hansonmark.bsky.social
New PI interested in #immune #evolution, host #pathogen interactions, and #ScientificPublishing @ University of Exeter, UK. He/him.
#immunity #infection #antimicrobialpeptides #microbiome #Drosophila #AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #OpenScience 🇨🇦
1,352 posts
6,344 followers
920 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
📌
comment in response to
post
Some tags #SciPub #AcademicSky #ResearchIntegrity #PhDchat
comment in response to
post
So while tackling pos. result bias etc... is good, I wish people would stop attacking the notion of "high impact" work as just elaborate smoke & mirrors.
Work that inspires new thinking is of genuine value and should be acknowledged. Science will always progress best through good storytelling.
5/5
comment in response to
post
If authors have no responsibility to collect and interpret their findings into a meaningful story before publishing it, the utility of the data are greatly reduced.
Also, not all negative results are indictments. Any wet lab scientist knows to "treat results from ____ with a grain of salt."
4/5
comment in response to
post
While scientific writing "storytelling" can distort the sum dataset, like presenting only the most positive results, this isn't required to write 'high impact' science. Acknowledging caveats and using lengthy supp text to explain fully can allow a streamlined message while avoiding distortion.
3/5
comment in response to
post
IMO, one key problem to tackle in transforming science this way: effective communication.
"Storytelling" in science writing is not an invention of journals. It's a means of communicating useful info to the reader. Publishing any- and everything makes it harder to find genuinely useful info.
2/5
comment in response to
post
Much love to American colleagues suffering through this and fighting the good, and essential, fight.
p.s. please follow @flybase.bsky.social for updates on how to save and support their Harvard and Indiana branches in the near future. #Drosophila
comment in response to
post
I mean, I do use S. aureus, C. albicans and such... and OHSE officers rarely allow labs to self-regulate waste disposal triaging. I imagine autoclaving is to make it safe to transport to the disposal site, at which point I'm sure low-temp incineration would be fine.
comment in response to
post
📌
comment in response to
post
Yeah we moved to 2 waste streams so far: uninfected stuff is frozen 24h then incinerated. Infected stuff is frozen 24h (just to prevent flies escaping potentially-ripped bags), then autoclaved, then I presume incinerated... I'll at least check which incineration type we're using! Thanks for writing!
comment in response to
post
Great discussion to have. Any info or advice on talking to our facility about switchcing to low-temp incineration? Any resistance from Manchester GMO officers? This seems the easiest immediate fix to advocate for.
Caveat: we do infection work with Cat1/Cat2 microbes.
comment in response to
post
What metascience needs is more independent thinkers. You're one of the great ones!
comment in response to
post
Thanks! Glad to hear.
In my data on things like impact factor inflation, society journals and not-for-profits consistently perform better than for-profit publishers (from an earlier analysis of 2020 Impact Factors vs SJR).
mahansonresearch.weebly.com/blog/how-doe...
comment in response to
post
See Fig4B: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Will meet in the middle to say that most journals accept >20% of articles, but it's not a bad boundary point.
Again, caveat: an article rejected with resubmit and then accepted is 1 reject + 1 accept counted, so true acceptance rates are higher than shown.
comment in response to
post
In reality we must adjust our ideas on what is worth publishing. For instance, it is ridiculous nowadays to have to peer review every genome announcement paper. What a waste of time.
Such work can be fine. But the idea that we must pay publishers to distribute it is archaic.
2/2
comment in response to
post
To the full thread: the point is that automation and improved workflows have raised the bar on what is worthy of a proper peer reviewed publication. But bizarre pressures on academics force work to be "published" to be considered "final." Journals like this feed into that narrative. 1/2
comment in response to
post
"Given that an average journal rejects 80-90% of papers"
- This is not true at all. Many journals have acceptance rates of 30-60%, and acceptance rate calcs themselves are complex because an article rejected once may be accepted ultimately, and this counts as 1 rejection + 1 acceptance.
comment in response to
post
Given Scientific Reports (Springer Nature) is the worlds largest megajournal by a wide margin, and the birth of like... 50 new "Nature _____" journals... this is kinda par for the course for them.
comment in response to
post
😂 @pagomba.bsky.social
comment in response to
post
📌
comment in response to
post
3. Educate others about the problems with the current publishing system - @hansonmark.bsky.social paper on this is a fantastic starting point. Listen to him on the podcast discuss this more: open.spotify.com/episode/7vlh...