The System of Scientific publishing

For some reason, my computer doesn't let me read anything published on scribd. The page always loads, and then the pages are all completely blank. Could you hit me up with some highlights?As to whether there's a problem, yes. The problem is that scientists aren't omniscient, which leads to two problems. When you see people (creationists, for example) chastising scientists, it is for one of two faults --- being excessively credulous, or being excessively skeptical. The people who edit journals are trying to walk a very fine line. No-one wants to be like the guy who published Blondlot's papers about N-rays. But also no-one wants to be like the guy who dismissed Morley's paper on plate tectonics with the comment: "This is the sort of thing that you would talk about at a cocktail party". (No-one knows who that guy was, but his comment ranks way up there with: "Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein".)Now, it is impossible for us to know the extent of this problem, because the only reason we know about any specific problem is that scientists have found it and corrected it. We can't point at any specific thing and say: "Look, science failed ..." without also being able to add: "... but then it worked, eventually!" We can't help but have a biased sample.One thing we can say is that it would be difficult for scientists to adopt as an important truth something which is Just Plain Wrong. Because what it means for an idea to be important in science is that it becomes the basis for further research; and if you build your house upon the sand, you notice when it collapses.Their errors in the negative direction cannot even be estimated. However, we should bear in mind that science is not monolithic, and that plenty of ideas which turned out to be completely crazy have managed to get a fair hearing.In the end, though, there is a problem, which is that there is not (and, I think, cannot be) any formal method for accurately deciding when an idea is too silly to be worth considering.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Bear in mind that this is a system that scientists are imposing on themselves --- if it was severely flawed, they'd have already fixed it!The change I'd most like to see is an online repository consisting of all raw data, including stuff that never gets published (this would counter the infamous "file drawer effect"). This is something that scientists can't do for themselves, it would probably require a massive multinational governmental effort.

Nice quote from Daniel Dennett: