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“Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#91

Post by amelius »

UncleMeat wrote: post #84
probably_wrong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who does peer review for 2-3 conferences a year, I will say that peer review is still better than any alternative proposed so far. In my circles (Computational Linguistics), getting your paper approved means that you convinced at least three PhD students with a published paper (or higher, all the way up to Professor) that your paper is good PLUS the area chair(s) considered it worth publishing. All of this…

What I wish is that peer review did not merge so many things into one step. Peer review is used to test for 1. The validity of the results 2. The novelty of the results 3. The importance of the results Papers are routinely rejected in peer review not because their methods or results are suspect but because their results are not seen as impactful enough to justify space in a conference or journal. This sucks and intro…

Why is space even an issue these days. Everything is digital anyway.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#92

Post by drited »

exmadscientist wrote: post #86
drited wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the correct interpretation of the minus signs here that you distrust journals that print ISSN on every page more than you distrust journals that print ISSN prominently? Also could you please expand on the thought process behind this heuristic?

> Is the correct interpretation of the minus signs here that you distrust journals that print ISSN on every page more than you distrust journals that print ISSN prominently? Yes. At least, that was how I interpreted the grandparent post's scale and how I tried to match it. > Also could you please expand on the thought process behind this heuristic? Have... have you ever encountered these journals in the wild? They're…

Interesting thank you!

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#93

Post by pyinstallwoes »

alimw wrote: post #24
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #13

It seems that the medium of writing will inevitably reach a point of too much information to process, malicious or not; while simultaneously increasing the risk of silos. What does a post-writing civilization look like? Is it reasonable to imagine scientific progress without the burden of having to battle the computational capability of sufficiently motivated actors who can easily manipulate authored information spac…

Mathematical claims may be formalised in a proof assistant.

The burden of proof shifting to a sacred script only understood by a minority of the population seems like giving the 0.0001% all the power.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#94

Post by pyinstallwoes »

closedloop129 wrote: post #17
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #13

It seems that the medium of writing will inevitably reach a point of too much information to process, malicious or not; while simultaneously increasing the risk of silos. What does a post-writing civilization look like? Is it reasonable to imagine scientific progress without the burden of having to battle the computational capability of sufficiently motivated actors who can easily manipulate authored information spac…

You still have the social graph of the authors. Professors are the gatekeepers of the next generation. Like venture capital, you will have to hustle your way to the top for an introduction if you are an outsider.

The social graph of the authors is precisely what computational superiority is able to manipulate due to the computational resources to create false reputation graphs that are indistinguishable from someone’s bias for base truth.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#96

Post by closedloop129 »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #94
closedloop129 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have the social graph of the authors. Professors are the gatekeepers of the next generation. Like venture capital, you will have to hustle your way to the top for an introduction if you are an outsider.

The social graph of the authors is precisely what computational superiority is able to manipulate due to the computational resources to create false reputation graphs that are indistinguishable from someone’s bias for base truth.

How is that possible? You start with a group of people whom you trust. Then you check papers where those people are co-authors. You add everybody to your group who is on an acceptable paper. On the other hand, you degrade or even remove those who are on a bad paper.

Computational resources are useless because you cannot fake papers with trusted authors. Trusted authors won't publish a bad paper because they want to keep their reputation.

All an adversary can have is something like a network of fake articles. Unlike web pages, scientific papers are not opinions. The scientific core group can check if papers are relevant and true. The scientists can limit those checks to authors whom they have met in person to minimize their time investment.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#97

Post by pyinstallwoes »

closedloop129 wrote: post #96
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social graph of the authors is precisely what computational superiority is able to manipulate due to the computational resources to create false reputation graphs that are indistinguishable from someone’s bias for base truth.

How is that possible? You start with a group of people whom you trust. Then you check papers where those people are co-authors. You add everybody to your group who is on an acceptable paper. On the other hand, you degrade or even remove those who are on a bad paper. Computational resources are useless because you cannot fake papers with trusted authors. Trusted authors won't publish a bad paper because they want to k…

How do you know if your network is the truthful one and isn't participating in deception? And given that networks are increasingly non-physical, how do you guarantee it is the person in question?

The only way reputation networks maintain durability is if they stay physically constrained and limited by physical contact. Any system built externally and allowed to represent facts and truth will be compromised due to computational superiority. It must not be a network hosted by a computer. It must run on culture and physical reality itself.

Additionally agents of deception are regularly embedded in networks to encourage malicious behavior. Spies are pretty common.

