Posted by Betula on April 19, 2008, at 3:41:34
In reply to They just don't work. FACT., posted by Betula on April 16, 2008, at 11:51:18
Hello all!
Its great we have an open debate about these sorts of things.
Here is the link to the webpage of the lead author of that article:
http://psy.hull.ac.uk/Staff/i.kirsch/
So. I'm going to make some points.
1) One paper doesn't prove a theory - it takes quite a few for something to become universally accepted.
2) The author is a PROFESSOR at a large civic university in the UK. (note its harder to become a professor in the UK - there doesn't exist sub categories such as 'assistant professor' etc as there does in other countries.) I doubt any of us here are actual professors. He has quite a distinguished publication record - again, something I'm sure none of any of us have.
3) The paper got published in a reputable, peer reviewed journal. That means that it was reviewed by other academics working in precisely the same field as him. They must have thought it acceptable for publication, otherwise, it would be sent to the trash. And it took a year from submission to acceptance, so that would imply it had a couple of revisions at least. So the peer reviewers would have been doing their job properly.
4) The journal the paper appeared in, PLoS Medicine. Journals do not want to lose money. The reputation of a journal (and also of the authors for that matter) quickly goes down the drain if they publish something that is trash. Other academics quickly see through fudged results etc. This means that journals select the very best papers they can. Therefore, I highly doubt that this paper is 'flawed' in any way.
5) Therefore I personally believe that this paper would not have been published if it were faulty/flawed/trash in any way. IT WAS PEER REVIEWED for heavens sake!
6) I personally do not believe dismissals of the paper coming from people in general, unless they are a) the authors of the paper or b) suitably qualitifed academics working in the field i.e. the 'peers'. Its as simple as that.
7) Of course, science evolves and develops and new things come to light, but at this time, I think that this paper is valid and the conclusions should be accepted into the bigger the scheme of things, including papers that show 'the drugs work'.
poster:Betula
thread:823248
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080412/msgs/824204.html