Open Peer Review to Save the World by Philip Gibbs

Phil,

Excellent job.

Probably not a snowballs chance in a Bessemer converter of having any effect, but then a billion snowballs is an avalanche so we must start somewhere. To prove I really mean that I had this published in the 'Skeptical intelligencer' a few years ago;

Subjugation of Skepticism in Science. (I spose I should have logged that into viXra too, whadda'you think?)

Of course there are twofold problems; that one man's genius is another man's crackpot as all think differently, and we already have 'information overload' with the number of papers that DO get through (I have a growing pile of unread journals building up despite reading 20 papers a week). Overcome those problems and the ruling troglodyte hordes who have it all sewn up may start to worry.

I note 'Nature' has recently be lauded for heading the other way and insisting all references are from only the landed gentry of peers. Only marriages to sisters are allowed! You may be right, the problem may now be starting to be one of mankind's very survival.

I've had Vladimirs problems too. Some papers on arXiv, then suddenly a brick wall. Do they not also have any code of ethics? Unifying QM and SR mean nothing if nobody will publish it! (I hope you'll check out my essay).

I greatly commend your efforts to beat Christian's record as the highest scoring community peer score to be passed over in the judging. Well done and best of luck.

Peter

Philip: better peer-review would surely help. I think a key element is expansion of "blind peer review" so reviewers don't know author names. The power of ad-hom prejudice is great. Meanwhile, viXra helps by providing an open forum for challenging ideas.

Heh, clever coincidance, this was my legitimacy test:

Important: In order to combat spam, please select the letter in this menu between 'V' and 'X':

Phil,

An interesting paper here, not only showing a far higher proportion of experiments than we realise are falsely based, but then applauding treating the symptoms not the cause;

"In 2005 John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist from Stanford University, caused a stir with a paper showing why, as a matter of statistical logic, the idea that only one such paper in 20 gives a false-positive result was hugely optimistic. Instead, he argued, "most published research findings are probably false."

As he told the quadrennial International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, held this September in Chicago, the problem has not gone away."

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble">2013 Economist article.](https://

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble)

It also refers to the Nature policy.

Peter

Philip,

I would like to see your essay win this year. I am among the many independent researchers, like yourself, that experienced many years of bias. Your essay explained why for 30 years I either received curt rejections from an editorial staff or worse no response from my many attempts to contribute or even dialog. I spent a very enjoyable day reviewing your copious contributions to viXra. Thank you for starting the website. I put some thought into how to set up a peer review process and started to appreciate the difficulties. My motivation has been developing a consistent view of nature and I am concerned about where our valuable future mental resources will be spent. My grandkids will probably love the challenge of understanding as much as I did but I don't want them exposed to processes that limit their potential. We have a lot of challenges ahead and we need a world that stops fighting and wasting resources over trivial differences. I am struck by statements from authors saying that only a small fraction of people even believe in evolution of other basic science. Your statements that a good peer review process might change the future are right on.

Philip,

Wonderful to read your views on the need for Open Peer Review. I have felt this way for a very long time.

We are on the same page.

While you are opening up the world to grow its knowledge, I am working to make this knowledge available to the global public.

I eagerly await your reaction to my essay.

Thank you for your essay

-Ajay

Philip,

"Humanity faces many dangers from climate change and wars to asteroid impacts that could harm our future. Often logical reasoning does not seem to play a strong part in discussions on such subjects and even peer-review is flawed. I contend that the solution is a better system of open peer-review."

Certainly "open peer-review" is a step in the right direction in giving hearings to outside-the-moneyed-box ideas, but currently the problem seems to be money, power and access controls who is heard and who is not heard, and this is becoming global, not just a US characteristic. Without celebrity, power and access and without support by a corporate media, without representation by leaders, it is very difficult to be heard.

Climate change and wars too often fulfill agendas of the most powerful in our world. Their focus is not asteroid dangers, though open discussion in an open-peer-review forum would help. We do need to have the best ideas heard, but they are often drowned out by the oligarchy.

A repository like arXiv can be one part of change but the other part is a common effort by the growing legions of the oppressed whose clarion call need to drown out the monolithic establishment that a relentless conservative effort has already brought about. An equally relentless effort can make reason be heard and reasonable ideas applied.

Unfortunately money and power now rule not ideas or their practical application.

Repositories put me in mind of an academic setting which is becoming more influenced by the privatization movement, too often rendering some academicians compromised as well.

Good ideas and good points but I wonder what catastrophe must befall us before rationality can return. The Great Recession didn't do it. In some ways Wall Street is worse -- We needed WWII and the Depression in the 20th Century to bring the upsurge of the middle class.

What do you think, Phil?

Jim

I read your good article.

I am thinking a new h-index for an article; for example if you ask to some great scientists to give a vote to viXra.org articles (something as "I like" of facebook) in some different field (expert in quantum mechanics, relativity, etc), and there is the possibility to search for good articles in some fields, then the contents of the article is important for some great scientists, or for some expert readers; it is not necessary that the expert work on a new research to vote it, whereas now the citation is made by the same research field.

