maegul

@chrisoffner3d @michaelsfuhrer

The interesting story, IMO, wasn't really just #lk99. If it turned out to be something special ... cool ... but that was always a stretch.

The interesting story, and the main topic of the cited thread, was watching a scientific process unfold on social media and on arxiv (essentially a blogosphere for scientists). Through the episode there was a real dialogue about the quality of science without peer-review etc. Overall, it seems to have been a clear positive.

Aug 10, 2023 at 7:02amWeb
Show threadProf Stephen SerjeantAug 10, 2023
@maegul @chrisoffner3d @michaelsfuhrer Something similar to #lk99 happened when the #BICEP2 team announced signals of cosmic inflation in the cosmic microwave background. Essentially all the world experts descended on a Facebook group of all places & thrashed it out collegially. Also in the pandemic when experts thrashed out droplet vs aerosol transmission and there was a paradigm change in real time played out on arXiv & Twitter.
Show threadmaegulAug 10, 2023

@stephenserjeant @chrisoffner3d @michaelsfuhrer

Are you of any strongly-pro-peer-review perspectives that are critical or dismissive of such events?

I ask as someone very predisposed to the idea that all research should just be published on federated blogs.

Show threadProf Stephen SerjeantAug 10, 2023
@maegul @chrisoffner3d @michaelsfuhrer I think it's helpful to have a concrete milestone of peer review by a human-selected expert, regardless of the medium, and despite the low signal to noise of many reviews. I don't think a request for comments of indeterminate duration and from all comers would serve the same purpose. Informal social media reviews do something different - still important, but different.
Show threadProf Stephen SerjeantAug 10, 2023
@maegul @chrisoffner3d @michaelsfuhrer NB astro/physics are relatively benign areas for these principled discussions but it can be literally life and death in others.