In science we trust… up to a point by Adam Rutherford Saturday August 22nd, 2015 at 2:43 PM
In science we trust… up to a point by Adam Rutherford Saturday August 22 nd , 2015 at 2:43 PM Network Front | The Guardian 1 Share Eminent journals and peer-reviewed academic papers are supposed to convince us of scientific truth. Here’s why we should all be wary… Science is emphatically not a belief system. It doesn’t require faith, and it works: civilisation is built on science working. But it’s a full-time job to keep on top of one subject, and impossible to stay up to date across a range of fields. We have to trust that the system works. But does it? This is the process: scientists do the research – primarily paid for by you – which gets written up and peer-reviewed before publication as a paper in a journal. Getting published in a journal is not a mark of truth but that your research is credible enough to warrant entering the literature for ongoing scrutiny. Published papers are the benchmark of academic success, and the media’s main