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Bias Against Novelty in Science
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#22Intuitively this sounds like confirmation for the current system. The thing is, that it takes time to understand truly novel research, while a measurement like the discovery of the Higgs has a immediate impact, because the Higgs mechanism was studied for 40 years.
(To be clear, I believe that the focus on citations is stupid for other reasons, but this does not seem to be a failure of the system.)
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#23My aunt's been studying the sun magnetic field for decades. She has measured (yes, measured) parts of the sun inner magnetic field (quite complex to do actually). Div(B) not null there. She can't get it published because Maxwell's equations and it's a "new" discovery. Maxwell starts with "in the void", I think we can agreed that centre of the sun is not the void. It is incredible that scientist MEASURING stuff can't get its measures published in recognized science papers.
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#24Having experienced bias against publishing truly novel findings, I can testify this form of bias is a potential hazard re: scientific progress.
Back in the early 2000's, in the course of clinical practice I encountered some unexpected outcomes of treatment which correlated to a particular, if unexpected diagnosis. I tried to find info about this, but to my surprise a thorough search of the literature came up empty.
I felt a duty to report my observations. Putting it into a formal paper was difficult for me to accomplish, but did get it organized. Believing in the idea of open access, I decided to submit to a newly established open-access publisher.
Peer review did not go smoothly. Because the subject had never been reported before, at least in a peer-reviewed journal, the reviewers expressed doubt about the reality of the data. One "peer" was determined to disparage the report to the extent of making glaringly inaccurate, distorted comments about the nature of the condition in the subjects of my report. After a rigorous defense of data and procedure the editors decided to ignore the negative review and the report was published.
Novelty is not only apparent in terms of methodology or cross-discipline application of ideas, but also arises when attempting to share previously unreported observations. The closed-mindedness of many in the academic community (who are the predominant peer reviewers) is apparently a pervasive problem in the sciences, and possibly endemic in academic culture in general.
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#25Good! There should be a bias against new things until the new things are proven to be correct. Optimizing science based on "what do people who want to get tenure want" seems like a great way to be bad at science.
That's a good point. Do you feel this is becoming more of the norm in certain realms of scientific research? what is your view?
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#26My aunt's been studying the sun magnetic field for decades. She has measured (yes, measured) parts of the sun inner magnetic field (quite complex to do actually). Div(B) not null there. She can't get it published because Maxwell's equations and it's a "new" discovery. Maxwell starts with "in the void", I think we can agreed that centre of the sun is not the void. It is incredible that scientist MEASURING stuff can't…
My expectations are that if she discovered a magnetic monopole there's probably something wrong with her calculations.
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#27If anything I've heard the other thing - that it's hard to get published unless something is novel enough. There's not much interest in studies that just confirm or slightly extend, which is why reproducibility becomes an issue.
Somewhat novel research is fine, just as long as it conforms to what is expected. Novel AND counter to the expectations of the field is much harder to publish.
sad but very true
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#28It's likely not the same phenomenon, but I'm reminded of the story of Millikan's oil drop experiment and how the accepted value slowly changed from Millikan's reported value to the curent accepted value.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment#Millikan.2...
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#29Obligatory mention of Rupert Sheldrake: http://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-scien...
Obligatory mention of pseudoscience in a topic about real science: check. Might as well hail Deepak Chopra as Einstein reincarnated.
Re: Bias Against Novelty in Science
#30I feel like if you break down what's being said here, that it's just a consequence of having to communicate ideas to people.
I publish "Gravitational constant is actually (some slightly more specific thing)", with extension of existing methods. Someone sees that and already will be convinced just by the title!
I publish "Gravity is actually caused by micro-gnomes pushing things around with walkie-talkes", and it's pretty novel. I don't really have existing work to base it on.
Why should anyone believe my work has any basis in reality then? The burden of proof is on me to convince people. Fool-proof methodology, simple explanations. Bringing it back to current understanding helps. But I'm the person saying everything is different, the world owes nothing to me just yet.
Not to mention that the header graph is totally confirmation bias. Yes, you're going to cite the original paper citing the effect you're studying. You probably won't cite most incremental research. Definitionally novel papers that get any traction will collect references.
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I actually have an example of my own novel research! I'm the first person to post about a bug with Ubuntu's (at the time) new IME manager[0] on Ask Ubuntu. Turns out there was a real thing (and it wasn't me being silly). So now I have 550 points on Ask Ubuntu because of this question, and get notifications about it all the time.
I have cornered the "Ubuntu 13.10 keyboard bug" citation space. Mainly for being first. And I have gotten extra rewarded for it. Novel papers enjoy the same perks when they get any traction.
[0]: http://askubuntu.com/questions/356357/how-to-use-altshift-to...