Off-topic discussion of the problem of "peer review" in journals

[Tiedemies]

Well now.
Firstly, my *feelings* are immaterial in this matter. Beale's comment is of course either appropriate and accurate or it isn't, and as I said, much of it is accurate.
There is however an absolutely crucial part of it which is neither accurate nor appropriate. Beale says that "Science is no more self-correcting than accounting", which is a demonstrably false statement.

The comparison of course is appropriate in a way, but if you compare science to accounting, you should then take the comparison far enough to assess whether the statement about self-correction is true. I do not propose a guilt-by-association-argument, but this inaccurate comparison becomes much more understandable if we are to understand *why* Beale makes it and in what kind of situations does he use it.

I will not venture here to discuss "AGW" in itself; it is merely a theory which either describes something in a way that is PAC (probably approximately correct) or it doesn't. If the science therein is in some way fundamentally flawed, we shall see it in measurements forthwith. Eventually facts will settle the dispute one way or another. Science *will* self-correct, even if it takes time to do so. Beliefs that are demonstrably false in an operationally relevant way, for example, in ways that cause one to suffer huge material losses, will eventually be either discarded or the people who hold such beliefs will die. The problem in this particular disagreement is of course that if a large enough majority will hold a false belief for long enough, a great many people will either die or suffer huge material losses, and the people who do suffer the losses may not be those who hold the false belief; and mind you, this goes both ways, so I won't make any statement as to whether the theory is in fact PAC or not.

The arguments in the anti-science camp are usually somewhat reminiscent of legal arguments made in a court of law. This is where they go wrong; Beale and similar anti-science pundits make arguments similar to those in the quote to discredit anything they do not agree with by creating "reasonable doubt" -- of course the implication being that they themselves are then correct when asserting something far more ludicrous and incredible. It is this line of argumentation that the quote is part of, and it simply does not appropriately capture the *actual argument* made by the article about why we know and can be sure that the Starting Strength method is the most effective method for getting stronger for all but those who have already gotten very strong by lifting heavy weights.

In fact, Beale's argument is *the exact opposite* of that in the article. Beale argues that centuries of trial and error, observations of the natural world, reporting, arguing, falsifying -- of which only maybe the last 100 years or so has seen modern peer review process with all it's faults -- can be brushed off because he *feels* that god created the earth 6000 years ago. And therefore, he is free to assert that evolutionary biologists are pederasts and murderers, and his belief is in this is justified because he feels like saying so.

I was not arguing that peer review = credibility, I never have. Peer review only moderately increases the quality of research and better methods are needed. I do not hold an epistemological position that is materially different from what the article says. But the quote from Mr "Vox Day" Beale is not part of a line of argumentation that posits hard truths based on tangible evidence, quite the opposite.

[J-Mo]

It’s not ‘child-like faith’ in the process. It is confidence in the process based on evidence from advances in science, technology, and medicine that the process works. By definition, it is not ‘faith’. I’m not choosing to believe what makes me happiest. Wake up and look at what humans have accomplished in the past 50 years. What do you want from science that it has failed to deliver?

You’re asking what about your use of his statement bothers me? The title of his column was “Most science is ‘fake science’”! You are spreading a message which is genuinely meant to delegitimize real research that produces real cures for real diseases in order to promote a recreational weightlifting program!

What is your/his argument anyways? Should we stop publishing papers? Should we stop doing research? Should the government stop funding us? What are you trying to accomplish?

[Brodie Butland]

Where is the data? Of all the people coached, all the progress journaled where is the data? You have one "study" published on the site that seems to convey that starting strength leads to non compliance. i.e. not doing the program. Or is that not recording in the logs doing the program? Who knows? Not you.

You answered your own question...

But it might work for the very small percentage of people who managed to do the program AND record their progress. Maybe, but many of them weren't beginners anyway. Or at least you're not sure they were.

Rip's argument is that IF you follow the Starting Strength program--and that means all facets of it, including recovery--THEN you will see significant progress. Our experience and data we have indicates that this is true...just as it is true that if you don't follow the Starting Strength program, you won't see the same progress. I don't see why you have a problem with this...the only time you get a valid data point in a study is if the person complies with the methodology and the result is recorded in some manner; if people don't comply with the methodology then their data gets thrown out to avoid compromising the integrity of the study. Would you also complain if someone's data in a Lipitor study was thrown out because they weren't taking it as prescribed? The fact that a bunch of people flaked out merely shows that following the program requires a lot of effort, not that the program isn't effective when done properly.

And I don't see what you mean by "many of them weren't beginners anyway." We don't use the term "beginner" very deliberately--it's an inherently ambiguous and subjective term. Is a young male who lifted for 5 years but never got over a 135 lbs bench press a "beginner"? What about someone who picks up a 500 lbs deadlift on his first try? What about someone who got up to a 500 squat, but after a decade of inactivity now can't even do 150 lbs? What about someone who has been lifting for 6 months but has been lifting wrong?