There may be a new statistical vote (index) that give the quality of the article, with a weighted average from the academic value, and the quality of the publication of the voters.

An acceleration of the diffusion of ideas, in the academic world, can change the world faster.

Dear Dr. Gibbs,

I found reading your essay truly fascinating. I hope you do not mind me making a comment about it.

As you will see if you read my essay REALITY, ONCE, I proved that although Bertrand Russell's perfect abstract proof of 1+1=2 is perfectly abstractly correct, it is a pragmatic impossible actual construct because identical states cannot exist. Everything real and imagined in the real Universe is unique, once. If you read my Theory of Inert Light that I have posted in the Comments section of some of the other essayists at this site, you will note that I have comprehensively refuted Einstein's perfect abstract Special and General Theory of Relativity.

I have submitted papers and book proposals on these two subjects to Science Journals and Science Book Publishers. I have either received no answer, or I have received a snotty answer that that particular Science Journal or Science Book Publisher does not deal in the sort of science my paper or book proposal was supposedly about.

It is only by the grace of The Foundational Questions Institute that my essay has ever been published at all. It is now being pre-judged fair and square by my peers,

Regards,

Joe Fisher

Dear Philip,

You are right on the spot with this essay. I must agree probably with everything you said, about how the peer review is done, and how should it be done, and how this can make the difference in the fate of humanity. I think I understand better the reasons why you are investing so much care in supporting open publishing and open peer review, when you could comfortably have a more "mainstream" trajectory, and ignore the struggling independent researchers. In relation to open peer review, you may be interested in this blog, from a very involved mathematician I know. I also like the thorough classification of various types of bias. I think your essay is a very down-to-earth example of applied critical thinking and freedom, about which I merely theorize in my essay.

Best regards,

Cristi

Dear Dr Gibbs,

Interesting essay.

You say: "The hardest part of open peer-review will be to design a system of unbiased evaluation."

Given your list of biases it does follow that the best test of non-bias is when ALL THOSE to whom ultimately a communication is addressed judge it to be non-biased. Such judgement must be ever a work in progress. But it is in human nature that once it finds you DO NEED its endorsement to survive then naturally it wants to dissent (even as a lobby group) simply to assert influence. And then you (the gate keeper) are in danger of seeking to placate in other to remain relevant.

So then your question remains THE question:

"How do you let anyone have their say while still maintaining an orderly process and arriving at an unbiased conclusion?" and more importantly, I say, how do you manage not to enthrone some form of mediocrity.

It seems to me the success of Wikipedia is a very good example of the relevance of your argument. Personally, I still wonder how come Wikipedia works so well. It is probably because it tries to MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS but leaves its OWN positions as ever a work-in-progress; same tenet the scientific method is aimed to be. That said, it still is important to study why or how Wikipedia actually comes to work.

Given the significance of science presently in steering humanity your angle of essay is a most crucial and practical one. By extension if we can find a way of "wiki-editing" our influence/votes on governance then we have a new improved form of democracy! This is how constructive revolution should happen; one practice at a time!

Meanwhile, how about some open peer-review here . Strictly a review; no being nice!

Thanks again for this essay.

Bests,

Chidi

Hi Philip,

your essay seems to be very popular. It is well written and a pleasure to read and I think you are supporting a good cause.I can't help thinking, since you raise the issue of bias, that being founder of the viXra.org e-print archive has greatly influenced your interpretation of the essay question. As you point out though Daniel Kahnman reminds us that we are all prone to many different kinds of bias. Allan Savory:How to green the worlds deserts and reverse climate change This guy is someone already attempting to steer the future, having learned from his own mistake. I'm sorry'in my book' there are bigger issues than peer review. Good essay nontheless. Good luck, Georgina

It is also true that there has been a lot of research giving solutions to problems but the solutions are not implemented. For example, there is pandemic vitamin D deficiency, vitamin D deficiency is linked to some internal cancers and osteoporosis. "Vitamin D deficiency: a worldwide problem with health consequences". Michael F Holick and Tai C Chen, Am J Clin Nutr vol. 87 no. 4 , April 2008 Ironically probably in part exacerbated by the pushing of "sun safe practices" to avoid skin cancer. Night time light exposure is also linked to increased risk of some internal cancers."Blue light has a dark side', Harvard Health Publications, May 2012

Further research and peer review will not prevent cancers from those causes but public information broadcasts, or other kinds of outreach, on the increased risk of night time blue light exposure and vitamin D deficiency from lack of sufficient sun exposure would help people make lifestyle choices that reduce their cancer risk. Why don't we all have lights that change wavelength output through out the day? Why aren't we all informed that working late under fluorescent lighting in front of a bright computer screen is increasing cancer risk?

I'm not disagreeing with you, a good peer review system that helps researchers is desirable but it is not the be all and end all.

Hi Philip,

Great essay! I agree with you, open peer review is essential for science, and science is our guide to a better future. However I don't think peer review is the only problem with science. In my essay Improving Science for a Better Future, I try to identify those aspects of science that need improvement and discuss possible solutions; peer review is one of those aspects.

Best regards,

Mohammed