Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Opinion or research?

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 8/27/07, Hargus, Diana <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
>
> Just a quick survey of the academic people here:
>
> If you were to read a book authored by someone with a PhD after their name,
> with the word "Science" in the title, and published by the imprinter of the
> NAS (Joseph Henry Press), would you believe it to be a valid scientific
> book/article/study?

Not just from that description. The single most important factor here,
and one you left out, is whether or not the work had been
peer-reviewed or not. Having a Ph.D. after your name provides
surprisingly little protection against writing something that turns
out to be silly. (This is particularly true if you are writing outside
of your area of expertise.) Connected to the peer review process,
although also clearly separable, is the reputation of the journal or
publisher the work appears in. Peer review is only as good as the
reviewers you can convince to read Yet Another Paper (or book). So
journals that publish good and interesting work tend to have good
reviewers, and a virtuous cycle gets started. Similarly, poor journals
(or publishers) have to settle for less perceptive reviewers (or else
print things reviewers suggest aren't fit to print), and that's a
vicious cycle.

To be honest, I had never heard of Joseph Henry Press before, but a
quick Google search tells me that it is sort of like the trade book
imprint of the NAS. That could be promising, but it also tells me that
we're not talking about a hard core science publisher. This ain't
Springer Verlag, or even Oxford University Press (which does, however,
print a fairly wide range of titles). It's most likely a book for a
popular audience, which is fine, but most academic types would
probably be more interested in the less popular book or books behind
the book in question.

Does that make sense?

jking



> Just curious...
>
> Diana Hargus
>
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