So rather than use a term you made up and don't bother to define, we use the term "novice," which is one who (shorthand) can recover from and adapt to a stress within 48 hours. We use this term because it is an objective standard (even if hard to measure at times in the later linear progression stages)--either someone can recover from the stress of a lifting session within 48 hours or he can't. And we happen to know that those whose data we have were novices because...wait for it...they were recovering from their prior training sessions within 48 hours.

As you observe, we published our data. Would you care to identify which data points weren't novices?

You have a nice book, well written, good pictures, some Newtonian explanations of the lifts. But that is all you have. It is not the type of science you purport it to be. It isn't a transparent presentation of all the trial and error (engineering) that led to its creation, it is a narrative fiction you choose to believe after the experimentation. Hypothesizing after the fact.

Because no good science ever came about by making observations and then hypothesizing a cause after the fact, based on the data. Ever.

And if you want to know what trial and error went into the program, the search function will guide you. Because it's been discussed before, several times, on this forum.

Let the flaming begin.

You ask a rhetorical question, use terms that we intentionally don't use so you can attack a strawman (though ironically without ever actually attacking the strawman), do a little rhetorical handwaving, and don't even seem to have a basic grasp of what qualifies as scientific data. The only thing missing is the perfunctory cult accusation.

I normally call addressing such nonsequiturs and unsound verbal slaps a "refutation." But if you're more comfortable with asserting that anyone that defends the Starting Strength thesis is "flaming" those who simply dismiss it without a valid basis for doing so (maybe the cult accusation was implicit after all?), then I'll gladly take the label.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I was not arguing that peer review = credibility, I never have. Peer review only moderately increases the quality of research and better methods are needed. I do not hold an epistemological position that is materially different from what the article says. But the quote from Mr "Vox Day" Beale is not part of a line of argumentation that posits hard truths based on tangible evidence, quite the opposite.

Are you saying that I am anti-science? The fact is that I am anti-"scientism" in the sense that I do not worship journal publication. And why do you refer to Vox Day as "Beale"? Do you refer to Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce? This is discourteous.

[Brodie Butland]

Are you saying that I am anti-science? The fact is that I am anti-"scientism" in the sense that I do not worship journal publication.

And I certainly understand that about you, because you're my buddy and I talk to you about stuff. But for those who don't know you, this part of the quote...

​All of the arguments about the presumed reliability of science are ridiculous and easily shown to be false. Science is no more “self-correcting” than accounting.

...suggests not anti-scientism, but anti-science. A reading I'm confident in based on Vox's other blog posts.

Science, i.e. the method of investigating natural phenomena that we observe in the world, is highly reliable and does correct wrong hypotheses. Science is the reason why we no longer believe in the Aether, or that the sun revolves around the earth, or that illness is caused by witches and demons. That's different from saying that scientists are always reliable. There are good and bad scientists, smart and dumb scientists, honest and lying scientists. And unfortunately, some areas of science (e.g., Ex Fizz and nutrition, which are the focus of the article) are disproportionately represented by people who don't do science particularly well.

Vox argues that "science" is unreliable because "scientists" have cheated. That's a pretty ridiculous syllogism for someone who self-proclaims a "superior intelligence as if it were a hammer to be applied to an interlocutor's fragile teeth." (And it's the scientists who are arrogant?) It's especially disingenuous coming from a guy who asserts that evolution is "most likely little more than pseudo-scientific fiction" based on a few published "creation science" papers that are among some of the most dishonest and anti-scientific scrawls in existence.

I don't disagree with Vox that the peer review process can and has been corrupted, that a lot of The Literature is hogwash, and that scientists are subject to pressures independent of finding the truth. But that's very different from saying that science itself is flawed. I'll put my trust in the scientific method and, yes, the scientists that try to practice it well before I trust lawyers, politicians, and used car salesmen.

I liked your article, and I agree with its reasoning. I agree that what we Starting Strength acolytes are doing is science, even if it doesn't meet the standards for a double-blind study sufficient for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. I just don't agree that Vox's statement was a good crystallization of what you actually think or were conveying in the article.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

I had a long post on this last night which got lost, but Brodie said it better.

[Praetorian]

Why would you want to associate the Starting Strength brand with this Vox Day troll? Just a quick perusal of the comment section of the linked blog post turns up a cesspool of racism. A little googling turns up plenty of white supremacy garbage:

U.S. bifactional ruling party’s hatred and contempt for white Americans who still hold to traditional values, believe in their constitutional liberties and derive their sense of identity from historical America. They mock the secessionist petitioners in Texas and other states, celebrate the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures, and engage in ruthless doublethink as they worship at the altar of a false and entirely nonexistent equality.

You're free to promote whoever you want, it's your platform. But if these are the type of people that are going to be associated with it, I'm done trying to promote your brand by giving your books to people and recommending SSCs to friends and family. Yes, I know no one cares what I think or do related to Starting Strength, but I may not be the only one seriously disturbed by this character and why he's being promoted here.

