraggers that post here. You won't believe it,so check it out.Be skeptical and learn.
DrD at April 15, 2009 7:11 PM
Excellent, excellent post!
Alex at April 15, 2009 9:30 PM
Actually the science is pretty simple, 0 and 1. The reason we are reading this on a blog goes straight back to the richest man in the world who sold an operating system. Not science but business and good old micro engineering. Selling newer and faster systems in a competitive world is the reason why I am able to comment here rather than taking all day making punch cards.
Anon,if you ever return to punch cards,please hang Chad,and his parents.
Actually, Rick, I have a Ph.D. in geochemistry from McGill and a half dozen published papers in refereed journals, but thanks for the advice.
Anon, Rick:
A massive amount of science and engineering goes into computer technology. RM and others have it right - this disdain for science is dumb. Without science our standard of living would be vastly worse and our life expectancy would be half of what it is.
And to say that computer engineering is simple cause it's just about 0s and 1s is naive beyond description. That's like saying mathematics is simple cause it's based on a few simple axioms and rules of logic.
I don't think there's a disdain for science here at all. There is disdain for politics masquerading as science, and disdain for the unquestioning reverence of the terms "peer-reviewed".
If there is a perceived "unquestioning reverence" of peer review then it is held by the general public and perhaps the media. The scientists all acknowledge that all peer review means is that a paper has been deemed worthy to be presented to one's "peers".
What I think this shows is what I have suspected i.e. that journals want to publish things that are different and new. Of course this blows apart the whole argument that certain types of papers are suppressed (which is pretty apparent if you look at the actual publication record).
If I can quote Paul: In the end the science wins out.
Regards,
John
Quite right, John, and typically that decision is made by no more than three people, an editor and two reviewers.
I should also point out that no good science is ever suppressed by the review process. Reviewers are not allow to reject a paper simply because they disagree with the conclusions, they must show flaws in the actual methodology. Journals like Science or Nature which cater to a wide audience may reject publications for political reasons, but the work, if it has merit, will get published somewhere, no matter how controversial the conclusions may be.
RM:
I agree. The myth of the scientific establishment refusing to consider competent work because it would upset entrenched views is just that - a myth. Quite the opposite, I would say. The scientific community celebrates and rewards those scientists who can successfully revolutionize a field.
Occassionally a publication will preface a paper by saying that they are aware that it is highly controvesial, and that the editors do not necessarily support its views, but speaking for myself I have never recommended for rejection a competent paper simply because I disagreed with aspects of it. At the very least I figure it will stimulate debate and more research.
A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies - Alan D. Sokal
http://tinyurl.com/mv0w