cassava7
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
The admission that some Cochrane members are reluctant to scientific criticism being shared openly, for everyone to review, is seriously concerning for the organisation's credibility as a whole. They should be keen on promoting post-publication peer review (à la PubPeer), not opposing it.I think inevitably the first report of a group on stakeholder engagement focused on the stakeholder engagement thus far. I think that the analysis of previous critiques of methods etc and establishing a system to ensure they are considered is a major undertaking that isn't "about making everybody happy". We will be publishing a major litany of criticisms without addressing the validity of those criticisms or the counter-arguments made to them: that is not a recipe for making everybody at Cochrane happy, for example.
While I do not know the grounds on which you favored potential picks, relying on hearsay is problematic, especially when there is (recent) evidence that the person being considered conducted poor quality work on the matter at hand. The studies involving Dr Newton that I mentioned exhibit some of the same methodological shortcomings that prompted the review to be updated in the first place. Certainly this should be grounds for choosing someone else?There was always going to be a diversity of views about exercise in this group: the other clinician, Todd Davenport, is very firmly of a different opinion. I was in favor of Julia Newton, and very not-in-favor of some others. I was in favor of her because of what I heard about her from others.
I would add that, depending on whose opinions might have been collected and had the methodological issues not been known, hearsay alone could have led to some proponents of exercise therapy for ME/CFS being selected as reviewers.
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