[Taxacom] morphology in molecular phylogeny

[Karl Magnacca]

On Fri, January 19, 2007 10:08 am, Doug Yanega wrote:
> I would suggest, then, that what we need more than anything is an
> improvement in the rigor and quality of peer review. Obviously, the
> status quo is letting too much garbage into the pipeline, if bad
> science "happens in every field". People doing "terrible work" should
> NOT be able to get it into print, EVER. It is an embarrasment and our
> collective shame that things should be otherwise.

The problem is, people fall back on peer review as if it is the solution 
to everything.  But when you're reviewing a paper, unless you go and 
repeat the research yourself, you have to assume that the people writing 
it more or less know what they're doing, because you can't evaluate it.  
You assume that their phylogenetic analyses were done as they said, that 
their specimens weren't mislabelled, that their drawings actually look 
like what they are supposed to be of, etc. etc.  Those are just examples 
of egregious errors I've seen myself (some were eventually caught, but 
only after they'd passed at least one round of review without arousing 
suspicion).  When someone screws up that kind of thing, it's difficult 
to weed it out.

I do have to agree with you about improving the quality in general, 
though.  People whine that they had already published their methods in a 
major journal, therefore they are valid (even though they were obviously 
bogus in the first place).

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca
UC-Berkeley, ESPM Dept.
137 Mulford Hall #3114
Berkeley, CA 94720
http://nature.berkeley.edu/~magnacca/