I'm surprised to find this video riveting, compelling. Your testimony was outstanding, much-needed. I nominate you (along with Fauci & Collins) as a true Guardian of the Galaxy (or just Earth, humanity). I eagerly await the definitive book on this story, but meanwhile am increasingly distressed by the terrible direction MAGA Republicans have taken science, truth, reality, etc. I'm a big fan of skepticism & rational inquiry. The sham (acknowledged accidentally by McCarthy) of the Benghazi investigations comes to mind. Politicization is way out of hand, a cancer on our psyche & sanity, a huge waste of resources. Thank you for taking a strong public stand on this (and sharing that story).
I appreciate the fact that you will allow all comments here. I also appreciate the fact that you appeared in front of the House SubCommittee unlike the EICs at The Lancet and Nature Medicine who have much more to answer for.
You comported yourself well, unlike what you have done on social media.
To be very clear, I understand that everyone can have biases but it's not acceptable for the Editor-in-Chief of "Science" to refer to all of the evidence behind a lab origin to be compared to an episode of "Homeland" as late as 2023.
Your attack piece on the Surgeon General of the State of Florida back in 2022 was shameful. He took a major step back in his career as faculty at UCLA to come to FL to practice real Evidence Based Medicine. Ladapo has over 80 peer reviewed papers in the literature. He has an MD and PhD from Harvard. His critique of the pandemic response is exemplary. In that hit piece, you didn't cite any literature, you didn't address the hundreds of studies that show benefit from HCQ.
I understand well that that was an opinion piece only. I just find it difficult to think that a person in your position would be so openly opinionated about science and so quick to attack a highly credentialed physician and researcher and expect to the public to trust you to procure the best studies for the scientific community.
As a physician and engineer who has looked to your publication for the last thirty years I am disappointed in your conduct and ability to sense-make. It's a scary time indeed.
Multiple randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews have consistently demonstrated that hydroxychloroquine does not provide any clinical benefits in the treatment of COVID-19 and is associated with adverse effects while failing to do anything beneficial. When you say that you are a physician, I can only assume that you mean you a chiropractor, given your easily debunked pseudoscientific position?
What’s missing is the fact that “peer review” itself is flawed unless there is a divergence of hypotheses and opinions. Even by “Science” standards, peers invited for review are those that reside in the same echo chamber. That MUST change. And it’s largely up to the editors and editorial staff to bring about the change.
Incorrect. Peer review isn’t about finding agreement between the findings of the submission and the beliefs of the reviewer. It is NOT an echo chamber, but many non-scientists have taken to saying that lately. Peer-review is intended to review a paper’s methodology for rigor, validity, clarity, and ethical compliance. They are charged with assuring that the conclusions logically follow the process described. This intends to screen out inherently flawed or frankly fraudulent research. The process isn’t perfect, but it plays an important role in assuring some semblance of objectivity and verifiability.
That response is precisely why the system is corrupted.
To suggest that “peers” have the competence to gauge these characteristics of a manuscript or a grant proposal, and that those that are not in the peer group are “non-scientists” encourages a system of corruption in which belonging to the peer group becomes an end in itself.
It’s simply a process to censure those whose interests and ideas are a threat to their “peer” status.
When public processes are utilized for private gains and the public overseers of that process don’t oversee or condemns the abuse, it’s no longer a “personal” problem; it’s a public problem.
Tell me you have an anti-intellectual disdain for expertise without saying it out loud. Oh wait, you just did.
Nuclear physicists have no business managing the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy.
Pediatric neurologists should play no part in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants.
Neither professional should determine (or even weigh in on) if it is safe for a commercial airline to take off in an Alaskan snowstorm when there is a properly staffed aviation ground crew.
Science is reviewed by other topic-relevant scientists. Full stop.
Expertise matters. It is a pervasive and dangerous illusion to imagine we need a fresh voice in any technical field when that voice doesn’t have a clue about what is going on. You can clutch your pearls, but you are categorically wrong.
When an academic employer names an individual manager or accountant as a content expert, when that expertise was mine and not theirs, disdain for the corrupted system is inevitable.
What you are describing is some sort of personal experience to managerial incompetence (which is common and frustrating), but that has nothing to do with the peer review process. Peer review is not done by accountants (unless its for an accounting journal), nor is it assigned by an “employer,” as peer review is as an unpaid service performed by scientists in their respective fields.
Reviewers aren’t labeled beyond the extent of their own accomplishments. If you can perform unaided and manage postoperatively a gunshot wound to the head of the pancreas, you are an expert in general surgery. If you have contributed to the advancement of understanding in quantum field theory, you are definitely an expert in physics. You can’t just arbitrarily say that peer review doesn’t involve legitimate expertise in order to support a false assertion.
