Apr 2, 2020 10:03 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 2, 2020 10:17 PM by C C.)
Our relationship with China should never go back to normal
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/04/01/cor...rmal-14679
EXCERPT: . . . Ultimately, China is to blame. Even if bad luck played a role -- and it certainly did -- China's actions have exacerbated the crisis and put the world in a position in which bad things are likelier to happen. That is why, for at least four particular reasons, China deserves the largest share of the blame: (1) Wet markets. [...] (2) Poor regulation. [...] (3) Coverups. [...] (4) Global disinformation campaigns.
[...] It's time for the world to face reality: On the global stage, China is at best criminally negligent and at worst a malevolent force. As Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, wrote for The Atlantic: "[T]he relationship with China cannot and should not go back to normal." (MORE - details)
In the Race to Crack Covid-19, Scientists Bypass Peer Review
https://undark.org/2020/04/01/scientific...-covid-19/
EXCERPT: ...That flood of research has put new strain on a scientific process accustomed to vetting and publishing new results much more slowly. In traditional publishing, papers are read by at least two experts in the field — a process called peer review — which, at least in theory, helps catch mistakes and unsound science. The back-and-forth of review and revision can take months.
Getting information out quickly during an epidemic is not necessarily something that traditional publishing has been able to keep up with. In the 2003 SARS epidemic, for example, 93 percent of the papers published about the spread of the outbreak in Hong Kong and Toronto didn’t actually come out until after the epidemic period was already over, according to a 2010 analysis by researchers at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
In the context of an outbreak, Michael Johansson, a biologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an epidemiology lecturer at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote in an email to Undark that “traditional review methods are too slow.”
The Covid-19 crisis has also become a major test for preprints – an alternative system of publishing that had already been gaining traction among some scientists who see them as a way to make their results available as soon as possible.
In response, some traditional journals have accelerated their peer review process for coronavirus papers. But the Covid-19 crisis has also become a major test for preprints — an alternative system of publishing that had already been gaining traction among some scientists who see them as a way to make their results available as soon as possible.
With preprints, scientists submit a draft of their results to a server, which posts them online within a few days. (The paper may eventually end up in a peer-reviewed journal, too). The preprints are freely available for anyone to read — as are any mistakes, logical gaps, or omissions that might normally be corrected during peer review.
Because preprints aren’t peer reviewed, it can be difficult for non-experts — including journalists, policymakers, and scientists in other fields — to determine what is important and based on solid science, and what is not. While there’s widespread agreement that preprints can be useful, they also run the risk of contributing to the spread of faulty information.
As the Covid-19 crisis brings a flood of preprints, some scientists are now working to improve the ways that preprints are accessed, analyzed, and reported. In that effort, researchers are trying to balance the benefits of rapid access to essential new information with the threat of preprint-based mistakes that could cause panic or be otherwise harmful.... (MORE - details)
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/04/01/cor...rmal-14679
EXCERPT: . . . Ultimately, China is to blame. Even if bad luck played a role -- and it certainly did -- China's actions have exacerbated the crisis and put the world in a position in which bad things are likelier to happen. That is why, for at least four particular reasons, China deserves the largest share of the blame: (1) Wet markets. [...] (2) Poor regulation. [...] (3) Coverups. [...] (4) Global disinformation campaigns.
[...] It's time for the world to face reality: On the global stage, China is at best criminally negligent and at worst a malevolent force. As Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, wrote for The Atlantic: "[T]he relationship with China cannot and should not go back to normal." (MORE - details)
In the Race to Crack Covid-19, Scientists Bypass Peer Review
https://undark.org/2020/04/01/scientific...-covid-19/
EXCERPT: ...That flood of research has put new strain on a scientific process accustomed to vetting and publishing new results much more slowly. In traditional publishing, papers are read by at least two experts in the field — a process called peer review — which, at least in theory, helps catch mistakes and unsound science. The back-and-forth of review and revision can take months.
Getting information out quickly during an epidemic is not necessarily something that traditional publishing has been able to keep up with. In the 2003 SARS epidemic, for example, 93 percent of the papers published about the spread of the outbreak in Hong Kong and Toronto didn’t actually come out until after the epidemic period was already over, according to a 2010 analysis by researchers at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
In the context of an outbreak, Michael Johansson, a biologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an epidemiology lecturer at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, wrote in an email to Undark that “traditional review methods are too slow.”
The Covid-19 crisis has also become a major test for preprints – an alternative system of publishing that had already been gaining traction among some scientists who see them as a way to make their results available as soon as possible.
In response, some traditional journals have accelerated their peer review process for coronavirus papers. But the Covid-19 crisis has also become a major test for preprints — an alternative system of publishing that had already been gaining traction among some scientists who see them as a way to make their results available as soon as possible.
With preprints, scientists submit a draft of their results to a server, which posts them online within a few days. (The paper may eventually end up in a peer-reviewed journal, too). The preprints are freely available for anyone to read — as are any mistakes, logical gaps, or omissions that might normally be corrected during peer review.
Because preprints aren’t peer reviewed, it can be difficult for non-experts — including journalists, policymakers, and scientists in other fields — to determine what is important and based on solid science, and what is not. While there’s widespread agreement that preprints can be useful, they also run the risk of contributing to the spread of faulty information.
As the Covid-19 crisis brings a flood of preprints, some scientists are now working to improve the ways that preprints are accessed, analyzed, and reported. In that effort, researchers are trying to balance the benefits of rapid access to essential new information with the threat of preprint-based mistakes that could cause panic or be otherwise harmful.... (MORE - details)
