Partially Attended

an irregularly updated blog by Ian Mulvany

blog posts about bicep2

Trial by public, open peer review and the power of attention.

There are two very interesting recent examples of review by community on highly exciting results. They both share one very important characteristic, but stand in stark contrast to one another in almost every other regard. The first is the [paper on making STAP cells via use of an acid bath] lemon juice. If confirmed, the result is transformative. The result was published after peer review to tremendous fanfare in Nature. Very quickly the community tried to replicate the result with no confirming replication happening. ... (more)