[Merged]Peer-reviewed technical paper to appear in mainstream journal

[Sizzler]

I think you missed one of the reasons that they agreed to publish the paper and why it leads to a problem of credibility.

Do you have information pertaining to the reasons why the article was published?

Please explain if you will.

 

[drkitten]

Well that is just a lot of opinion.

Yes. The opinion of a domain expert, based on experience and evidence.

Obviously the editor and reviewers don't agree with you.

Or they screwed up. Remember the "mistake" question you asked?

I'm wondering why my opinion of the quality of the paper (and by extension, the journal) is somehow less valid than that of the other domain experts.

 

[Sizzler]

Do you believe that a scientific journal is the place to try to find someone to answer your questions? Isn't that just using this letter (and the journal) as a promotional device?

That is a great question. It has been awhile since I've opened a scientific journal but if I'm not mistaken, at least some journals will publish letters and/or articles that don't follow the strict scientific writing guidelines.

I think their questions deserve attention and I guess another word for gaining attention is promotion. So as long as their sources and information are correct, I see nothing wrong with it. Especially for an issue with such large consequences as this.

At the very least it will "promote" responses from civil engineers.

 

[Sizzler]

Yes. The opinion of a domain expert, based on experience and evidence.




Or they screwed up. Remember the "mistake" question you asked?

I'm wondering why my opinion of the quality of the paper (and by extension, the journal) is somehow less valid than that of the other domain experts.

It isn't less valid, it is just that it is your opinion. How about the actual content Jones discusses? I'm more interested in that than writing style and the age of the material.

 

[drkitten]

That is a great question. It has been awhile since I've opened a scientific journal but if I'm not mistaken, at least some journals will publish letters and/or articles that don't follow the strict scientific writing guidelines.

... and such letters are generally not peer-reviewed.

You can't have it both ways, Sizzler. If the paper passed the peer-review guidelines (legitimately), then the guidelines that this particular journal enforces are worthless and it's a vanity journal with no effective peer-review. (At the minimum, reviewers should be competent to establish novelty and completeness, neither of which this paper has).

If the paper was not subject to the peer-review guidelines, then it's inappropriate to present it as a peer-reviewed publication.

The most charitable -- and indeed, the simplest -- explanation is editorial error.

 

[drkitten]

It isn't less valid, it is just that it is your opinion. How about the actual content Jones discusses? I'm more interested in that than writing style and the age of the material.

As DGM points out, it's already been addressed and refuted in the NIST letter and response. Is it appropriate for a thermodynamics journal to publish a paper that I write in support of already disproven theories about phlogiston?

 

[DGM]

That is a great question. It has been awhile since I've opened a scientific journal but if I'm not mistaken, at least some journals will publish letters and/or articles that don't follow the strict scientific writing guidelines.

I think their questions deserve attention and I guess another word for gaining attention is promotion. So as long as their sources and information are correct, I see nothing wrong with it. Especially for an issue with such large consequences as this.

At the very least it will "promote" responses from civil engineers.

Letters are normally used in response to other articles in the same journal. I don't remember ever reading a journal article (or letter) that was looking to expose issues (without conclusions), this is highly irregular.

Why do you think this would be the place for this? Why are they not getting the attention they want(being the operative words) for these issues? All of these issues have been addressed before (and some are still ongoing).

 

[gtc]

The "issues" in Jones' paper might be old but they have yet to be resolved, and at least one civil engineering journal believes they are worthy enough to at least be published.

That is the truth now. Accept it so we can move forward and try to find the answers to the "issues" raised.

Can you list the issues that you are talking about? The letter was purportedly about areas in which the authors agreed with the major reports.

At the very least it will "promote" responses from civil engineers.

I doubt it. To respond, an engineer would have to pony up $600. How many people would be willing to do that?

 

[Sizzler]

Letters are normally used in response to other articles in the same journal. I don't remember ever reading a journal article (or letter) that was looking to expose issues (without conclusions), this is highly irregular.

Why do you think this would be the place for this? Why are they not getting the attention they want(being the operative words) for these issues? All of these issues have been addressed before (and some are still ongoing).

It is true that some of these issues are still ongoing. WTC7 for example. It is also true that these issues have been addressed before, over and over and over again.

But exactly where have these specific issues been adequately resolved? I don't think any explanation for the questions Jones raises have been sufficiently and conclusively answered.

Lets take the sulfidation/oxidation for example. Reports have proposed possible mechanisms but they have also called for scientific experimentation to confirm or rule out possibilities. These recommendations have not been carried through.

Perhaps the NIST team will read this article and make it a point to adequately validate their forthcoming WTC7 hypothesis. Perhaps this time they will model fire tests more accurately and share their computer models with the public.

 

[drkitten]

But exactly where have these specific issues been adequately resolved? I don't think any explanation for the questions Jones raises have been sufficiently and conclusively answered.

Lets take the sulfidation/oxidation for example. Reports have proposed possible mechanisms but they have also called for scientific experimentation to confirm or rule out possibilities. These recommendations have not been carried through.

And you need a journal article to point this out again?

At best, the Jones paper repeats stuff that has already been said -- and is therefore unsuitable for publication.

At worst, the Jones paper repeats stuff that has already been said and refuted.

I can only imagine the news flashes coming out of the Journal of Pathology -- a new "letter" from someone claiming that "Princess Di is still dead!"