See: https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/6/252840-collusion-rin...

I think the key bias we're contesting is that I'm arguing computational superiority allows creating networks that are indistinguishable from truthful ones because they have the resources to have the "longest version of history" to act as the authority. If the history is not there, it can be fabricated and embed enough "covert actors" to maintain a narrative.

Then you also generate useful idiots who don't know they are being used to propagate misdirection or what have you. They become unable to detect any "obviously fake content" because it doesn't require fake content to conduct deception.

Very often, it is real information indeed that is most able to misdirect attention.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#98

Post by koalakeeper »

probably_wrong wrote: post #16
DoreenMichele wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer review has issues too at the moment. From what I've read, it worked when the world was a smaller place, basically. Now, peer review is another broken cog in a machine that grew organically out of past practices and which no one really intended and no one knows how to fix.

As someone who does peer review for 2-3 conferences a year, I will say that peer review is still better than any alternative proposed so far. In my circles (Computational Linguistics), getting your paper approved means that you convinced at least three PhD students with a published paper (or higher, all the way up to Professor) that your paper is good PLUS the area chair(s) considered it worth publishing. All of this…

“Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.” - Bertrand Russell

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#99

Post by closedloop129 »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #97
closedloop129 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that possible? You start with a group of people whom you trust. Then you check papers where those people are co-authors. You add everybody to your group who is on an acceptable paper. On the other hand, you degrade or even remove those who are on a bad paper. Computational resources are useless because you cannot fake papers with trusted authors. Trusted authors won't publish a bad paper because they want to k…

How do you know if your network is the truthful one and isn't participating in deception? And given that networks are increasingly non-physical, how do you guarantee it is the person in question? The only way reputation networks maintain durability is if they stay physically constrained and limited by physical contact. Any system built externally and allowed to represent facts and truth will be compromised due to com…

>How do you know if your network is the truthful one

You don't know. Evolution will decide if your seed group was good enough.

>how do you guarantee it is the person in question?

You can't. You have to role back if an identity is compromised

>It must run on culture and physical reality itself.

Yes. That's the difference between science and writing in general. Science is meant to be checked with reality.

> think the key bias ... the resources to have the "longest version of history"

History is secondary if you verify all statements. History should only grant preferred treatment.

>Then you also generate useful idiots

That's outside of the trust network. You can help them by making education easily accessible.

>Very often, it is real information indeed that is most able to misdirect attention.

That's when the game becomes interesting. You can also have truths that are not verifiable etc. It all depends on what the participatns want to know.

Re: “Is there a heuristic we might use to identify and flag questionable papers?”

#100

Post by pyinstallwoes »

closedloop129 wrote: post #99
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know if your network is the truthful one and isn't participating in deception? And given that networks are increasingly non-physical, how do you guarantee it is the person in question? The only way reputation networks maintain durability is if they stay physically constrained and limited by physical contact. Any system built externally and allowed to represent facts and truth will be compromised due to com…

>How do you know if your network is the truthful one You don't know. Evolution will decide if your seed group was good enough. >how do you guarantee it is the person in question? You can't. You have to role back if an identity is compromised >It must run on culture and physical reality itself. Yes. That's the difference between science and writing in general. Science is meant to be checked with reality. > think the k…

Largely agree with your adds. However one point you mention I've had great contemplation over:

> Yes. That's the difference between science and writing in general. Science is meant to be checked with reality.

When we live in a world that is increasingly using simulations for verification instead of reality itself, it seems as it becomes an ever increasing attack surface for controlling and manipulating what reality and truth actually is. The scary quote "Science Academics" are largely publishing statements based on mathematical models that are probalistic or theoretical with no physical extant items.

When the burden of verification is solely on the individual, yet the individual is increasingly pushed in the direction of having to believe things as facts rather than experiencing them, then it sort of compromises that integrity, no?

It seems the only way to have certainty is to be a witness and have experience over a set of events, that is the only thing that can be understood to be true (and only to you), and that is what contributes to certainty. All else is belief and unknown risk to deception.

tl;dr science is heading towards imaginary non-extant things that happen to predict physical things but they can only be verified non-physically and since certainty require physical experience then the security of the system is at risk of being corrupted.

tl;dr;dr what to do about simulations and models posing for reality?

Also interesting:

> That's when the game becomes interesting. You can also have truths that are not verifiable etc. It all depends on what the participatns want to know.

Can you expand on this? You're saying something incredibly poignant and I'd like to hear more.

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