[WikiEN-l] "Fatally Flawed" -- Internal Britannica Review Tackles Nature Methods

[Ray Saintonge]

Steve Bennett wrote:

>On 3/22/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>*  Rearranging, reediting, and excerpting Britannica articles. Several
>>of the "articles" Nature sent its outside reviewers were only sections of,
>>or excerpts from Britannica entries. Some were cut and pasted together from
>>more than one Britannica article. As a result, Britannica's coverage of
>>certain subjects was represented in the study by texts that our editors
>>never created, approved or even saw.
>>    
>>
>That seems like a lot of hot air over a small issue. Claiming that
>their editors "never created, approved or even saw" the particular
>compilation is really piling on strong words to make an impact.
>Whereas what they're actually denying is much weaker. Kind of like "I
>did *not* have sexual relations with that woman..."
>
Sexual relations between WP and Dame Britannica??  What would the 
children look like? :-)

>>Whatever may have prompted Nature to do such careless and sloppy research,
>>it's now time for them to uphold their commitment to good science and
>>retract the study immediately. We have urged them strongly to do so.
>>    
>>
>Uh, a commitment to good science would be publishing the data and
>their method so that people can attempt to reproduce it. I tend to
>agree that Nature's method was optimistic. Surely more than one
>reviewer for each article shoul have been appointed...even better
>would have been an open forum where many experts could pick through
>each article and argue amongst themselves.
>
Yes, but peer review has its problems, and that whole process may need 
to become more wiki-like.

>>We have prepared a detailed report that describes Britannica's thorough
>>(7,000 words) analysis of the Nature study. I invite you to download it from
>>our Web site at www.eb.com.
>>    
>>
>A lot of it seems to be "We reject this criticism. We have asked our
>adviser, and he says we're right." Not exactly convincing stuff.
>Particularly when they complain that the original study failed to cite
>sources - and with few exceptions, the EB rebuttal doesn't either.
>
>Example: "Britannica response: We do not accept these criticisms
>(which are really just one criticism, not two). We have published a
>revision of this article that retains the emphasis on supersaturation
>rather than the transitional stage of saturation."
>
I didn't read their response in great detail, but did anyone find even a 
single criticism that EB accepted

>I also sort of feel that as an attempted model of good science or
>whatever, EB should not be attacking the entire Nature study as
>totally "without merit".
>
I think EB is in deep trouble, and the result is likely to be the 
eventual collapse of this 18th cetury  institution.  That's sad.

Ec