Category Archives: Philosophy

Noteworthy, Philosophy

Unknows facts about COPE

Wilmshurst about COPE then

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was formed “to address breaches of research and publication ethics”. It was a discussion forum providing advice for editors. Its aims were to find practical ways of dealing with issues of concern and to develop good practice. At that time, the members consisted of a small number of editors of medical journals in the BMJ publishing group and the Lancet. There were two individuals who were not journal editors – Professor Ian Kennedy (subsequently Sir Ian Kennedy) and me.

and now

The majority of COPE’s income is from large publishing houses that obtain COPE membership for their entire portfolio of journals. Because some publishers have enrolled more than one thousand journals and Springer Nature has enrolled more than 3000 journals, there should be a question as to whether all the editors of the journals that are members of COPE are truly signed up to adhere to COPE principles and practices, rather than passively complying with the policy of their publishers. This arrangement also means that COPE does not know precisely how many members it has because publishing houses do not keep COPE informed about the number of journals in their stable. Individual journals can enrol for a small fee. COPE makes a selling point of the fact that COPE membership enables journals to use the COPE logo.

 

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Why the Eickelberg “Gold Standard Science” editorial is so ridiculously shallow

I sent chatGPT 5 the new JCI piece and here is what I got:

The editorial opens by invoking the new federal plan “Restoring Gold Standard Science” a phrase so inflated that it already tests the reader’s pain threshold before the first paragraph is over.

Rather than examining what this initiative actually changes, the authors simply echo its vocabulary, “rigor,” “reproducibility,” “transparency” — as if repetition itself could restore credibility. The JCI editorial “Publishing gold standard science” may not be offensive or incompetent, but it comes across as self-congratulatory and bureaucratic—essentially a polished form of institutional advertising.

It mistakes bureaucratic slogans for substance
The authors repeat official NIH language—“rigor,” “reproducibility,” “transparency,” “data sharing”—without analyzing what these terms achieve in practice. The piece confuses administrative formality with scientific reform.

“We encourage the NIH to recognize publishers’ role in conveying research results with transparency and accuracy.”

Such sentences state the obvious but contribute nothing analytic. They reinforce policy orthodoxy rather than scrutinize it.

It rehashes two-decade-old debates
Most of the text is a retelling of Begley & Ellis (2012) and Freedman & Inglese (2014). The authors restate familiar concerns about irreproducibility but add no evidence or theoretical insight—just a timeline of NIH initiatives already well known to anyone in biomedical research.

It presents correlation as insight
The figure showing that SciScore doubled between 2000 and 2012 but stagnated after 2014 directly contradicts the claim that the NIH “Rigor and Reproducibility” framework improved research quality. Instead of confronting that, the authors offer speculation about funding.

“We hypothesize that in the US, underfunding also threatens R&R. … It would be valuable to know what accounted for this apparent improvement.”

This turns a negative result into vague conjecture, avoiding the obvious conclusion that the framework had little measurable effect.

It functions as self-promotion
Large sections describe JCI’s internal procedures—manual QC, data policies, peer-review traditions—without connecting them to measurable improvements in reproducibility.

“In 2025, our staff began manual quality control measures of high-throughput sequencing and proteomic datasets prior to acceptance.”

The tone resembles a corporate sustainability report more than a scientific analysis.

It trivializes the reproducibility crisis
Although the authors admit that there is no evidence of better translation from these reforms, they close with uplifting boilerplate.

“Editors, reviewers, NIH-supported scientists, and the scientific community will continue to work with the NIH… This is a noble and worthy cause for all of us to unite in advancing together.”

The conclusion replaces reflection with ceremony.

It uses circular logic about peer review
The authors argue that disagreement among reviewers is proof of rigor, not a sign of inconsistency.

“Peer review… includes disagreement and dissent — hallmarks of scientific progress.”

This equates friction with validity; dissent becomes self-justifying evidence that the process works, which is logically empty.

It exemplifies performative virtue
Frequent references to “accountability,” “taxpayer dollars,” and “public trust” suggest moral legitimacy but not measurable outcomes. The piece sounds reassuring rather than investigative.

“Calls for restoring Gold Standard science are said to be motivated by the erosion of public trust in science.”

This is a rhetorical maneuver—invoking civic virtue while sidestepping the deeper problem of perverse incentives, selective reporting, and impact-factor economics.

