Off Topic Dark Matter and other Astronomy information.

I dont think anyone reads what ye say but ye. When I see it is ye replying I dont bother. I decided trying to teach hamsters to mate tea is a fruitless enterprise.
Is it the cognitive shortcomings that make ye go overboard?


Anyways..
For astro
River Lea Floods 1910-1919
River Lea flood, Greater London / Hertfordshire.

Some footage
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/river-lea-floods
Panning shot flood water around brick cottage. Street lamp lighter lighting gas street light from boat floating on flood water. LS street of terrace houses, road is covered in flood water, group of children and adults stand at edge of water and watch swans swimming.

Floods 1968
No title - Army distributes food to flood victims. East Molesey, Surrey.

footage
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/floods-2

M/S of the River Mole in full flood at East Molesey. M/S of flood water with reservoir in the background. C/U of two people paddling a canoe in the High Street. M/S two people in a rubber dinghy in the High Street, M/S man riding horse through street.
#muonslightclocksanddaffodils

#globalwarmingwentbackintime

 

his use of C=P is ridiculous, Its fair enough when he C+P's tables etc as it obvious he cant do his own research but what is worse is when in an effort to impress us he takes blogs etc and with the slightest tweaks then passes them off as his own work, bit sad really.

 

All I see is two cowards cherry picking posts

You completely missed Judith Curry absolutely smattering your garbage about any accuracy of models. Accidental? They cant even model the ****ing oceans ffs, you are a walking joke.

You are actually using the same arguments concocted to attack Richard Lindzen, I read the ****e you just posted form barely literate ****** progressives often, exactly that.

I guess using Curry as a source has driven you to this..

NEVER GO FULL ******.

"denial" "smoking" and all manner of ****.

So lets recap.
You have no idea at all about relativity.
You have no idea about climate science, either side.
You appear to be some suck ass amateur data analyst wanbabe? given what you did to that CRU chart, that you were too scared to even discuss again after I danced all over it.

Pathological people like you are what got us in this mess, when people start saying "denier" it's literally party time.

So, on that note I am going to spark up a bifter and chuckle about the fact that you, a grown man in 2015 are using the term "denier".

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Dont you use the term "denier" about people who question aspects of the holocaust?

 

Where has he ever done that? everything I have seen has had either a named writer or a source link posted with it.

 

Dont tell me you have never noticed, you can tell from the writing style but usually the C+P stuff is lacking the insults etc.

 

Full on meltdown

 

He does it all the time, read back through the thread and you'll find reams of copied text from him with no reference or link

 

The UN is looking at directly taxing football, phone apps and other things.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-17/un-eyes-tax-on-football-tickets-uber-to-plug-aid-gap/7093986

 

More pseudo science for $$$ Pseudo science endorsed by the university, for $$$. Takes money from company, fabricates science that this company's (only this company's) cholocate milk increases motor function and reduces concussion susceptibility

The incredible tale of irresponsible chocolate milk research at the University of Maryland
Updated by Julia Belluz on January 16, 2016, 8:00 a.m. ET @juliaoftoronto [email protected]

Tweet Share (7,286) +

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Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock
Academic press offices are known to overhype their own research. But the University of Maryland recently took this to appalling new heights — trumpeting an incredibly shoddy study on chocolate milk and concussions that happened to benefit a corporate partner.

It's a cautionary tale of just how badly science can go awryas universities increasingly partner with corporations to conduct research.


The story started when the University of Maryland issued a press release about a new study on the effects of a single brand of chocolate milk on cognitive and motor skill tests in high school athletes.

The scientists had found that drinking the milk appeared to improve the kids' test scores and reduce concussion-related symptoms.

The scientists only looked at a Fifth Quarter Fresh, which its maker claims comes from "super, natural cows"

The first problem here is that the research itself is breathtakingly suspect. There was no comparison group or treatment in the study. The scientists didn't even test another brand of chocolate milk. They only looked at a Fifth Quarter Fresh, which its maker claims comes from "super, natural cows."

