How publishing of science articles has changed in the last 100 years

The Physical Review Letters is one of the most important journals in science. In a short essay that appeared last week, one of the former editors talks about some of the changes in science communication -- such as variations in peer review, the race for priority, the need to keep some stuff secret -- that have affected science publishing.

Essay: Physical Review Letters; Sam Goudsmit’s Vision

More on suppressed findings

Another story today about the need to publish "failed" studies, this time about cholesterol:

From: What That Cholesterol Trial Didn’t Show

The Vytorin makers dragged their feet on releasing the results, issued the findings in a press release rather than a medical journal and made a lot of people mad.

“Failed trials are important,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “The reason the medical community is upset about the delay in reporting this is that we learn as much from a study that fails as we do from a study that succeeds. People are not happy that we didn’t learn about this sooner.”

Notice that this quote also addresses the issue of "science by press release."

What counts as "science by press conference"?

In May 2007, the Mars rover Spirit discovered silica-rich soils that suggest the possibility of microbial life on Mars. That finding has been widely publicized (see examples below). But, it has NOT been peer-reviewed, in the formal, publication sense. (Or so I'm told by colleagues who should know.) So, does it count as that evil "science by press conference"?

I personally heard about these findings in November 2007, while listening to a graduate student defend her research interests. It happens, of course, that I'm at the institution that leads the rover missions. But since I'm not a specialist, I didn't know that I was hearing "unpublished" results, and had the occasion arisen, I could have circulated the results more widely.

Then, a few weeks later, the mission PI (who is very experienced at dealing with the media) spoke about the results at a well-attended scientific meeting, the American Geophysical Union, where the media are often present. His comments were widely reported:

The BBC story
The Mars Society story

It's also true that NASA issued a press release about his talk, as did Cornell (and these press releases were widely posted on news sites around the web). But, given the frequent press coverage of AGU meetings, that's probably immaterial.

Many of the stories that appeared were written by well-known science writers. For example, a New York Times article by Kenneth Chang was reprinted widely (here, in the Portland Oregonian).

So, given all the warnings against science by press conference, how does this happen? Or does it mean (as Hilgartner 1990 suggests) that the charge of "science by press conference" is only used when someone wants to criticize another scientist, while "acceptable" popularizations are labeled as such?

Making science understandable

Is science too specialized? Can scientists themselves understand research outside their own specialty? For more than a generation, scientists have been making that claim. They've made various attempts to address the problem. In the 1970s, for example, the New England Journal of Medicine once published a "rewritten" article (rewritten by a science journalist) immediately following the original technical article. (Gutterman, J. U., Rossen, R. D., Butler, W. T., McCredie, K. B., Bodey, G. P., Sr., Freireich, E. J., et al. (1973). Immunoglobulin on Tumor Cells and Tumor-Induced Lymphocyte Blastogenesis in Human Acute Leukemia. New England Journal of Medicine, 288(4 (25 January)), 169-173, 173-175 (revised version). The experiment was not repeated.

For the last few years, PLoS Biology, an open-access peer-reviewed journal, has included an "Authors' summary" in addition to the standard abstract. And some articles in PLoS Medicine include an "Editors' summary" that includes sections like "Why was this study done?" and "What did the researchers do and find?" (See http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040323 for an example.)

Now the general science journal Science is trying a monthlong experiment of including a summary in front of every article (Approaching Science -- Kennedy 318 (5851): 715 -- Science). My own take on the first attempts is that they're still pretty hard to read. But look ahead to the following weeks to see what happens.

How important is peer review?

SCIENCE AND COMMERCE: Who Owns Glycobiology? -- Kaiser 318 (5851): 734 -- Science

Read this article about a controversy between a set of scientists (glycobiologists) and a commercial company that claims the science supports its "nutraceuticals" (food supplements that might -- or might not -- make you healthier). Look especially for the role of publication and peer review in the dispute.

Blogs about Blogging about Blogs

North Carolina Science Blogging Conference in BlogTogether

OK, so I'm new to blogging, and not very good at it. But today I discovered that the first ever "science blogging conference" happened last January. I've just started going through the list of talks, attendees, etc. Looks like fun, and like something that we need to think about in the science communication world.

Are all journals equal?

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: Fossil Dealers Launch Research Journal -- Stokstad 315 (5810): 313 -- Science

In class, we've talked about different kinds of journals. Here's a story about a new journal that is controversial. Major fossil researchers say they will not publish research on fossils that are privately owned, because the fossils won't necessarily be available for others to study. Now the people who sell fossils to private collectors are starting their own journal, since many excellent fossils are in private hands. That leads to controversy about the control of knowledge, control of nature, trust in other scientists, etc. The articles gives a nice summary of the issues.

Interaction of popularizing and creating knowledge

WILLIAM K. HARTMANN PROFILE: Renaissance Man of the Solar System -- Kerr 315 (5810): 326 -- Science

This profile describes a scientist who helped developed our current understanding of how impacts (such as with comets and meteoriods) affect planetary surfaces (including, perhaps, the creation of the moon out of impact debris from the Earth). More interesting for this class, he is also a painter and popularizer, and describes his painting helps shape his SCIENTIFIC understanding of what's happening. "Hartmann sees a productive interaction between 'the painter's eye versus the scientist's eye.' For instance, sometimes he understands planetary photometry--the interaction of light and surface--'experientially' by noting how the color of a terrestrial dune he's painting changes with changing sun angle. And trying to paint an alien scene not yet visited by a lander 'forces you to ask what we actually know.' "

Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity - New York Times

Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity - New York Times

The story begins: " Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story."

Here's a great example...of something. The story itself is about science journalism, but of course it's also about the science itself. And it's about how scientific information flows. Notice especially the interaction between information in a scientific journal, information in a press release about the article in the scientific journal, and then the more public discussions that happen as a result.

Who gets to be an author of a scientific article?

One recurring issue in the publication of formal scientific results is the question of "authorship." When teams work on research, who gets to be an author of the paper? A great many discussions of this have taken place. Interestingly, in the American Psychological Association's Style Guide, the way they give advice is to cite an article about authorship:
Fine, M. A., & Kurdek, L. A. (1993). Reflections on Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship Order on Faculty—Student Collaborations. American Psychologist, 48(11), 1141-1147. (May be publicly available at http://content.apa.org/journals/amp/48/11/1141.html.)

How do doctors communicate with each other?

If we're talking about communication "within" science, do we include the medical profession? It is in a somewhat ambiguous position -- clearly "of" science, and dependent on science, but also with an element of art and humanistic understanding in its everyday practice. This tension between the "scientific" and "humanistic" approaches to medicine is present in the communication among doctors, particularly during their training years. For an article about this tension, see
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/health/12docs.html?ref=science>.