[Taxacom] Peer-review and ONLINE / digital publication

Mon Nov 15 16:36:05 CST 2010

Thanks, Stephen:

I will add this to my file of examples as it is a good one.

But remember the old phrase,

To err is human, to forgive is divine.

Yes, we all make mistakes, as we are human. And I can tell you that I made lots of them over my 45 year career.

My point is that Peer-review is BETTER than ANY other alternative. However, yes, you are correct that peer-review is dependent on HUMANs, and, therefore, will fail in some cases.

What do you or anyone else propose as a better solution?

The issue is NOT MEDIUM. The issue is Science versus anything that can be put online.

I support digital / online dissemination of Science, but want peer-review and version control to remain.

Sincerely,

Chris

From: Stephen Thorpe 
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 5:18 PM
To: Chris Thompson ; Peter DeVries ; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The Semantic Web and LOD would allow everyone to contribute without needing a huge "ministry of truth"

Chris,
One of my pet examples of the impotence of pre-publication peer review is this:
http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pselaphotheseus_ihupuku
being a nomenclature guy, you might appreciate it a bit more than those who think nomenclature is unimportant. Somehow, 2 authors, 2 reviewers, and an editor all missed the fact that two different holotypes were designated for the same new species! Makes you wonder what other less obvious details are also all messed up???
Stephen

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Chris Thompson <xelaalex at cox.net>
To: Peter DeVries <pete.devries at gmail.com>; "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Tue, 16 November, 2010 9:29:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The Semantic Web and LOD would allow everyone to contribute without needing a huge "ministry of truth"

Sorry, Pete,

But while that may appear to be "very democratic," etc., but

the hallmark of Science, as opposed to everything, is PEER-REVIEW.

Yes, we do know there are problems with peer-review, but it remains the only 
mechanism to ensure that the public gets the BEST and most appropriate 
SCIENCE. [that has remained true since Henry Oldenburg started publishing 
the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665]

And the other thing that peer-review mandates, is version control. That is, 
once the process is done, that version becomes a fixed point in the 
Scientific process.

Your approach sound much like the wikipedia, wikispecies, etc., where 
anything can be throw out online and the Public may think it is Science.

Yes, ICZN does not require peer-review. And only the minimal scientific 
standards. So, your suggestion would allow everyone to contribute at least 
in terms of names and nomenclatural acts once the ICZN recognizes and it is 
should digitial / online publication. But it will not serve the Public well.

There is an old adage from the early days of computers, GIGO. Garbage IN, 
Garbage OUT. This remain very true today, so SCIENCE needs to be careful or 
it will lose its respect from the Public.

Oh, well ...

Chris

-----Original Message----- 
From: Peter DeVries
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 2:56 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] The Semantic Web and LOD would allow everyone to 
contribute without needing a huge "ministry of truth"

On of the features of the semantic web and the Linked Open Data cloud is
that they allow anyone who can post markup data to a web server to
contribute.

You  simply markup your data at a particular URL and then ping the semantic
web to tell everyone that it is there.

http://pingthesemanticweb.com/

This would allow individual institutions and individuals to contribute their
own data.

Very democratic.

If you don't agree with a particular contribution then just choose to ignore
it in your analysis.

Respectfully,

- Pete

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
TaxonConcept Knowledge Base <http://www.taxonconcept.org/> / GeoSpecies
Knowledge Base <http://lod.geospecies.org/>
About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
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