Scully Posted October 8, 2015 Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 Not wanting to hijack another thread I did a bit go googling and came up with this:http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/peer-review.html According to wiki' there are several types of peer review, but I understood that peer review was undertaken by other scientists/experts/professionals in the same field. As far as I'm aware there has been no other body undertaking the study of what effects spent lead shot has on the environment or human health other than the LAG. I'm also aware that peer review can also comprise of other experts/professionals in the field either agreeing or disagreeing with what the submitted report contains. Bearing this in mind that there is an undeniable agenda at work here, how does any peer review either substantiate as genuine or dismiss as false or misleading or exaggerated, claims made by any body of work submitted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STOTTO Posted October 8, 2015 Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 How refreshing that some trusting souls still have faith! Many years ago when in the pub I asked a used car dealer friend of mine what the mileage was on the clock of a car I had seen when passing her high street showroom. “What do you want”? She said!! So I believe that ‘Peer Reviews’ depend upon the criterion of whether you are buying or selling! Just a comment from the 'Faithless' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehb102 Posted October 8, 2015 Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 Bearing this in mind that there is an undeniable agenda at work here, how does any peer review either substantiate as genuine or dismiss as false or misleading or exaggerated, claims made by any body of work submitted? Ooh. Good question. Very few people in academia are totally 100% happy with the peer review system. It is based on the expertise and views of individuals doing the reviewing, and as their names are nearly always kept secret you are vulnerable to their prejudices/incompetences. As the peer review process is part of the process of submitting to journals, the editor of the journal and their views and the publisher also plays a big part. They choose the reviewers - easy? hard? liable to disagree on principle/because they don't like competition/because they can't be bothered to read it properly? - to suit their own agenda and prejudices. Some journals are known for being less rigorous than others. Also, if an error is made in analysing the data it can be very hard to spot. Good post on this here: http://crackingtheenigma.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/on-peer-review.html. Some journals accept any old thing (allegedly). Some journals make you pay for inclusion. If it's proper, good quality science they should make their raw data available for other people to analyse. There are so many ways you can skew results - excluding some samples for example - that unless you see the raw data and you check yourself you can't be sure that they are right. A peer reviewer should look at the whole paper and check these things. The editor should be checking that the peers do this. Sometimes it takes more studies, people failing to replicate the results you got, to show you were wrong. So a peer review alone is not what substantiates as genuine or dismisses as false or misleading or exaggerated. That also involves editors and publishers. I would like to direct the reader to this article: http://www.cracked.com/blog/8-obvious-signs-statistics-are-lying-to-you/.Ithink that says it all. If you have a piece of work someone is holding up as good evidence because it's peer reviewed, they should be publishing their data. Then you can do your own analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grrclark Posted October 8, 2015 Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 (edited) Scully, it is a very good point for discussion, as Liz highlighted above peer review is subject to criticism as it has many potential areas where it can be abused especially in the case of the LAG report where the peer reviewers are being appointed by Defra. Should they choose to appoint other academics or professionals who have a vested agenda in support of the LAG findings then that would be abuse of the process. Ultimately though the full LAG report and the associated peer review will be made public and so is therefor open to scrutiny and challenge by anybody. Of course there will be folks who will exhibit partiality on either side of the debate. The really big problem though is that there is no real impartial and purely evidence based academic opinion on the subject, it is all based on a level of subjectivity and speculation influenced by partiality and there is little real objectivity as there are so many variables. My gut feeling is that coming out in support of the LAG and acting upon that by changing legislation would have an impact that goes well beyond shooting. If we arrive at a conclusion that a relatively very small amount of lead deposited over a very large area of ground can be compellingly shown to have a direct impact on human health then there will be a tidal wave of similar claims from other environmental groups who have a bee in their bonnet about anything and everything. In this respect comparison to vehicle or other environmental emissions is fair as it becomes an argument about risk based on the volume of bad stuff relative to exposure to people. I suspect/hope unless there is something absolutely compelling that cannot be refuted then the government will stay with the status quo. The burden was on the LAG to demonstrate beyond any measure of reasonable doubt that lead from shooting presents a direct risk to human health in order to facilitate a change in the law. That also means those that are peer reviewing must be able to demonstrate that they have subjected the LAG findings to a greater level of scrutiny in order to validate that claim. The evidence is so subjective and speculative that I don't believe that could actually happen. In information theory, or statistical modelling, there is a factor known as Information Entropy (or Shannon Entropy) which in simple terms is the measure of uncertainty associated with random variables. Or another way to describe it is as a measure of confidence in the repeatability of findings or results that are subject to a host of random variables. If we were to apply a calculation of information entropy to the scientific premise across all of the LAG arguments, I think the number would be very high suggesting that the findings would be subject to a very high level of uncertainty. The basis of the peer review is likely to be based upon information theory and not a reworking of any areas of study or commissioning any areas of new study, otherwise we would be waiting another 5 - 10 years for anything to be agreed. In simple terms if the peer review panel cannot establish a suitable level of accuracy, reliability and repeatability of the initial assumptions then the whole thing has to be tossed out as it cannot stand up to scrutiny as the information entropy will be far too high so there can be little confidence in the accuracy of claims. Edited October 8, 2015 by grrclark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scully Posted October 8, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 A very informative post GC. I too am of the opinion that there is 'no real impartial and purely evidence based academic opinion on the subject', and your next paragraph is an entirely logical and reassuring point well made. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pimpkiller Posted October 8, 2015 Report Share Posted October 8, 2015 Cough cough climate change Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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