The sponsor of all peer reviewers are employer institutions. When they willfully ascribe expertise of an individual to another, for whatever reason- but at least in my experience- to maintain a cultural hierarchy, they are doing the public a dissonance addition to their dereliction of fiduciary responsibility
I'm surprised to find this video riveting, compelling. Your testimony was outstanding, much-needed. I nominate you (along with Fauci & Collins) as a true Guardian of the Galaxy (or just Earth, humanity). I eagerly await the definitive book on this story, but meanwhile am increasingly distressed by the terrible direction MAGA Republicans have taken science, truth, reality, etc. I'm a big fan of skepticism & rational inquiry. The sham (acknowledged accidentally by McCarthy) of the Benghazi investigations comes to mind. Politicization is way out of hand, a cancer on our psyche & sanity, a huge waste of resources. Thank you for taking a strong public stand on this (and sharing that story).
I appreciate the fact that you will allow all comments here. I also appreciate the fact that you appeared in front of the House SubCommittee unlike the EICs at The Lancet and Nature Medicine who have much more to answer for.
You comported yourself well, unlike what you have done on social media.
To be very clear, I understand that everyone can have biases but it's not acceptable for the Editor-in-Chief of "Science" to refer to all of the evidence behind a lab origin to be compared to an episode of "Homeland" as late as 2023.
Your attack piece on the Surgeon General of the State of Florida back in 2022 was shameful. He took a major step back in his career as faculty at UCLA to come to FL to practice real Evidence Based Medicine. Ladapo has over 80 peer reviewed papers in the literature. He has an MD and PhD from Harvard. His critique of the pandemic response is exemplary. In that hit piece, you didn't cite any literature, you didn't address the hundreds of studies that show benefit from HCQ.
I understand well that that was an opinion piece only. I just find it difficult to think that a person in your position would be so openly opinionated about science and so quick to attack a highly credentialed physician and researcher and expect to the public to trust you to procure the best studies for the scientific community.
As a physician and engineer who has looked to your publication for the last thirty years I am disappointed in your conduct and ability to sense-make. It's a scary time indeed.
Multiple randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews have consistently demonstrated that hydroxychloroquine does not provide any clinical benefits in the treatment of COVID-19 and is associated with adverse effects while failing to do anything beneficial. When you say that you are a physician, I can only assume that you mean you a chiropractor, given your easily debunked pseudoscientific position?
Well presented.
What’s missing is the fact that “peer review” itself is flawed unless there is a divergence of hypotheses and opinions. Even by “Science” standards, peers invited for review are those that reside in the same echo chamber. That MUST change. And it’s largely up to the editors and editorial staff to bring about the change.
Incorrect. Peer review isn’t about finding agreement between the findings of the submission and the beliefs of the reviewer. It is NOT an echo chamber, but many non-scientists have taken to saying that lately. Peer-review is intended to review a paper’s methodology for rigor, validity, clarity, and ethical compliance. They are charged with assuring that the conclusions logically follow the process described. This intends to screen out inherently flawed or frankly fraudulent research. The process isn’t perfect, but it plays an important role in assuring some semblance of objectivity and verifiability.
Couldn’t disagree more.
That response is precisely why the system is corrupted.
To suggest that “peers” have the competence to gauge these characteristics of a manuscript or a grant proposal, and that those that are not in the peer group are “non-scientists” encourages a system of corruption in which belonging to the peer group becomes an end in itself.
It’s simply a process to censure those whose interests and ideas are a threat to their “peer” status.
When public processes are utilized for private gains and the public overseers of that process don’t oversee or condemns the abuse, it’s no longer a “personal” problem; it’s a public problem.
Tell me you have an anti-intellectual disdain for expertise without saying it out loud. Oh wait, you just did.
Nuclear physicists have no business managing the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy.
Pediatric neurologists should play no part in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants.
Neither professional should determine (or even weigh in on) if it is safe for a commercial airline to take off in an Alaskan snowstorm when there is a properly staffed aviation ground crew.
Science is reviewed by other topic-relevant scientists. Full stop.
Expertise matters. It is a pervasive and dangerous illusion to imagine we need a fresh voice in any technical field when that voice doesn’t have a clue about what is going on. You can clutch your pearls, but you are categorically wrong.
The problem is in the “labeling” of expertise.
When an academic employer names an individual manager or accountant as a content expert, when that expertise was mine and not theirs, disdain for the corrupted system is inevitable.
What you are describing is some sort of personal experience to managerial incompetence (which is common and frustrating), but that has nothing to do with the peer review process. Peer review is not done by accountants (unless its for an accounting journal), nor is it assigned by an “employer,” as peer review is as an unpaid service performed by scientists in their respective fields.
Reviewers aren’t labeled beyond the extent of their own accomplishments. If you can perform unaided and manage postoperatively a gunshot wound to the head of the pancreas, you are an expert in general surgery. If you have contributed to the advancement of understanding in quantum field theory, you are definitely an expert in physics. You can’t just arbitrarily say that peer review doesn’t involve legitimate expertise in order to support a false assertion.
The sponsor of all peer reviewers are employer institutions. When they willfully ascribe expertise of an individual to another, for whatever reason- but at least in my experience- to maintain a cultural hierarchy, they are doing the public a dissonance addition to their dereliction of fiduciary responsibility