Friday, November 27, 2009

The Death of Peer Review

Vincent Gray on Climategate: There was Proof of Fraud All Along
"IPCC expert reviewer Gray — whose 1,898 comments critical of the 2007 report were ignored — recently found that proof of the fraud was public for years."
In my undergraduate years, long ago, I majored in anthropology and history. Somewhere along the way, in the late 1970s and early '80s, a "new" discipline arose combining both fields, and others, which was dubbed Native Studies. The faculties that populated the new Native Studies departments were radical leftists from the 60's generation.

Before long, these Native Studies departments were publishing their own academic journals. A similar movement took place in what was dubbed "Women's Studies". For all I know, the emergence of Environmental Studies departments may have followed the same trail. I can't say for sure how Women's Studies and Environmental Studies academic journal publishing fared, but I do know that in Native Studies, anything that did not conform to the politically correct orthodoxy of the Indian Industry would never be published. Peer review consisted of radical leftists reviewing papers submitted by radical leftists, with the only critical thought put into the effort being to ascertain whether the party line was sufficiently followed.

Perhaps some day there will re-emerge some sort of ethics in academia. But if it seeped into the hard sciences from the soft sciences, it must be frightfully and deeply entrenched. In the meantime, I would highly recommend you send your sons and daughters to trade schools. They will get a far better education and will end up being far more useful to their communities and to society as a whole than if they are forced to absorb the crud that comes from most arts and science university faculties today.

Believe me.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Sleepy Old Bear said...

Hi. You might be interested in this blog by the author of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, Frances Widdowson. There is lots to disagree with, but also lots to enjoy. http://blogs.mtroyal.ca/fwiddowson/

November 28, 2009 12:51 pm  
Anonymous Barb saylor said...

Add to that the faculties of education

November 28, 2009 2:31 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

Thanks Sleepy Old Bear. I've been skimming through it and adding a comment or two here and there.

Barb, I've always thought professors at Colleges of Education should be required to spend at least three or four years actually in the classroom before they are allowed to teach teachers. My how things would change, if that were to happen. I am a former teacher myself. The first thing you have to do is through out all that "book learnin'".

November 28, 2009 3:55 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

*throw*

Oops.

November 28, 2009 4:01 pm  

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