This has quickly become a farce.
Watts' recounting of the rush to complete their analysis and put something on the Web doesn't sound like any science I've ever done or seen -- it sounds like final exam week for undergraduates. It's crystal clear this isn't a scientific paper, but an extended blog post intended purely as a PR-counter to BEST's announcement.
And one's blog readers aren't peer reviewers (Watts: "So made announcement Friday. Figured on Sunday at noon so WUWT could provide peer review....").
Patient, careful thinking is the very hallmark of science -- perhaps the only real advantage it has going for it. There is simply no sense that that happened here, as others are quickly pointing out. Scrambling around for the sake of public relations nullifies the very essence of what makes science so useful and so powerful.
It has become impossible to take this "paper" seriously, when there is so much good and true science being put out that requires attention. When and if it ever appears in a journal -- which looks less likely with each passing day -- it's worth revisiting. I have no desire to be a wingnut blogger. Standards, people, standards -- have they really vanished in this day and age?
4 comments:
It's crystal clear this isn't a scientific paper, but an extended blog post intended purely as a PR-counter to BEST's announcement.
Shocking, surely.
Best,
D
Finally a voice of sanity. Thank you. The only thing I got out of his paper is the fact that a high school diploma is not worth what it once was...
Also, check out what his "co-author" Steve McIntyre said about it:
"Anthony sent me his draft paper. In his cover email, he said that the people who had offered to do statistical analysis hadn’t done so (each for valid reasons). So I did some analysis very quickly, which Anthony incorporated in the paper and made me a coauthor though my contribution was very last minute and limited. I haven’t parsed the rest of the paper."
...
"Whenever I’m working on my own material, I avoid arbitrary deadlines and like to mull things over for a few days. Unfortunately that didn’t happen in this case."
Did you ever hear of an update of this manuscript or its publication?
Post a Comment