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From: bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <488@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-Aug-85 12:55:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.488
Posted: Sun Aug  4 12:55:46 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 02:13:21 EDT
References: <389@iham1.UUCP> <14600031@hpfcrs.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 58

> 	>Hmmm, these seem to be mostly(or exclusively) highly partisan
> >creationist publications, I would like to see this stuff confirmed in
> >proper refereed journals! I place about as much faith in these finds
> >as I do in the Paluxy River "human footprints" - exactly none!
> >(Actually, the first reference sounds like it is even worse than
> >a creationist publication - a Von-Daenken-esque type pseudo-science
> >book)
> >
> I am sometimes amazed at folks who claim to be scientific and open minded.

I have to add to my previous remarks on this subject.  For a number
of very good reasons, scientists are unlikely to pay much attention to
an article unless it has been at least submitted to a refereed journal. 
Articles in unrefereed journals, or even more, in the house organ of 
an outfit like the ICR, simply don't carry much weight.  This may appear 
to be scientific snobbery, but it is not.  Experience has shown that
the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff, scientifically speaking,
is to subject it to rigorous scrutiny by independent, anonymous referees
prior to publication.  I know from personal experience how greatly my
own publications have been improved by this process.  Therefore, scientific
research gains its legitimacy by being published in a refereed journal.  This
does not mean that the research or its conclusions are correct - lots of
stuff slips by that should not have been published, and lots of research is
quickly outdated by new work (facts that Creationists seem to have a
hard time learning!)  Nor is it true that rejection of a work means that
it is wrong.  There are numerous examples of research that was rejected,
but later on turned out to be correct.  But submission of work to a refereed
journal does mean that the author of thought highly enough of it to allow
experts in the field to evaluate it critically.

On the other hand, if one fails to submit ones research to such
scrutiny, one as much as admits that it is not worthy of
serious consideration.  Creationists sometimes complain that their
work would be automatically rejected, but the fact of the matter is that
they have barely put that hypothesis to the test.  A recent study
showed that Creationists have submitted *hardly anything*
for publication in refereed journals (except for submissions, not related
to Creationism, in their own fields of expertise).  The very few articles
on Creationism that were submitted were in fact mostly rejected, not for
their content, but because they did not even come up the the minimal
standards of scholarship that any paper must pass.  Several articles were 
still being reviewed.  One editor volunteered that he would surely publish
papers giving evidence for creationism if they were otherwise up to the
standards of his journal, but that none had come across his desk.  I am 
sure that this is true of most journals.

So when Sarima complains that the referenced works appeared in unrefereed
sources, he is not being closed minded.  He is merely setting a very
minimal standard.

-- 
"Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from
	religious conviction."  -- Blaise Pascal

	Bill Jefferys  8-%
	Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712   (USnail)
	{allegra,ihnp4}!{ut-sally,noao}!utastro!bill	(uucp)
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