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The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#11

Post by queuebert »

robotresearcher wrote: post #6
queuebert wrote: post #4

As a practicing scientist, I firmly believe the world would be much better off if we simply published version-controlled Jupyter notebooks on a free site, such as GitHub or ArXiv.

Do you do so? If not, why not?

I do share code that way, but the traditional ivory tower standards by which I am judged require "refereed journal publications" in high impact factor traditional journals. I'm trying to fight back against that, largely unsuccessfully.

What would help me is to have the old geezers consider GitHub issues, PRs, and commits as a type of citation and to have a better way of tracking when my code gets used by others that is more detailed than forks.

I also think citations of your work that find errors or correct things should count as a negative citation. Because otherwise you are incentivized to publish something early and wrong. Thus the references at the end of the paper should be split into two sections: stuff that was right and stuff that was wrong.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#12

Post by d110af5ccf »

rtkaratekid wrote: post #3
PhilipVinc wrote: post #2

Papers today are longer than ever and full of jargon and symbols. They depend on chains of computer programs that generate data, and clean up data, and plot data, and run statistical models on data. These programs tend to be both so sloppily written and so central to the results that it’s contributed to a replication crisis, or put another way, a failure of the paper to perform its most basic task: to report what you…

I think this almost every time I read the paper. It’s like Linus’ “show me the code.” I just want papers now to “show me the data and the code.” And include a discussion about why these results are important. I think it’s a great time for the scientific community to improve transparency on these fronts. Sincerely, someone who reads a lot of research but contributes none because I’m an amateur. Edit: when I say data,…

I agree that they should ideally come with raw data along with all code that was used to process it to produce the results as presented.

> but contributes none because I’m an amateur

I don't mean to be rude but it seems relevant to point out. Papers aren't written for the benefit of amateurs. They're written for experts who actively work in that specific field. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#15

Post by csours »

Another way to say this is "The UX of Scientific Papers is Poor"

It's not hard to imaging a better UX - for the field what are the top 5 questions you want to answer before you start reading?

Eg: Sample size, Funding, etc. Put those at the top of the paper with symbols.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#16

Post by d110af5ccf »

queuebert wrote: post #11
robotresearcher wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you do so? If not, why not?

I do share code that way, but the traditional ivory tower standards by which I am judged require "refereed journal publications" in high impact factor traditional journals. I'm trying to fight back against that, largely unsuccessfully. What would help me is to have the old geezers consider GitHub issues, PRs, and commits as a type of citation and to have a better way of tracking when my code gets used by others that…

> the references at the end of the paper should be split into two sections: stuff that was right and stuff that was wrong

I've seen stuff like this said before but I don't think it would work. Most citations are mixed in my experience. A few objections, a bunch of stuff you aren't commenting on, and some things you're building on. Or you agree with the raw data but completely disagree with the interpretation. Others are topical - see for more information about . Probably more patterns I'm not thinking of.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#17

Post by AshamedCaptain »

queuebert wrote: post #11
robotresearcher wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you do so? If not, why not?

I do share code that way, but the traditional ivory tower standards by which I am judged require "refereed journal publications" in high impact factor traditional journals. I'm trying to fight back against that, largely unsuccessfully. What would help me is to have the old geezers consider GitHub issues, PRs, and commits as a type of citation and to have a better way of tracking when my code gets used by others that…

> What would help me is to have the old geezers consider GitHub issues, PRs, and commits as a type of citation

As a geezer myself I am imagining what this type of request would look like in less than 5 years from now.

"What would help me is to have the old geezers consider Tiktok videos and replies as a type of citation"

i.e. if you open this particular can of worms for a very restricted subset of users (not only programmers but specifically programmers who also happen to use github), you have to open it to everyone else. I am sure plenty of Youtube research qualifies as "citation" if you start counting Github commits.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#18

Post by shadowfox »

otrahuevada wrote: post #13

I myself enjoy reading papers. At least after I transfer them to a single column, 14/16pt tall font with real headers, that is. The graphic format itself is dated and annoying, yes, but I find the expositional tone and immediately searchable references pretty cool.

How do you go about converting the papers?

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#19

Post by d110af5ccf »

csours wrote: post #15

Another way to say this is "The UX of Scientific Papers is Poor" It's not hard to imaging a better UX - for the field what are the top 5 questions you want to answer before you start reading? Eg: Sample size, Funding, etc. Put those at the top of the paper with symbols.

Some medical journals have done something very similar to this for quite some time. They also define any acronyms used and have a brief summary of the key results.

Re: The Scientific Paper is Obsolete (2018)

#20

Post by 14 »

PhilipVinc wrote: post #2

Papers today are longer than ever and full of jargon and symbols. They depend on chains of computer programs that generate data, and clean up data, and plot data, and run statistical models on data. These programs tend to be both so sloppily written and so central to the results that it’s contributed to a replication crisis, or put another way, a failure of the paper to perform its most basic task: to report what you…

I remember in grade school reports seemed to logical. Propose something, create a hypothesis what you think you will see, record your data and what you observe during the experiment, summarize the results as to what actually happened vs what you initially expected. Most papers now seem like a foreign language and I can only glimpse at what is happening relying on some math genius to reply the significance.
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