 

[DGM]

It is true that some of these issues are still ongoing. WTC7 for example. It is also true that these issues have been addressed before, over and over and over again.

But exactly where have these specific issues been adequately resolved? I don't think any explanation for the questions Jones raises have been sufficiently and conclusively answered.

Lets take the sulfidation/oxidation for example. Reports have proposed possible mechanisms but they have also called for scientific experimentation to confirm or rule out possibilities. These recommendations have not been carried through.

Perhaps the NIST team will read this article and make it a point to adequately validate their forthcoming WTC7 hypothesis. Perhaps this time they will model fire tests more accurately and share their computer models with the public.

Your reaching to justify his decision to USE this journal to advance his agenda.

What's stopping Jones from doing this research and finding conclusions for his issues. How are these issues even related to what NIST was tasked to do? They have done the experiments to support their claims and to address these issues, Jones just doesn't like the answers. This is the problem with his letter. He only posses questions with no claims. He's trying to use the journal to find someone to do his work.

Again do you think this journal is the right forum for this? I don't think so that's why I believe what I said as far (him using it) as a promotional tool.

 

[Edmund Standing]

Perhaps the NIST team will read this article and make it a point to adequately validate their forthcoming WTC7 hypothesis.

I think you're somewhat over-estimating the importance of this letter that seems to say precisely nothing of significance.

 

[T.A.M.]

lol...yes that NIST scientists have the interest or predilection to even acknowledge the article, let alone read it, is quite...over-estimating.

TAM

 

[fullflavormenthol]

And if you believe you have the answers to the "issues" raised in Jones' paper then by all means submit a response paper to the journal. That is the arena now.

You know I am pretty certain that we could take all the opinion on this thread opposing you. Write it out into a letter with no scientific merit whatsoever. Submit it with a check for $600 and list of suggested reviewers, and next thing we know the truth movement will be screaming that this Open journal is engaging in a hit piece.

When Jones brings some actual science to this arena than there will be a response; but personally I have better things to spend $600+ on than stroking my ego be pretending to be published in "the literature".

 

[gtc]

I was wondering how long it would take a truther, conveniently ignoring the $600 cover charge, to mention the fact that no one will reply to the letter as proof that the letter is correct and conv

 

[BenBurch]

I'll cover $100 of the $600 if one the working scientists here (I'm a politician now) would care to come up with a response. Who else will chip in?

 

[Sizzler]

Your reaching to justify his decision to USE this journal to advance his agenda.

What's stopping Jones from doing this research and finding conclusions for his issues. How are these issues even related to what NIST was tasked to do? They have done the experiments to support their claims and to address these issues, Jones just doesn't like the answers. This is the problem with his letter. He only posses questions with no claims. He's trying to use the journal to find someone to do his work.

Again do you think this journal is the right forum for this? I don't think so that's why I believe what I said as far (him using it) as a promotional tool.

Jones is indeed doing real research in other areas, in particular, dust analysis. For him to succeed in demonstrating the validity of his hypothesis, he will of course need to publish experimental results in a journal some time in the future. The publishing of this article does not suggest to me that he is being lazy and doesn't want to do real research. Learning is a step by step process. We ask questions and then try to find the best answers. Jones has posed his questions to the civil engineering community and at least one journal found enough merit in them to be published as a letter. Although the issues are not new, such recognition is a first. It is a big stepping stone for him and his team. A dialogue has now been established in an engineering journal and his areas of agreement and questions passed the peer review process.

I find it funny that "debunkers" have been calling for the truth movement to undergo the peer review process. Now that they have, and have been published, there suddenly seems to be less value placed on the peer review process and its implications. Suddenly it is very conceivable that the peer review process is flawed and/or can be used to promote certain agendas. Why were such assumptions not acceptable in discussions of Bazant et al?

I agree that his paper doesn't prove anything beyond finding areas of agreement between NIST/FEMA and the truth movement, and noting glaring questions that have been left unresolved.

Obviously this journal found those questions to be worthy of publication.

And I wouldnt be too doubtful that this might have an effect on some of the NIST investigators. If any of them are having problems with the fire induced collapse hypothesis, they might be looking else where for other options. Perhaps this paper might make "other options" more socially and scientifically acceptable.

Lets not forget that they are trying to demonstrate that a 47floor steel framed building can completely and symmetrically collapse at near free fall speed from a single column failure. It is conceivable that such a hypothesis might be difficult to prove.

 

[Sizzler]

I was wondering how long it would take a truther, conveniently ignoring the $600 cover charge, to mention the fact that no one will reply to the letter as proof that the letter is correct and conv

600 bucks? Come on now, that is chump change for a lot of people that post on this board.

How much do you think a NASA engineer makes a year? Certainly enough to pay a 600$ fee to publish an article and save America from disinformation.

Like I said before, the arena is now in this peer reviewed journal. Will anyone take the challenge?

 

[DGM]

Sizzler:
Is a scientific journal the place to "open a dialog"? This is the simple question I'm trying to get you to answer. I think you agree it isn't and your trying to justify this feeling. Am I wrong?

 

[applecorped]

$600 is not chump change to me and I suspect it is not chump change to many on this board. Regardless, let it be "peer" reviewed. The shredding it will undergo might actually make you and other troothers realize that you have been wasting your time and supporting lies. You can't resolve lies, only expose them.