Internal:Scientific claim wiki

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Revision as of 18:18, 25 March 2014 by Econterms (talk | contribs) (brainstorms)
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It would be good if there were a searchable location to check whether the conclusions of published scientific work has been disputed -- because its data, interpretation

One Proposal

Set up a wiki-type database could be established where experts rate papers on points such as:

  • 1. Reproducibility of data (with links to subsequent papers)
  • 2. Correctness of interpretation of data (since the data could be correct but misinterpreted in retrospect after future data on the topic, requiring revision of interpretation)
  • 3. Acceptance of results/conclusions in the field
  • 4. Listing of papers on the same topic that agree/disagree
Example issues
  • Autism-vaccine claims
  • RV 144 vaccine
  • Rogoff and Reinhardt on whether there is a threshold of govt debt at 90% of GDP causing loss of trust in financial markets (they found YES but it was shown later that they had left out five key observations by mistake and the conclusion was therefore not justified)
  • Levitt on whether abortions reduced crime rates 20 years later, state by state (econ) (methods shown to be incorrect, apparently by mistake ; conclusion is unsettled)
Existing scientific/expert/dispute summary sites
  • Citizendium
  • Scholarpedia
  • WetWare
  • discoursedb
  • sciencegist.com
  • acawiki
  • reffit.com
  • others listed at http://acawiki.org/AcaWiki:Similar_projects). I'd like to figure out whether anybody's marking what's been debunked. I'm not seeing it, and I'd like to figure out why not.
  • observation: NONE of these smart sites, so far as I can tell, has a simple category for "disputed" or "debunked." I'm not sure why. Calls for research. The service of identifying disputed/debunked would plainly be useful. Need to summarize what these sites do and how it relates to this project/mission. Econterms (talk) 14:18, 25 March 2014 (EDT)
Support for project
  • Dr. Otto Yang says there is probably funding for this and identifies important examples of dispute-worthy science in vaccine realm
  • Wiki DC could help, manage, work it. Design and platform however is still unclear.* Where is the community to support the effort?
To do
  • Peter to try out an example, perhaps on acawiki.org, for discussion.
  • Many experts to consult: Daniel Mietchen, Yaron Koren