Worse, the scientists didn't even bother to publish their results before publicizing them, according to an excellent probe of the release by Health News Review, where Andrew Holtz broke the story.


Despite all these red flags, the university touted the study: "Fifth Quarter Fresh, a new, high-protein chocolate milk," the release reads, "helped high school football players improve their cognitive and motor function over the course of a season, even after experiencing concussions." The milk manufacturer also featured the "findings" on its own website.

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The Fifth Quarter Fresh website.

This is incredibly irresponsible. And it appeared to sway people. The superintendent of Washington County Public Schools was quoted by the university as saying, "Now that we understand the findings of this study, we are determined to provide Fifth Quarter Fresh [chocolate milk] to all of our athletes."

So why would a supposedly serious university trumpet such flawed research?

The more I looked into it, the more disturbing the story got.

Crystal Brown, a communications representative from the University of Maryland, explained that the chocolate milk study was funded through the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program, a collaboration between the university and "commercial entities for economic development across the state of Maryland." The idea behind the program is to foster job creation through industry and university collaborations, according to Brown.

It's everything wrong with modern-day science-by-press-release in one anecdote

As it turns out, the maker of Fifth Quarter Fresh chocolate milk — which comes from a dairy cooperative in Hagerstown, Maryland — funded 10 percent of the study, and the university funded the rest.

So here we have a milk manufacturer working in partnership with the University of Maryland to fund a sloppy study, and the university then blasts the results, persuading schools and the press that this milk works wonders on students' brains.

It's everything wrong with modern-day science-by-press-release in one anecdote.

(Note: I reached out to study author Jae Kun Shim, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Health, to ask about the story behind the dubious study, and got no reply. Shim seems to have gone silent and hasn't been responding to other media outlets, either.)

There's a broader push to commercialize academic research

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Its unclear how this cow is different from a "super, natural cow." (Smereka/Shutterstock)

The University of Maryland is not unique here. There's been a push to commercialize university research, and it's happening across North America.

As this 2015 review in BioMed Central, describes, "The growing emphasis on commercialization of university research may be exerting unfounded pressure on researchers and misrepresenting scientific research realities, prospects and outcomes."

The authors of that review explain that the industry-academia partnerships are currently happening in a sort of a free-for-all environment, where the rules of engagement are often unclear or unwritten. They call for a serious review of the policies. In the meantime, researchers have been finding that industry involvement can bias results and shape the direction of research.

I think it's pretty safe to guess that University of Maryland scientists may not have chosen to study the very narrow question of how one brand of milk affects concussions had it not been for the brand's involvement in the science.

Another problem: Academic press offices often overhype bad research
The corporate partnership gone awry wasn't the only abuse of science here. The unwarranted hype from the University of Maryland's press office was another. And this isn't an isolated problem.

Academic press shops have an appalling track record when it comes to overhyping institutional science. In the rush to get the word out about their new work, they oversell, mislead, or otherwise exaggerate the results of research. And that very same framing trickles down to the public.

One study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that releases from these offices often overhype the findings of their scientists — and then journalists play along uncritically, parroting whatever showed up in their inbox that day.

"The odds of exaggerated news were substantially higher when the press releases issued by the academic institutions were exaggerated," the study authors conclude.

In 2009, researchers at Dartmouth looked at a random selection of press releases from 10 medical centers in the United States. They concluded, "Press releases from academic medical centers often promote research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge important limitations."

At the University of Maryland, the vice president of research has stepped in to do an institutional review about the chocolate milk study. The university press office told me that publicizing results of still-unpublished research is "not customary."

Even so, this is not only embarrassing for the university, but should also be a warning about what can happen when business interests encroach on university campuses without well-defined boundaries.

