|
|
|
|
Why DBTs in audio do not deliver (was: Finally ... The Furutech CD-do-something)
(S888Wheel) wrote in message ...
Huh? You seem not to understand the purpose of peer review. It does
not determine and is not the arbiter of "scientific validity."
Perhaps you don't understand it. It more or less is such an arbiter
of such things. Any scientific claims that have not been through
peer review and publishing is regarded as junk science without
merit. Well at least according to the research scientists I have
asked. Maybe you know more about it than they do. In the world
of science when one does research via experimentation that
value of that data hinges on peer review.
The mere fact that a published article made it through peer review
does NOT mean that the reviewers agree with the contents of that
article. It simply means that the reviewers assert that the methods
used are up to standard. One can publish an article that describes
a set of well conducted, well researeched, carefully controlled
experiments that reaches a conclusion that disagrees completely with
the currently accepted scientific views, even the view of the peer
review committee.
This, at least, is the stated purpose and obligation of scientific
and peer review committees that I have been a member of.
Now, that being said, there are two levels of such standards in
organizations such as the Audio Engineering Society. The first
level, acceptance of papers for presentation at conferences and
conventions, allows for a much wider latitude. You have to have
screwed up pretty obviously for a paper to get rejected for a
session presentation. This is for a couple of reasons:
1. You only need present a precis or outline of your work, so
there is no opportunity for the review process before the
work is presented.
2. You will be giving the presentation live to an audience of
your peers. They WILL scrutinize it at that time and, should
you not have achieved a level of scientific quality suitable,
quite simply, you will be ripped limb-from-limb if you are
unable to plausibly defend your position.
The second level is the publication process. The full article
must be presented in its final form and is submitted to at least
3 reviewers. These reviewers evaluate the paper given a number of
criteria: suitability to the topic, quality of research, quality
of data, yada, yada yada, and then there is a shopping list of
specific criteria that must be met: proper use of standard units
and abbreviations, is the work of primarily commercial propmotional
content (it is rejected if it is), and so on.
But NOWHERE in the reviewer's guidelines is the criteria that the
reviewer must agree with the position of the author. The work must
stand on its merits. Once published, it is then subject to a much
more lengthy, careful, skeptical review process by the community as
a whole, and the success of the author's position is NOT assured
simply because the article is published. MANY articles that were
published have subsequently been show to have reached a wrong
conclusion, through more extensive research.
But S888Wheels' claim that the peer review process, to paraphrase
from the two sets of quotes above, is
"the arbiter of scientific validity"
is simply NOT the case. It is an assurance to the reader that, in
the opinion of the reviewers, the author took appropriate care in
the PROCESS, but THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS IS NOT A SANCTION OF THE
RESULTS OF THE AUTHORS METHODS NOR OF HIS CONCLUSIONS DERIVED
THEREFROM. All due respect to S888Wheels' scientific researcher
friends, someone is not understanding the process if they claim
otherwise.
Dick Pierce
|