Certainly, a less difficult method of vetting a publication that you wish to cite is by noting the number of citations it already has, in web of science. Surely, someone else has already done the difficult work of vetting the publication, especially if it comes from a prestigious institution and a publisher with a good reputation.
And papers have their own bibliographies, with their own citations, reminding of the fleas that have their own fleas to bite'em.
I personally like papers that, at least, have their own datasets. I can at least see if I can do the same statistical analysis with the data and come up with statistical results.
Another thing I can do with actual datasets is I can easily run queries on the data that can reveal 'artifacts' (unlikely values) such as exactly identical values, or other things that are simply too neat.
Often, we don't start debunking unless our tingly spider sense (or just sense of smell) tells us that something doesn't add up, or even worse, that something adds up too neatly (the sewage has perfume to disguise the odor.)
What makes me more worried about the faking by Photoshop is that it is detectable by peeping pixels, yes, but it would have been easy to fake the data in a way that it wouldn't be.
For example, spike a western blot so it shows a real extra line in about the right place (or maybe even cut it from a different image not shown), present two different microscopy images from the same sample pretending to be different patients... A bit harder, but still much easier than actually doing the work.
The ones that get caught aren't just evil, they are also lazy and stupid. And I wonder which ones manage to pass their cheating under the radar.
This disturbs me on many levels, not least because I am a 'consumer' of many medications (5 pages on my repeat prescription list!), all prescribed in the last few years. Some are prescribed 'off-label' and one is experimental. Not one doctor has ever looked at my medication list to check for interactions, or to ask me how I'm doing. Yes, I get yearly blood tests, but as an ex-medical biochemist, I'm aware that blood tests don't always show the full picture - something that was drummed into us in lectures. Do doctors not get the same admonition in their lectures?
And now, I'm wondering - do my medications actually do what they're supposed to? Was the research suss?
Evil is magnified by citation.
Certainly, a less difficult method of vetting a publication that you wish to cite is by noting the number of citations it already has, in web of science. Surely, someone else has already done the difficult work of vetting the publication, especially if it comes from a prestigious institution and a publisher with a good reputation.
And papers have their own bibliographies, with their own citations, reminding of the fleas that have their own fleas to bite'em.
I personally like papers that, at least, have their own datasets. I can at least see if I can do the same statistical analysis with the data and come up with statistical results.
Another thing I can do with actual datasets is I can easily run queries on the data that can reveal 'artifacts' (unlikely values) such as exactly identical values, or other things that are simply too neat.
Often, we don't start debunking unless our tingly spider sense (or just sense of smell) tells us that something doesn't add up, or even worse, that something adds up too neatly (the sewage has perfume to disguise the odor.)
What makes me more worried about the faking by Photoshop is that it is detectable by peeping pixels, yes, but it would have been easy to fake the data in a way that it wouldn't be.
For example, spike a western blot so it shows a real extra line in about the right place (or maybe even cut it from a different image not shown), present two different microscopy images from the same sample pretending to be different patients... A bit harder, but still much easier than actually doing the work.
The ones that get caught aren't just evil, they are also lazy and stupid. And I wonder which ones manage to pass their cheating under the radar.
This disturbs me on many levels, not least because I am a 'consumer' of many medications (5 pages on my repeat prescription list!), all prescribed in the last few years. Some are prescribed 'off-label' and one is experimental. Not one doctor has ever looked at my medication list to check for interactions, or to ask me how I'm doing. Yes, I get yearly blood tests, but as an ex-medical biochemist, I'm aware that blood tests don't always show the full picture - something that was drummed into us in lectures. Do doctors not get the same admonition in their lectures?
And now, I'm wondering - do my medications actually do what they're supposed to? Was the research suss?