 

BMC Medical Ethics
Abstract
Background
The increasing push to commercialize university research has emerged as a significant science policy challenge. While the socio-economic benefits of increased and rapid research commercialization are often emphasized in policy statements and discussions, there is less mention or discussion of potential risks. In this paper, we highlight such potential risks and call for a more balanced assessment of the commercialization ethos and trends.

Discussion
There is growing evidence that the pressure to commercialize is directly or indirectly associated with adverse impacts on the research environment, science hype, premature implementation or translation of research results, loss of public trust in the university research enterprise, research policy conflicts and confusion, and damage to the long-term contributions of university research.

Summary
The growing emphasis on commercialization of university research may be exerting unfounded pressure on researchers and misrepresenting scientific research realities, prospects and outcomes. While more research is needed to verify the potential risks outlined in this paper, policy discussions should, at a minimum, acknowledge them.

http://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-015-0064-2

 

Shame they weren't supernatural cows

 

Pseudo science indeed.

Big Industry funding science organisations is an absolute scandal.

Ever looked at the funding behind some of the climate change sceptics organisations @BringBackfootie?

American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has routinely tried to undermine the credibility of climate science, despite at times affirming that the “weight of the evidence” justifies “prudent action” on climate change. [1]

For years, AEI played a role in propagating misinformation about a manufactured controversy over emails stolen from climate scientists [2], with one AEI research fellow even claiming, “There was no consensus about the extent and causes of global warming.” [3] A resident scholar at AEI went so far as to state that the profession of climate scientist “threatens to overtake all” on the list of “most distrusted occupations.” [4]

AEI received $3,615,000 from ExxonMobil from 1998-2012 [5], and more than $1 million in funding from Koch foundations from 2004-2011. [6]

Americans for Prosperity
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) frequently provides a platform for climate contrarian statements, such as “How much information refutes carbon dioxide-caused global warming? Let me count the ways.” [7]

While claiming to be a grassroots organization, AFP has bolstered its list of “activists” by hosting “$1.84 Gas” events, where consumers who receive discounts on gasoline are asked to provide their name and email address on a “petition” form. [8] These events are billed as raising awareness about “failing energy policies” and high gasoline prices, but consumers are not told about AFP’s ties to oil interests, namely Koch Industries.

AFP has its origins in a group founded in 1984 by fossil fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch [9], and the latter Koch still serves on AFP Foundation’s board of directors [10]. Richard Fink, executive vice president of Koch Industries, also serves as a director for both AFP and AFP Foundation. [11]

Koch foundations donated $3,609,281 to AFP Foundation from 2007-2011. [12]

American Legislative Exchange Council
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) maintains that “global climate change is inevitable” [13] and since the 1990s has pushed various forms of model legislation aimed at obstructing policies intended to reduce global warming emissions.

ALEC purports to “support the use of sound science to guide policy,” but routinely provides a one-sided platform for climate contrarians. State legislators attending one ALEC meeting were offered a workshop touting a report by a fossil fuel-funded group that declared “like love, carbon dioxide's many splendors are seemingly endless." [14, 15] Another ALEC meeting featured a Fox News contributor who has claimed on the air that carbon dioxide “literally cannot cause global warming.” [16, 17]

ALEC received more than $1.6 million from ExxonMobil from 1998-2012 [18], and more than $850,000 from Koch foundations from 1997-2011. [19]

Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University
From its position as the research arm of the Department of Economics at Suffolk University, the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) has published misleading analyses of clean energy and climate change policies in more than three dozen states.

These economic analyses are at times accompanied by a dose of climate contrarianism. For example, BHI Director David Tuerck has claimed that “the very question of whether the climate is warming is in doubt…” [20] Claims such as “wind power actually increases pollution” can be found in many of BHI’s reports.

