Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

On Tuesday, 13 March 2018 04:29:46 UTC, Fredxx wrote:
On 13/03/2018 02:58, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/03/18 19:56, Fredxx wrote:

Books about imaginary entities have less basis on science than
magnetic effect on water and the precipitation of carbonates.

I don't expect you like being told that either.

This is just one recent paper that is a peer reviewed publication from
a University, there are loads of others.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28923745

Perhaps you should be equally open to the likelihood that god doesn't
exist; where beliefs of the existence that father christmas, and the
like, are akin to snake oil too?

Thes days when I hear 'peer reviewed publication' and I find in it the
words 'alternative eco-friendly' I just switch off. Whatever happened to
actual real investigative science?

Some mock the concept of a peer reviewed article, others believe they
represent greater credibility than claims made in pubs or even newsgroups.

YMMV

The concept is a goodish one. Unfortunately IRL it doesn't mean a lot, since
the peer review process of weeding out the bad research mostly does not work.
I wish it did. In practice people seldom criticise even the most outrageous
crp because they don't want their research trashed in return. It's about
careers/money first, not science first.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment

in particular the last para before the References. People are people,
and 100 years ago were no different to today when it came to
confirmation bias.

In my limited, and decades old, experience, peer review was often an
opportunity to take a somewhat severe view of the methods and discussion
used by rival groups. Just this side of totally unfair. But this was
in a field devoid of political interest where many questions were too
open to have acquired dogmatic supporters.




--

Roger Hayter