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spsheridan OP t1_je1i8ca wrote

Reply to comment by Andromeda321 in Fast radio burst linked with gravitational waves for the first time by spsheridan

This paper was submitted to and published by Nature Astronomy. Presumably, it was peer-reviewed before being published. If the probability of the FRB being associated with the gravitational wave is not much better than random chance, what does that say about the peer review process at Nature Astronomy? Is it broken?

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johnkingeu t1_je1nboj wrote

Peer review really just means it passes basic sense checks by a couple of peers, it isn’t necessarily an exhaustive process. It’s pretty common for papers to get refuted later, in the much more exhaustive long term peer review process that is science, in which a whole scientific community picks the paper apart over time. Unfortunately this can make it difficult for people outside the field to know which papers are currently considered to be authoritative and which aren’t, publication in a top ranked peer reviewed journal means it’s worthy of consideration but could still be completely wrong.

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brian9000 t1_je1oyi6 wrote

One example is the recent “room temperature superconductor” hullabaloo that happened over at /r/physics

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DarkElation t1_je384t0 wrote

This is hilarious to me because “peer reviewed” became some kind of messianic gatekeeper of the truth during the pandemic. Then it was used as a bludgeon to censor people saying what you just said three years ago.

I’m still banned from a sub for linking the cdc’s vaccine page and how it doesn’t prevent transmission.

Sorry to go there but your comment really struck me.

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A_Suspicious_Fart t1_je1v3uq wrote

I think you are misunderstanding the process of peer review. Yes, it was peer reviewed during the publication process. However, that does not mean there are no flaws in the analysis, or the conclusions drawn from the analysis in the paper. There are a lot of published papers in reputable journals that have been peer reviewed, but still haven’t been tested well enough to confirm the claims of the authors. In some cases the claims are just wrong. This process is iterative, and can take many years. We should never take any claims, no matter how compelling as gospel. Instead they should be met with varying levels of skepticism.

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Andromeda321 t1_je2x0wt wrote

Well, publishing in Nature is actually interesting because it has a 50% retraction rate over a longer period of time. They’re an interesting journal because it’s known for taking the stance of “we would rather be sure to be the ones to publish the highest impact papers of all time even if we know a lot of these won’t stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific process over coming years.” Hope that makes sense.

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