BHI has publicly acknowledged its Koch funding [21], which likely includes at least some of the approximately $725,000 the Charles G. Koch foundation contributed to Suffolk University from 2008-2011. [22]

Cato Institute
Cato acknowledges that “Global warming is indeed real…” But when it comes to the causes of global warming, Cato has sent mixed messages over the years. Cato's website, for instance, reports that “… human activity has been a contributor [to global warming] since 1975.” [23] Yet, on the same topic of whether human activity is responsible for global warming, Cato’s vice president has written: “We don’t know.” [24]

Patrick Michaels, Director of Cato’s Center for the Study of Science, has referred to the latestDraft National Climate Assessment Report as “the stuff of fantasy.” [25] The most recent edition of Cato’s “Handbook for Policymakers” advises that Congress should “pass no legislation restricting emissions of carbon dioxide.” [26]

Charles Koch co-founded Cato in 1977. Both Charles and David Koch were among the four “shareholders” who “owned” Cato until 2011 [27], and the latter Koch remains a member of Cato’s Board of Directors. [28] Koch foundations contributed more than $5 million to Cato from 1997-2011. [29]

Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has at times acknowledged that “Global warming is a reality.” [30] But CEI has also routinely disputed that global warming is a problem, contending that “There is no ‘scientific consensus’ that global warming will cause damaging climate change.” [31]

These kinds of claims are nothing new for CEI. Back in 1991, CEI was claiming that “The greatest challenge we face is not warming, but cooling.” [32] More recently, CEI produced an ad calling for higher levels of carbon dioxide. [33] One CEI scholar even publicly compared a prominent climate scientist to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. [34]

CEI received around $2 million in funding from ExxonMobil from 1995-2005 [35], though ExxonMobil made a public break with CEI in 2007 after coming under scrutiny from UCS and other groups for its funding of climate contrarian organizations. CEI has also received funding from Koch foundations, dating back to the 1980s. [36]

Heartland Institute
While claiming to stand up for “sound science,” the Heartland Institute has routinely spread misinformation about climate science, including deliberate attacks on climate scientists. [37]

Popular outcry forced the Heartland Institute to pull down a controversial billboard that compared supporters of global warming facts to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski [38], bringing an early end to a planned campaign first announced in an essay by Heartland President Joseph Bast, which claimed “… the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” [39]

Heartland even once marked Earth Day by mailing out 100,000 free copies of a book claiming that “climate science has been corrupted” [40] – despite acknowledging that “…all major scientific organizations of the world have taken the official position that humankind is causing global warming.”

Heartland received more than $675,000 from ExxonMobil from 1997-2006 [41]. Heartland also raked in millions from the Koch-funded organization Donors Trust through 2011. [42, 43]

Heritage Foundation
While maintaining that “Science should be used as one tool to guide climate policy,” the Heritage Foundation often uses rhetoric such as “far from settled” to sow doubt about climate science. [44, 45, 46, 47] One Heritage report even claimed that “The only consensus over the threat of climate change that seems to exist these days is that there is no consensus.” [48]

Vocal climate contrarians, meanwhile, are described as “the world’s best scientists when it comes to the climate change study” in the words of one Heritage policy analyst. [49]

Heritage received more than $4.5 million from Koch foundations from 1997-2011. [50] ExxonMobil contributed $780,000 to the Heritage Foundation from 2001-2012. ExxonMobil continues to provide annual contributions to the Heritage Foundation, despite making a public pledge in 2007 to stop funding climate contrarian groups. [51, 52]

Institute for Energy Research
The term “alarmism” is defined by Mirriam-Webster as “the often unwarranted exciting of fears or warning of danger.” So when Robert Bradley, CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research (IER), and others at his organization routinely evoke the term “climate alarmism” they do so to sow doubt about the urgency of global warming.

IER claims that public policy “should be based on objective science, not emotion or improbable scenarios …” But IER also claims that the sense of urgency for climate action is due not to the science that shows the real and growing conequences of global warming. Rather, IER suggests that researchers “exacerbate the sense [that] policies are urgently needed” for monetary gain, noting that “issues that are perceived to be an imminent crisis can mean more funding.” [53]

IER has received funding from both ExxonMobil [54] and the Koch brothers [55].

