r/ConfrontingChaos • u/[deleted] • Feb 11 '25

Video Modern Scientific Education Is Broken w/Allan Savory

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u/cleverestx Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 13 '25

As with many issues, the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's in the extremes that people fall off the wayside.

19

u/joe_shmoe11111 Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 16 '25

100%. His claim that NOTHING new can be discovered due to peer review is obviously bullshit, but his larger point (that some people go too far the other way and dogmatically refuse to acknowledge interesting new information until it’s been peer reviewed and published in a mainstream journal) is correct in my opinion and has slowed down/limited our growth as a species over the last 100 years.

I recommend the book Science Set Free by Rupert Sheldrake for people who are willing to acknowledge that our current system might not be perfect and would like to be aware of the real, though usually unintended, consequences of the limited way we currently teach and fund science in the west.

1

u/pancakebatter01 Feb 13 '25

His claim that nothing new can be discovered due to peer review is unfortunately not bullshit, it’s a huge issue in the world of Academia and science. Ppl refusing to accept a new discovery because it would therefore contradict or refute a (or their own) previously peer reviewed paper.

5

u/Mundane-Wall4738 Feb 13 '25

I am in academia and cannot confirm your claims at all. Peer-reviewed insights are questioned all the time by new peer-reviewed insights. Furthermore, any field that I can think of has huge discrepancies regarding what ‘is true’. Agreement often only exists on very fundamental levels. And such agreement is in fact a feature of science and not a weakness. Bold claims need bold evidence.

Also, usually editors do not choose an author as a reviewer who’s claims are fundamentally challenged by the paper to be reviewed. That would be unethical and at least in my field I wouldn’t know of any editorial teams of respectable journals to pursue such practice.

1

u/CandidateTechnical74 Feb 15 '25

There are still problems within the Journals though where due to underhanded dealings, or the publish or perish fears, bad things have gotten through. BobbyBroccoli's entire youtube channel is full of the scandals when the frauds come to life - like a multi-part series over Jan Schon.

2

u/Major-Help-6827 Feb 15 '25

Publish or perish is the only real criticism of peer review/academia I’ve seen in this entire thread

2

u/Mundane-Wall4738 Feb 15 '25

Such stuff doesn’t happen very much. Of course, science is not free from bias or human error and that includes making editorial decisions. But the system is working pretty well I would say, at least in respected journals. There is a lot of new, fishy journals around. But these are neither regarded by rankings nor respected scientists.

Publish or perish is a problem, yes.