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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 16 Dec 2018 09:52:43 -0500
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> ...described the peer review system 
> as 'mutual back scratching.'

The above tacitly assumes that one researcher would risk his own reputation
by letting something slide in his review of another's work for publication.
Does that sound plausible?  

That said, there are different levels of pre-publication review in different
medical journals, the most extreme case being a journal edited by Bruce
Charlton called "Medical Hypotheses" out of Newcastle University.  He alone
decides what he publishes, but note the name of the journal - it publishes
"hypotheses", so one gets exactly what is advertised on the cover.

There have been barrels of ink wasted on soul-searching and navel gazing
over procedure and methods of pre-publication review.  The biggest problem
with peer review is that it's very hard to find anything better.  So hard,
that no one has found anything better to date.  It's a lot like democracy in
that way.

Ideas only exist to be pulled apart, as this is how we asymptotically
approach something we can, for a while, call "fact" or "truth" or the
"current scientific consensus", only to make yet another asymptotic pass at
the issue, maybe get closer.  No professional takes any critique of their
work personally, as the process is how we move the ball down the field.
Both pre-and post-publication review is important, so when one disagrees,
one should ideally do so with data that one publishes oneself in a legit
journal with some form of peer-review and standards for data.

On a less efficient level, beekeepers tend to engage in post-publication
review themselves.  No one mentions things like FGMO fogging or powdered
sugar dusting any more, as these tactics were both initially shown infective
in controlled studies, and even the stubborn among beekeepers eventually
lost their enthusiasm as they lost the colonies being "treated for varroa"
with these methods.  The FGMO fans started adding things to the FGMO, but
even that did not save the approach. I recall that the slow walk back on
sugar dusting at one point included claims that it "worked best" in concert
with drone brood removal.  This should have been no surprise, as drone brood
removal works just fine as a varroa control tactic all by itself.   So,
while it kills many colonies, and likely causes many hobby beekeepers to
give up the craft, the "beekeeper post-publication review" verified and
supported the published academic findings in these areas, even if no one
openly admitted that the academics were correct after all.

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