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
The Manhattan Institute has acknowledged that the “scientific consensus is that the planet is warming,” while at the same time maintaining that “… accounts of climate change convey a sense of certitude that is probably unjustified.” [56]

“The science is not settled, not by a long shot,” Robert Bryce, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow has written in the Wall Street Journal [57]. At other times Bryce has expressed indifference to the science on climate change. “I don’t know who’s right. And I really don’t care,” he wrote in one book. [58]

The Manhattan Institute has received $635,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998 [59], with annual contributions continuing as of 2012, and nearly $2 million from Koch foundations from 1997-2011. [60]Climate Change Email Scandal Underscores Myth of Pure Science.
2 Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), 2011. Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the "Climategate" Manufactured Controversy.
3 American Enterprise Institute. 2011. Climategate (Part II)
4 American Enterprise Institute. 2010. How Climate-Change Fanatics Corrupted Science.
5 ExxonSecrets.org. 2012. Factsheet: American Enterprise Institute, AEI.
6 UCS. 2013. Unreliable Sources: How the News Media Help the Koch Brothers and ExxonMobil Spread Climate Disinformation.
7 Americans for Prosperity. 2013. AFP GA Activists Fire Major Shot Against Obama’s ‘War on Consumer Energy’ Agenda.
8 PR Watch. 2012. Koch's AFP Complains about Gas Prices, but Koch Speculation Helps Fuel High Prices at the Pump.
9 Koch Industries. 2010. Koch and Americans for Prosperity/Citizens for a Sound Economy.
10 Americans for Prosperity Foundation. About AFP Foundation: Directors.
11 Americans for Prosperity. About AFP: Directors.
12 Investigative Reporting Workshop. 2013. Koch database: donations to nonprofits.
13 American Legislative Exchange Council. 2011. ALEC Energy Principles.
14 The Cap Times. 2011. Brendan Fischer: CO2 is good for you, and other ALEC talking points.
15 Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. 2011. The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment.
16 PR Watch. 2013. A Side of Climate Change Denial with Your Coffee? ALEC Dishes up Some Hard to Swallow Spin with the Heartland Institute.
17 Climate Progress. 2012. WeatherBELL Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi Denies Basic Physics: ‘CO2 Cannot Cause Global Warming’
18 ExxonSecrets.org. 2012. Factsheet: ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council.
19 Greenpeace. 2011. Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group. American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
20 Carolina Journal Online. 2008. Friday Interview: Global Warming Policy Costs.
21 Washington Post. 2012. Climate skeptic group works to reverse renewable energy mandates.
22 Greenpeace. 2013. Koch Brother Fronts Flood into Kansas to Attack Wind Industry.
23 Cato Institute. Global Warming.
24 Cato Institute. 2005. Hot Enough for You? The state of the global-warming debate, and politicking.
25 Cato Institute. 2013. Federal Climatologists Pen Fantasy Novel.
26 Cato Institute. 2009. Cato Handbook for Policymakers.
27 Cato Institute. 2012. Cato Institute and Shareholders Reach Agreement in Principle.
28 Cato Institute. 2012. Cato Institute and Shareholders Reach Agreement in Principle.
29 Greenpeace. 2011. Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: Cato Institute.
30 Competitive Enterprise Institute. 2009. 10 Cool Global Warming Policies.
31 Competitive Enterprise Institute. Global Warming FAQ.
32 Competitive Enterprise Institute. 1991. Why Worry About Global Warming.
33 UCS. 2009. New Disinformation Ads Argue for More Carbon Dioxide.
34 UCS. 2013. Timeline: Legal Harassment of Climate Scientist Michael Mann.
35 UCS. 2013. Fossil Fuel Industry Funders of Climate Contrarian Groups, 2001-2011.
36 Greenpeace. Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: Competitive Enterprise Institute.
37 UCS. 2012. Scientists Who Had Emails Stolen Ask Heartland Institute to End Attack on Climate Science.
38 UCS. 2012. Who’s the Crazy One Here?
39 Heartland Institute. 2012. Do You Still Believe in Global Warming?’ Billboards Hit Chicago.
40 Heartland Institute. 2013. Heartland Institute Celebrates Earth Day with Release of New Book.
41 ExxonSecrets.org. Factsheet: Heartland Institute.
42 The Guardian. 2013. How Donors Trust distributed millions to anti-climate groups.
43 The Center for Public Integrity. 2013. Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states.
44 Heritage Foundation. 2013. Climate Change: The Cost of “Bold Action”
45 Heritage Foundation. 2013. With Climate Change Science Unsettled, a Carbon Tax is Even More Useless.
46 Heritage Foundation. 2009. Sen. Inhofe Discusses Climategate, “The Greatest Scandal in Modern Science”
47 Heritage Foundation. 2013. 10 Questions for DOE Nominee Ernest Moniz.
48 Heritage Foundation. 2010. How the “Scientific Consensus” on Global Warming Affects American Business—and Consumers.
49 Heritage Foundation. 2009. Global Warming Conference: The Science of Climate Change
50 Greenpeace. 2011. Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: The Heritage Foundation.
51 ExxonSecrets.org. 2012. Factsheet: Heritage Foundation.
52 UCS. 2012. ExxonMobil Corporation.
53 Institute for Energy Research. Climate Change Overview.
54 ExxonSecrets.org. Factsheet: Institute for Energy Research.
55 Investigative Reporting Workshop. 2013. Koch database: donations to nonprofits.
56 Manhattan Institute. 2007. Realities and Uncertainties of Global Warming.
57 Media Matters. 2011. Who Is Robert Bryce?
58 Media Matters. 2011. Who Is Robert Bryce?
59 ExxonSecrets.org. 2012. Factsheet: Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research.
60 Greenpeace. 2011. Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group: The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warmin...tion/global-warming-skeptic.html#.Vpzb7ZqLTcs