[Scotch-Wegian]

Many scientific studies can?t be replicated. That?s a problem. - The Washington Post

39%.

Stef is right; A throne of bones is a great book.

[tanis0]

Hey guys, this is my first post but I've been reading the books, articles and forums for a couple of years. This site, Rip's books and other articles as well as Vox's two blogs have helped me make massively positive changes in my life. I owe all of you serious gratitude, so I sincerely thank you.

...suggests not anti-scientism, but anti-science. A reading I'm confident in based on Vox's other blog posts.

I think you go on to somewhat misrepresent Vox's position which, admittedly, can be difficult to collate across his large volume of posts. However, I think your beliefs as written in the quoted post aren't far off from what he believes. All of the following Vox Day quotes are from this post last year: Vox Popoli: Scientistry and sciensophy

Science, i.e. the method of investigating natural phenomena that we observe in the world, is highly reliable and does correct wrong hypotheses. Science is the reason why we no longer believe in the Aether, or that the sun revolves around the earth, or that illness is caused by witches and demons. That's different from saying that scientists are always reliable.

It is always necessary - it is absolutely vital - to carefully distinguish between scientody, or the scientific method, and scientistry, which is the scientific profession. The evils described in this article (ed. note: linked)are not indicative of any problems with scientody, they are the consequence of the inevitable and intrinsic flaws with scientistry.

As far as I'm aware, and I'd be interested to read contrary quotes from Vox, he does not take issue with the scientific method. He's certainly taken issue with lack of rigor and conscientiousness when following it, but that's not the same thing. I don't think the two of you disagree substantively here.

There are good and bad scientists, smart and dumb scientists, honest and lying scientists. And unfortunately, some areas of science (e.g., Ex Fizz and nutrition, which are the focus of the article) are disproportionately represented by people who don't do science particularly well.

To simply call everything "science" is to be misleading, often, but not always, in innocence. Science has no authority, and increasingly, it is an intentional and deceitful bait-and-switch, in which the overly credulous are led to believe that because an individual with certain credentials is asserting something, that statement is supported by documentary evidence gathered through the scientific method of hypothesis, experiment, and successful replication.

In most - not many, but most - cases, that is simply not the case.

I think your primary disagreements here are how much is due to lack of conscientiousness and how widespread it is in various disciplines, but these do not appear to rise to the level of asserting Vox is "anti-science."

Vox argues that "science" is unreliable because "scientists" have cheated.

You yourself just said, "There are good and bad scientists, smart and dumb scientists, honest and lying scientists." In what way are lying scientists different from cheating ones? And even if you believe more scientists are simply dumb and bad whereas Vox presumably believes more of them are bending to ideology and pressures such as publish-or-perish, does that make the publications from the dumb and bad groups any more reliable? (I cut out your IQ-related comments because they're not relevant to the points at hand.)

I don't disagree with Vox that the peer review process can and has been corrupted, that a lot of The Literature is hogwash, and that scientists are subject to pressures independent of finding the truth. But that's very different from saying that science itself is flawed. I'll put my trust in the scientific method...

I think you're splitting a semantic hair. Vox differentiates as follows:

In order of reliability, the three aspects of science are:
Scientody: the process
Scientage: the knowledge base
Scientistry: the profession
We might also coin a new term, sciensophy, as practiced by sciensophists, which is most definitely not an aspect of science, to describe the pseudoscience of "the social sciences", as they do not involve any scientody and their additions to scientage have proven to be generally unreliable. Economics, nutrition, and medicine all tend to fall into this category.

Practically all of Vox's lamentations blog-wide about the state of science focus on what he terms here scientistry and sciensophy. The remainder, as far as I'm aware, regard the problems those two have introduced into "scientage."

...and, yes, the scientists that try to practice it well before I trust lawyers, politicians, and used car salesmen.

Where there does seem to be genuine disagreement between you and Vox is on the trustworthiness of scientists in general. But based on what you have said in the above quotes, I honestly don't understand why. Take politicians. Both have substantial incentives to lie and cut corners. Neither are supermen, impervious to those pressures. Arguably the politician has more "peer review" than does the scientist between political opponents and the press. Why would you put more faith in scientists than politicians? And I ask this as a co-author of two papers published in scientific journals.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Why would you want to associate the Starting Strength brand with this Vox Day troll? Just a quick perusal of the comment section of the linked blog post turns up a cesspool of racism. A little googling turns up plenty of white supremacy garbage:



You're free to promote whoever you want, it's your platform. But if these are the type of people that are going to be associated with it, I'm done trying to promote your brand by giving your books to people and recommending SSCs to friends and family. Yes, I know no one cares what I think or do related to Starting Strength, but I may not be the only one seriously disturbed by this character and why he's being promoted here.

You're also done posting here. My "promotion" of someone with whom you disagree cannot possibly comport with your further contributions on this board.