Given the tendency of PR and news media to substantially hype most things and churn out breaking news as fast as possible in order to be first, it's probably better to be amply sure of results beforehand. Once the cat is out of the bag, it's tough to put it back or correct misconceptions.
Just last month there were a few big health news stories that turned out to be really bogus, and some press releases had pushed them out prior to formal peer review (some even in the preliminary data phase - not even formally written up or submitted yet!)
"You cannot make an announcement and then say, ‘Oops! Sorry, we were wrong!’” I wish more people would understand the importance of this. Getting things wrong is part of doing science, but premature publication before even a reasonable amount of error-checking has been done is simply incompetent. Glory-hunting by announcing a press release before peer review may lead to fame in the short term, but when errors are found it ultimately reveals incompetence and undermines confidence in scientific disciplines.
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Given the tendency of PR and news media to substantially hype most things and churn out breaking news as fast as possible in order to be first, it's probably better to be amply sure of results beforehand. Once the cat is out of the bag, it's tough to put it back or correct misconceptions.
ReplyDeleteJust last month there were a few big health news stories that turned out to be really bogus, and some press releases had pushed them out prior to formal peer review (some even in the preliminary data phase - not even formally written up or submitted yet!)
Here's another story of how LIGO research collaborators first came to suspect a legit GW detection with excitement building from rumors:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/here-s-first-person-spot-those-gravitational-waves
"You cannot make an announcement and then say, ‘Oops! Sorry, we were wrong!’”
ReplyDeleteI wish more people would understand the importance of this. Getting things wrong is part of doing science, but premature publication before even a reasonable amount of error-checking has been done is simply incompetent. Glory-hunting by announcing a press release before peer review may lead to fame in the short term, but when errors are found it ultimately reveals incompetence and undermines confidence in scientific disciplines.