 

Oh sweet jesus, If I am not mistaken astro's meltdown has led to massive copy and pastes from one denial site about conspiracy theory. Now Tobes is posting conspiracy theory pages too

Lets not discuss science, lets talk about "denial" and garbage
3 minute meltdown strikes again.
Almost as laughable as your copying and editing of stuff to "make it your own"
Total meltdown, conspiracy meltdown, irony much

FYI a green nut pretended to be heartland institute's director and requested their financial info and got it, and it showed no generous funding from Exxon, strange that you missed that #factsoverfiction

Now back to rational posting instead of conspiracy theory meltdown

Irony is me being called a CT for talking about the actual evil oil companies do, and now here ye are off on a conspiracy theory about oil companies being evil over CO2. B.. A..H..A..H..A
On the curious anachronism that is the academic journal business model
Posted on January 14, 2016 by Blair
While discussing my post on the benefits and limitations of peer review in the reporting of interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary science I came to recognize that I was taking a lot of things for granted. The biggest is that a lot of my readers do not come from a background in academia. As such, while many have heard of the concept of peer review it is likely that many don’t actually know how the system works. The intention of this blog post is to fill a gap in that knowledge base. In doing so I hope I can express how ridiculous the current system we are using really is; this system that thrives by charging people to read work that has already been paid for by those same readers.

To understand this topic you have to recognize that the scientific journal system is a throw-back to a time when publishing was hard and expensive and thus reserved for a privileged few. It started as a system to allow universities and learned bodies (like the American Medical Association) to publish the results of their members. Because of this, much of the work involved was voluntary and unpaid. Over time the role of universities and learned bodies in the journal business has largely been supplanted by a limited number of for-profit publishing houses. Yet somehow in the process the whole “voluntary” and “unpaid” component managed to stick around.

