Nature: Publish peer reviews

[Kalliope]

This was an interesting read from representatives for the UK Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute about pros and cons concerning allowing peer reviews to be published.

One argument they raise which I've never thought of is:

Many benefits would accrue from publishing peer reviews (see ‘Potential benefits of published review’). The scientific community would learn from reviewers’ and editors’ insights. Social scientists could collect data (for example, on biases among reviewers or the efficiency of error identification by reviewers) that might improve the process. Early-career researchers could learn by example. And the public would not be asked to place its faith in hidden assessments.

Nature: Publish peer reviews

The comment is accompanied by a great illustration from David Parkins

 

[Dolphin]

Quite a number of journals publish the peer reviews. I have often found them interesting including to learn more about researchers’ views. I remember one comment by Pariante (funded by MRC) was quite revealing. Might post later.

 

[Dolphin]

Quite a number of journals publish the peer reviews. I have often found them interesting including to learn more about researchers’ views. I remember one comment by Pariante (funded by MRC) was quite revealing. Might post later.

This model doesn't fit me anyway. I wasn't diagnosed till 5.5 years into the illness. If I recall correctly, I took two days off school after an infection (but not in bed because nobody in our house used to go to bed when ill) and then back to school full-time with a minimum of a 1 mile walk to use public transport home (I continued to get a lift in in the morning).

I imagine lots of other people are similar. If you don't have a diagnosis, it's not that easy to do a lot of "excessive rest".

 

[Trish]

Blimey, what planet does Pariante live on. I nearly swore so loudly you would all be blushing...

 

[Hutan]

That's a really interesting review from Pariante @Dolphin. It goes a long way to explaining why quite a few papers we see appear to have been written by authors with split personalities and why abstracts often bear only a passing resemblance to the content of the study.

Yes, (not wanting to take the thread off the topic of peer reviews, but..).
Regarding this idea that people with ME over rested after an illness and that this is the cause of our illness - I have to say that this is stupid beyond words.

My son and I pretty much kept doing our usual activities for all but a few days of our initial illness; I actually travelled to a remote and hot part of the world and did some physically and cognitively demanding work. My daughter, who was initially more affected and suffering extremely bad pain, was kept in hospital resting for 3 days, with suspected appendicitis and then rested at home for a week or so more. (She then quite quickly tried (and, despite struggling a lot, largely managed) to resume her usual full schedule of all sorts of things including sport). She also got ME, but not so badly and had mostly recovered after two years, whereas my son and I are still significantly affected after 5 years. I have wondered at times if that early enforced bed rest for my daughter was protective.

Clearly Pariante is so wedded to his prejudices that he can't listen to patients.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

= their overstatement should be replaced (compulsory) with my overstatement.

 

[Sean]

Rip the covers off the whole process. Anonymous review is just too easy to game, too easy to hide behind. I know there are some legitimate arguments for it, but full transparency remains the best intellectual disinfectant.

If we don't know what is going on, how it really operates, then how can we fix any problems with it?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Pariente review is really a very clear exposition of just how muddled the BPS thinking is. He does not appear to understand that there is no such thing as a 'psychiatric interpretation' of biological changes that is of any use in understanding causation. Psychiatric descriptions do not explain any illness as far as I know. They just describe observed phenomena. All the cause and effect attribution in psychiatry is known to be the sort of unscientific stuff that Freud made up.

I am not that keen on focusing on mitochondria but surely excessive rest is likely to have a biological explanation like feeling ill from interferon production. Where does the social bit come in? Why is a totally untestable theory based on popular prejudice better than a potentially testable theory based on biochemistry?

 

[adambeyoncelowe]

View attachment 4040
This model doesn't fit me anyway. I wasn't diagnosed till 5.5 years into the illness. If I recall correctly, I took two days off school after an infection (but not in bed because nobody in our house used to go to bed when ill) and then back to school full-time with a minimum of a 1 mile walk to use public transport home (I continued to get a lift in in the morning).

I imagine lots of other people are similar. If you don't have a diagnosis, it's not that easy to do a lot of "excessive rest".

He's barely literate, which would be my first warning sign. How can someone with this level of cognition (and the elucidation of the same) be considered a useful reviewer? No wonder he can't see the contradictions in his own statement; he probably can't make sense of what he's written either.