Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
the paper out for review by several anonymous experts in the field - the peers. The
term “peer” means “equal”, but is often misunderstood to mean “superior”
These peers are asked to read the paper in detail and to assess the validity of
the observations, experiments and conclusions. They may suggest that some of the
conclusions are not justified until further observations or experiments have been
performed or point out flaws in the reasoning used by the authors. They may think
that, although the conclusions are valid, they are not sufficiently important or novel
to justify publication in the journal to which they have been submitted. The edi-
tor passes on these criticisms to the authors and asks them to revise the paper in
light of the peers' comments. Such is the pressure on space in the best journals that
only those papers that contain the most innovative observations can be accepted for
publication - the others are rejected and the authors then may send them to other
journals, where the entire process is repeated.
Once a paper has been accepted into the peer-reviewed literature, its assessment
by other scientists does not stop but continues. Its conclusions are critically dis-
cussed at science conferences and in laboratories around the world. Eventually a
general consensus on a given topic emerges. An example would be the general con-
sensus that global warming has a human-made component. This does not mean that
every climate scientist agrees with this conclusion, but it does mean that the weight
of the evidence available today points in this direction. Future discoveries may of
course modify this conclusion.
Scientific ideas are always open to challenge and
change in the light of new evidence.
Contrast this elaborate assessment procedure with the lack of such procedures by
which religious claims can be assessed. How can you assess claims made in docu-
ments written hundreds or thousands of years ago by people whose knowledge of the
world was inferior to ours? You either accept such claims based on the authority of
the person making it, or you do not. What you cannot do is to assess such claims in
the same way that you can assess scientific claims by reference to the peer-reviewed
literature. This does not mean that all the claims made in the peer-reviewed lit-
erature are correct - scientists are human, they make mistakes, they are prone to
dogma, and are influenced by things such as politics, seniority, charisma and one-
upmanship - but the peer-reviewed literature is still the best source of information
about the world that we have. The same is true for the arts and the humanities - the
peer-reviewed literature in these fields of study is the best source of information
about the state of understanding in these fields, which include history, philoso-
phy and theology. You should not accept at face value any reports in the media
about scientific matters unless and until they have appeared in the peer-reviewed
literature.
Occam's Razor
The second distinctive aspect of science
,
and in my view, the most important
,
is
illustrated in Fig. 2.3.