Before we go any further there are some details about the process that the academics in the audience take for granted but the non-academics might find a bit startling. We all know that in our Canadian academic system professors are hired and paid by universities and colleges (i.e. they are paid from the public purse). In their roles they are typically expected to split their activities between teaching and mentoring; academic research; and administrative duties. The relative breakdown of each is dictated by their position. In colleges the professors tend to teach more and research less, in the high-pressure universities some professors might only teach one class a year if their research/administrative duties are sufficiently onerous.

Since individual universities does not have endless piles of cash professors also have to go to outside sources to get additional monies to funds their research. Research funds can come from a variety of sources with the biggest in the social and natural sciences being the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHERC) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), respectively. These are, once again, government funds given to scientists and universities to encourage research.

As described, we have highly trained professionals who were, for the most part, educated on the public dime. They are now employed by publicly-funded universities. These people do years of research, once again paid for by the public, and as a part of their grants are required to share the fruits of their research with the world. Now here comes the bizarre part, instead of making that information freely available they are expected to publish their results through the academic journal system. As I noted above, in the old days journals were put out by universities or learned societies. Nowadays, the vast majority of journals are published by a handful of for-profit companies. These companies make their money by limiting access to the information in their journals through subscriptions. Now the costs for these journal subscriptions are a matter of ongoing interest. As described in this article different universities can pay different prices for the same journals. Alternatively the journals also charge to access to individual articles and those charges can range from the ridiculous to the sublime. Consider that access to an article from “Science” may cost you $30 for a single day’s access to the file.

Let’s get back to the process. Once a professor has written a paper she/he will submit it to a journal. Typically the journal charges a minor submission fee (normally less than $200). The paper is then looked at by an editor, usually a specialist in the field of enquiry covered by the journal. The editor can reject the paper immediately (sometimes called a bench rejection) or can submit it for peer-review. Depending on the journal you may have a blind review, where the editor picks two or three specialists (of the editor’s choosing) to review the paper. Some journals are chummier and allow the author to suggest people who might be good reviewers (often called “a pal review” for obvious reasons). Reviewers typically aren’t compensated for their work as the peer-review process is part of the shared scientific enterprise. What this means is that while the editor may be paid for by the journal, the reviewers, like the author, are instead paid for by the public since they are almost always academics being paid a salary.

As I wrote previously, peer-reviewers serve an important, but often misunderstood role in the scientific endeavour. First they are there to confirm that the science is done in an appropriate manner. In this they are conducting a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) role within the system. They look at how the work was done to identify errors in methodology and assumptions etc…

Reviewers also serve an editorial role, suggesting changes to make the work more comprehensible, suggesting additional analyses to confirm the validity of results…that sort of thing.

The final role of the peer-reviewer is that of gate-keeper, to identify if the science presented in the paper is novel and interesting enough to warrant space in the journal. A reviewer might say that an article is beautifully written, including all the right tests but that it is not a good fit for the journal in question. This final role is a legitimate one within the system, but as members of the climate science community can tell you, it also risks problems if one part of the community chooses to block the research from a different branch.

Typically the reviewers will suggest changes etc.. and the paper is sent back to the author for revisions. If the revisions are minor then a quick fix and another once-around would be considered sufficient. Sometimes the revisions are major and the paper has to go back for major re-work and another round of peer review thereafter.

Assuming the article makes it through peer review, editing, re-submission etc… it can then be chosen for publication. In that case, the author(s) will be expected to pay fees associated with the typesetting of the manuscript including bonus fees for colour pictures and other extras. If the authors want to make the paper available online for free they can arrange to pay a secondary fee to allow free access to the paper. Having concluded the arduous task of preparing the paper, editing the paper and getting it ready for publication the strangest part of this whole odyssey occurs: the author is expected to give up their copyright for their completed document in order for it to be published in the journal? The author retains certain rights but if they want to share the paper after it has been published then, with the exception of a handful of free copies made available to the author, they will need to pay for the privilege just like everyone else.

