Saturday, April 15, 2017

Blog Score Better Than Scientific Articles

According to Daniel Lakens, experimental psychologist at the Human-Technology Interaction group at Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands who has tried to measure blogs and journal article on some dimension.
Blogs, on average, score better on some core scientific values, such as open data and code, transparency of the peer review process, egalitarianism, error correction, and open access. It is clear blogs impact the way we think and how science works.  There is no intrinsic reason why blogs should have higher scientific quality than journal articles. It’s just that the authors of most blogs I read put some core scientific values into practice to a greater extent than editorial boards at journals. 
 
Read his argument at 

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Days of "Trust Me" Science Over?

In a 228-194 vote the House of Representatives have voted 1) to require that data used to support new regulation be released to the public and 2) to require any scientific studies be replicable.  What a novel idea!

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1430/text

According to Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas,
The days of 'trust me' science are over.  In our modern information age, federal regulations should be based only on data that is available for every American to see and that can be subjected to independent review. That’s called the scientific method.
The bill would allow anyone who signs a confidentiality agreement to view redacted personal or trade information in data.