How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists • Hacker News Board

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#11

Post by cornchips » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:08 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #5

Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…

Institutional affiliation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame_controversy

"Searle had submitted 168 studies on aspartame"

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#12

Post by glup » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:08 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #5

Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…

On the contrary I totally agree with the author on the point regarding journal—while noisy, reputable journals generally have better editing and stronger peer review. Of course it isn't the case that less credentialed journals / authors or bad, it just increases the probability of wasting your time reading something charitably only to find massive theoretical or methodological shortcomings.

Bias = priors. Use your priors.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#13

Post by tryitnow » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

syphilis2 wrote: post #9

Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?

Because their goal is to get published so that they can move along in their careers. Their target audience doesn't require these 11 steps.

My question would be why don't donors and taxpayers (who are funding research) demand that researchers do these 11 steps?

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#14

Post by closed » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:09 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #5

Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…

You can beware of something and still read it. In general, I think it's pretty sound advice. It's less about turning your nose up at someone because they're not a professor at Harvard, and more about asking whether a group with ulterior motives has spun up an institute and is essentially self-publishing "research".

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#15

Post by danielalmeida » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:11 PM UTC

syphilis2 wrote: post #9

Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?

Because they are not writing for non-scientists.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#16

Post by glup » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:13 PM UTC

syphilis2 wrote: post #9

Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?

Because most journal articles are speaking to multiple audiences—those wanting to efficiently consume the text in a literature review (like the instruction in this article) and others who are preparing a rebuttal or an elaboration on the methods; still others are trying to understand the larger discourse / set of questions in which the paper is embedded, and don't particularly care about the specific results of any one. Journal articles as they are currently written are a decent compromise among the needs for all of these populations.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#17

Post by fabian2k » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #5

Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…

I don't find institutions valuable in this regard as well, unless you're looking for a potential conflict of interest there.

Journals is something else, mostly because finding out if it is a "real" journal can help to sort out a lot of crap. If it's a journal where you just pay to get stuff published without any peer-review that tries to look like a real scientific journal, it's pretty safe to just stop reading.

Using the prestige or impact factor of the journal as a guide for quality is likely misguided as well. Though it is a warning sign to me if a paper makes claims that look like they should be publishable in a prestigious journal, but it actually appeared in some journal nobody knows.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#18

Post by accountyaccount » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

apo wrote: post #5

Sensible advice overall, but I completely disagree with these: > Before you begin reading, take note of the authors and their institutional affiliations. and > Beware of questionable journals. Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science. These are shortcuts for the lazy, and they introduce bias into evaluation of the paper's contents. Even more than that, dispensing advice along…

>Institutional affiliation and journal imprimatur should have no bearing in science.

They shouldn't, but they do. This is reality. Industries producing research are often industries that would benefit from the research being biased in their favor. This is an important element to consider.

It's not about dismissing certain affiliations, it's about being conscious of institutional bias.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#19

Post by glup » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:16 PM UTC

tryitnow wrote: post #13

syphilis2 wrote: post #9

Why don't the authors do these 11 steps for us?

Because their goal is to get published so that they can move along in their careers. Their target audience doesn't require these 11 steps. My question would be why don't donors and taxpayers (who are funding research) demand that researchers do these 11 steps?

Because donors and taxpayers still wouldn't understand the summary version in many, many cases.

Re: How to read and understand a scientific paper: a guide for non-scientists

#20

Post by glup » Tue, Jun 27, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

I don't understand the opposition to abstracts: dense means high information content, so if you know the field you can learn a whole lot (like whether you should read this paper or another one).