Having gone through this entire rigmarole the author then has to wait until the journal decides it is convenient to publish the article. I’ve heard of authors waiting for over a year to have an accepted manuscript published.

Once published these journals are typically pay-walled. That is they are only available for reading by subscribing customers. Typically university libraries have subscriptions. Sometimes individuals will subscribe to a particularly useful journal, but given the prices (often in the thousands of dollars a year) few individuals can afford that cost. If you, as a member of the public, want to read that journal article, you either have to have a subscription, be a member of an organization that has a subscription, or you can pay a fee to get a copy of the article (remember that $30/day?).

So let’s summarize for those whose jaws are currently sitting on the floor. Under the current system academics, who are being paid salaries from the public purse, carry out research, which is typically funded entirely using public monies. The academics write up their research and submit it to a journal. The journal then sends the paper to additional academics. These academics (who are fully paid for by the public) then conduct a detailed peer-review of the paper, for which they receive no compensation from the journal. This research that was bought and paid for by the public is then transferred holus-bolus to a private organization that will charge often exorbitant fees to allow the public access to the details and outcome of that research?

The journals argue that they add value through a screening process, except as we have noted the vast majority of that screening (the peer review) is carried out by other academics. These academics are not being paid to carry out this task by the journals, no; they are doing it free-of-charge as part of their work as publicly financed scientists. I will say this once more because it is so astounding, the public pays for researcher’s salaries, they finance the research and then pay the peer-reviewers to conduct the peer review and in the end they cannot access the information unless they pay an exorbitant subscription fee or an article access fee.

Now to be clear, there is a movement to open up access to scientific information with the Public Library of Science (PLoS) being at the forefront of said movement. That being said the existing journals are working very hard to keep the system as it is because, well because it is extremely profitable. Sadly, many of our public institutions require their staff to publish in “high impact factor” journals. Would anyone like to guess which journals make the list of “high-impact factor” journals? If you said the for-profit ones, then you would be guessing right. This self-perpetuating, anachronistic, money-making machine is truly a glory to behold….

 

I guess conspiracy theory is actually better than documented scientific fraud by universities.

Hilarious, endemic real scientific fraud, meh, conspiracy theory YEAH!

Oh the ****ing irony

Tobes you were only just moaning about character assassinations then post one massive meltdown conspiracy theory character assassination

 

Astro you still never explained your "chart" with your sine waves and why nature should follow your big green sine, as if you know anything about ENSO

if you did you would know that past climate records have 0 predictive power on future climate. I bet you didn't know that, because you tried to state just that with your sine.

Your knowledge is pathetically weak, and your understanding inadequate. I get that your "will to win" drives you to keep posting, as with Tobes, but it is just one embarrassment after the other. Astro you actually thought Einstein's light clock proof was a real experiment

#glaciers
#daffodils
#relativity
#muonsnlightclocks
#rainisproofofscience
#hotdayequalsdoom

and now
#conspiracyloon

 

I'll pop back tomorrow for glorious replies.. **** to do, cant sit on the internought all day, unlike some eh Tobes

 

Only it's not a conspiracy theory is it?

It's plain and simple facts, why do you struggle to make that simple distinction? That wasn't one of your 'pulled out of me arse' crackpot conspiracy theories. The oil industry funded - either directly or indirectly all of the organisations listed in that piece.

Including the Heartland Institute. This is the same Heartland Institute that was backed by Phillip Morris in the '90's and argued against passive smoking and the smoking bans btw.....

#fachkts

 

Again, I don't pretend to be an expert- just trying to apply a little objectivity and common sense here.
Let's assume the figures are accurate- the high figure is total spend on climate control, so how can you compare it with profit made by the oil companies?
The only way to make an objective comparison would surely be to show spend and profit of both industries?

 

He didn't compare it. The oil company funded mechanic he copy and pasted from did.