New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others • Hacker News Board

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#151

Post by bumby » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:19 PM UTC

executesorder66 wrote: post #98

bumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field. It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work…

Didn't you ask them "But didn't you say this was uspublishable?" and what was their response?

I did not. Maybe I was being weak or maybe I didn’t want to try and make them look bad in front of their peers but I did not bring up any of the previous conversations during the defense

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#152

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #104

bumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field. It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work…

Since the first and second interactions were 4 or more years apart, it is entirely conceivable that the field had moved enough during those years to warrant a genuine change in opinion.

[deleted]

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#153

Post by bumby » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:23 PM UTC

ScottBurson wrote: post #124

bumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field. It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work…

I guess the lesson is, when an advisor rejects your thesis idea, get them to put their reasons in writing.

I had their rejections in email. Ultimately, the committee brought them around and accepted my thesis so I didn’t feel it was worth burning those bridges.

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#154

Post by remus » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:31 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #114

The root problem is the reward system in academia. Even today, when the relevant players are discussing how to improve it, the question is always phrased as needing to find better ways to reward excellence. If you want to reward excellence, you're by definition looking for the exceptional, the surprising. It might sound good, and surprising discoveries are necessary, but they're not the only thing that's good for sci…

> If you want to reward excellence, you're by definition looking for the exceptional, the surprising. It might sound good, and surprising discoveries are necessary, but they're not the only thing that's good for science.

I think this depends a lot on how you define 'excellence'. I agree that currently 'excellence' == novel and interesting findings, but we could interpret it to mean 'excellent science' in the broader sense, where showing that another study fails to replicate, or getting a negative result, are equally important parts of the scientific process.

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#155

Post by bumby » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

conjectures wrote: post #149

bumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field. It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work…

Well I guess the problem there is inviting them to your defence. People gonna people.

True. In retrospect, I was a bit naïve.

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#156

Post by williesleg » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:36 PM UTC

Nice! Get some Hydroxychloroquine research done, it's cheap and effective according to the doctors! But not big pharma!

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#157

Post by maze-le » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:43 PM UTC

bobloblaw45 wrote: post #140

bumby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience: I proposed a thesis to an advisor who deemed it unlikely to work. He ran it by a colleague who came to the same conclusion. I went to a different major and pursued the same thesis and invited the previous faculty who initially turned it down to the defense because it was relevant to their field. It was frustrating to hear them voice their opinions in the defense that they felt, “of course it world work…

I would have challenged them to a duel.

But be sure to put all your brilliant thoughts into writing and send it to a friend, you just might get a whole area of mathematics named after you...

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#158

Post by bluenose69 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #38

icebergwarrior wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're at it, why not make public whoever audited or referred the paper? Why does that need to be secret?

People might retaliate against a colleague who gave a bad review.

True, and just imagine if the reviewer were a PhD candidate who would be seeking a job in a few years.

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#159

Post by elliekelly » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #130

spidersouris wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know which book?

It's one of the three of his books I own, I'm afraid I can't easily narrow it down further. (I own all three as audiobooks, and I recall Simon Jones reading it, but it turns out he read all three.) • Predictably Irrational • The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty • The Upside of Irrationality

Tangentially related I wish there were a way to “search” within audio books. Once you’ve finished the book its almost impossible to figure out where a specific chapter or passage is if you’d like to go back.

Re: New academic journal only publishes 'unsurprising' research rejected by others

#160

Post by gus_massa » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

mycall wrote: post #84

gus_massa wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would require a lot of babysitting. Some objects have a few slightly different definitions (for example,one book has a definition, and the other book the definition is 1/2 of that). Sometimes the programs to run the calculations don't use the same variables than the paper (perhaps the team changed the opinion, or the main reference, and the graph must show x+y vs y). Sometimes the work that should be included in t…

> It is not usual to get a bunch of data and just publish it without some additional work. I thought that is what data lakes and event sourcing is suppose to solve.

I'm not sure what that means, but we are not using it.

In medicine some studies are preregistered, but one of the lessons of Covid-19 is that each week there is a new study that is clearly unregistered, without a control group or with a definition of control group that makes me cry (like "an unrelated bunch of guys in another city").

I think the people in particle physics have a clear process to "register" what they are going to measure and exactly how they are going to processes it. (The measurements are too expensive and too noisy, so it is very easy to cheat involuntarily if you don't have a clear predefined method.) Anyway, I don't expect them to have the paper prewritten with a placeholder for {hint, evidence, discovery}.

In most areas you just put in the blender whatever your hearth says and hope the best. Or run a custom 5K LOC Fortran 77 program (Fortran 90 is for hipsters).

If you get an interesting result for X+A, Y+A and Y+B, you probably try X+B before publishing because the referee may ask, or more B because B looks promising.

If you run a simulation for N=10, 20, 30 and get something interesting, you try to run it for N=40 and N=50 if the interesting part is when N is big, or for N=15 and N=25 if the program is too slow and the range is interesting enough.

And it is even more difficult in math. You can't preregister something like "... and in page 25 if we are desperate we will try integration by parts ...".