Many years ago in graduate school, I wasted quite a few months pursuing a project that would never ever work. What was even more frustrating is that other labs knew it wouldn't work, but they didn't bother to share their findings with us because science journals don't publish things that don't work.
In his book Climate Confusion, climatologist Roy Spencer makes the following observations. In speaking about why global warming alarmists and their complicit media counterparts sensationalize the armageddon scenario of world destruction, he points out that:
This phenomenon provides most of the impetus for hastily and poorly-drawn conclusions in science. To get published in a prestigious journal many scientists will project their findings to astronomically irrational levels and claim that "Our research on abiotic stress in creosote will one day provide all the rubber the world needs without any cost because these bushes grow wild throughout Nevada, so everyone who owns any of these shrubs on barren lots will one day be multi-millionaires" as a crude example. The truth is that, much as I like the guy, Dr. David Shintani's lab isn't remotely close to bringing any kind of alternative rubber source to market, nor will his lab by itself in our lifetime without some kind of corporate sponsorship and investiture.
In their haste to publish, graduate, and tack on a series of unintelligible vowels and consenants to the end of their names (mine are incidentally MSBMB, SSRAII, APB- whatever the heck that means) colleagues of mine have falsified data, omitted or deleted information, thrown out abnormal results without good reason, and made inaccurate claims based on a statistically insignificant number of biological and technical replicates. If you then try to piggyback on their research, by and large you may find their data and their conclusions faulty, meaning that you waste a lot of time and resources duplicating their efforts. What consequences do they face? None. I don't personally know of anyone stripped of a MS or PhD for having had their thesis/dissertation disproven.
The true tragedy is in cost to you the taxpayer and consumer. How much duplicit effort in time and money exists because people are only able to/interested in publishing breakthroughs that will exalt their own personal self-interest? Scientific journals as presently constituted concern themselves only with publishing what did work, to the exclusion of everything else we tried that didn't work with its accompanying data and explanations.
Enter the Journal of Negative Results. Would you like to know if someone already thought about trying to solve a particular scientific question with a particular technique? How did they fare? Why did they fail? Why can't they get credit for all that hard work with a publication? I think such a Journal adds value to the system of science and may save people a lot of time.
Now I lack the fudiciary means to fund such an endeavor, but I do have this- a searchable blog dedicated to any and all who would like to let the rest of us know what they have been able to disprove by their work. I may not offer a prestigious journal in which to publish, but I offer you yet another chance to get yourself on the Google or Yahoo web results for work you did and give credit where credit is due. I ask no compensation for this, and I will publish any and all information on techniques, organisms, variegations, equipment, and personnel who netted you abnormal results and didn't get you what you were aiming at, because maybe someone can serendipitously segue from your efforts and get an idea they didn't think about before all while saving everyone else time and money.
Now accepting manuscripts.
In his book Climate Confusion, climatologist Roy Spencer makes the following observations. In speaking about why global warming alarmists and their complicit media counterparts sensationalize the armageddon scenario of world destruction, he points out that:
In science, if you want to keep getting funded, you should find something earth-shaking.
This phenomenon provides most of the impetus for hastily and poorly-drawn conclusions in science. To get published in a prestigious journal many scientists will project their findings to astronomically irrational levels and claim that "Our research on abiotic stress in creosote will one day provide all the rubber the world needs without any cost because these bushes grow wild throughout Nevada, so everyone who owns any of these shrubs on barren lots will one day be multi-millionaires" as a crude example. The truth is that, much as I like the guy, Dr. David Shintani's lab isn't remotely close to bringing any kind of alternative rubber source to market, nor will his lab by itself in our lifetime without some kind of corporate sponsorship and investiture.
In their haste to publish, graduate, and tack on a series of unintelligible vowels and consenants to the end of their names (mine are incidentally MSBMB, SSRAII, APB- whatever the heck that means) colleagues of mine have falsified data, omitted or deleted information, thrown out abnormal results without good reason, and made inaccurate claims based on a statistically insignificant number of biological and technical replicates. If you then try to piggyback on their research, by and large you may find their data and their conclusions faulty, meaning that you waste a lot of time and resources duplicating their efforts. What consequences do they face? None. I don't personally know of anyone stripped of a MS or PhD for having had their thesis/dissertation disproven.
The true tragedy is in cost to you the taxpayer and consumer. How much duplicit effort in time and money exists because people are only able to/interested in publishing breakthroughs that will exalt their own personal self-interest? Scientific journals as presently constituted concern themselves only with publishing what did work, to the exclusion of everything else we tried that didn't work with its accompanying data and explanations.
Enter the Journal of Negative Results. Would you like to know if someone already thought about trying to solve a particular scientific question with a particular technique? How did they fare? Why did they fail? Why can't they get credit for all that hard work with a publication? I think such a Journal adds value to the system of science and may save people a lot of time.
Now I lack the fudiciary means to fund such an endeavor, but I do have this- a searchable blog dedicated to any and all who would like to let the rest of us know what they have been able to disprove by their work. I may not offer a prestigious journal in which to publish, but I offer you yet another chance to get yourself on the Google or Yahoo web results for work you did and give credit where credit is due. I ask no compensation for this, and I will publish any and all information on techniques, organisms, variegations, equipment, and personnel who netted you abnormal results and didn't get you what you were aiming at, because maybe someone can serendipitously segue from your efforts and get an idea they didn't think about before all while saving everyone else time and money.
Now accepting manuscripts.
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