It relies on inflated rhetoric
Expressions such as “robust education of scientists,” “gold standard science,” and “noble and worthy cause” give the essay a sermon-like tone. The writing feels more like grant-language or an internal memo than the reflective editorial it claims to be.

Summary
The editorial is so shallow not because it contains factual errors, but because it exemplifies performative concern for rigor: an official text celebrating reproducibility while offering no reproducible evidence. It turns the language of reform into a form of self-validation, mistaking compliance with substance.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Rhetorik statt Reflexion: Eine Replik

Zu dem  SZ-Gastbeitrag „Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaftsfreiheit gefährdet die Demokratie“ (Nassehi & Tschöp 2025), hier  eine Kritik in zehn Punkten.

Vermischung normativer und analytischer Argumente

Der Text springt zwischen moralischer Empörung („Angriff auf die Wissenschaftsfreiheit“) und theoretischer Begründung (Bezug auf Weber, Jaspers) hin und her. Dadurch bleibt unklar, ob die Autoren nun eine soziologische Analyse liefern oder eine politische Stellungnahme formulieren wollen. Dieser Zickzack Kurs schwächt die argumentative Klarheit. Eine klare Trennung der analytischen Ebene „Welche gesellschaftlichen Mechanismen bedrohen Wissenschaftsfreiheit?“ und des normativen Teils: „Warum sie für Demokratie unverzichtbar ist?“ mit Beleg durch empirische Beispiele oder Forschung wäre überzeugender gewesen.

Zirkularität der Hauptthese

Die Kernbehauptung lautet sinngemäß daß „Wissenschaft nur in Freiheit gedeihen kann und Freiheit gibt es nicht ohne Wissenschaft.“  Das ist logisch zirkulär, denn es wird nicht gezeigt, warum denn Freiheit nun zwingend von Wissenschaft abhängt. Die Behauptung steht tautologisch im Raum, ohne empirische oder historische Belege. Überzeugend wäre gewesen, warum Freiheit für Wissenschaft nötig ist (methodische Offenheit, Peer Review, Kritikfähigkeit, Weiterentwicklung). Und dann liesse sich auch unschwer empirisch zeigen, daß wissenschaftliche Rationalität demokratische Verfahren stärken kann (z. B. evidenzbasierte Politik, deliberative Öffentlichkeit) und eine  gegenseitige Abhängigkeit entsteht. Alles andere ist die aufgeblähte Rhetorik einer Proseminar Arbeit.

Übertragungsfehler auf allgemeine Demokratietheorie

Die Erregung mag ja nun verständlich sein an der grössten deutschen Universität. Der Artikel stützt sich auf die US-Politik unter Trump/Kennedy, zieht daraus aber weitreichende Schlüsse über Demokratien im Allgemeinen. Der Übergang von einem spezifischen und zugegeben unangenehmen Fall zu einer universellen Diagnose  („auch hierzulande droht Gefahr“) bleibt unbegründet.  Besser wäre ein komparativer Vergleich gewesen statt der praktizierten Erregungskultur: Beispiele aus Polen, Ungarn, Brasilien, Türkei zeigen das Muster von politischer Instrumentalisierung zu Einschränkung der Autonomie über den Vertrauensverlust bis hin zur “Demolierung der Demokratie”.

Idealisiertes Wissenschaftsbild

Die Autoren zeichnen ein idealisiertes, fast schon sakrales Bild von Wissenschaft („Fakten bleiben bestehen, auch wenn alles Wissen vernichtet wird“). Damit werden methodische und institutionelle Fehlbarkeit weitgehend ausgeblendet – z. B. Machtstrukturen, Gender Bias,  Publikationszwänge, Reproduzierbarkeitskrise. Der Text reflektiert zwar kurz „Selbstkritik“, aber nur oberflächlich und mehr pflichtschuldig. Wissenschaft sollte realistischer als soziales System mit Fehlanreizen, Macht, Hierarchie und Interessen beschrieben werden. Gerade weil Wissenschaft fehleranfällig ist, braucht sie Freiheit zur Korrektur.

Mangelnde Differenzierung von „Freiheit“

„Wissenschaftsfreiheit“ wird als absoluter Wert dargestellt, ohne zwischen äußerer Freiheit (also vor politischer Zensur) und innerer Freiheit  (etwa durch ökonomische, institutionelle oder soziale Zwänge) zu unterscheiden. Die Autoren erwähnen zwar die „Schere im Kopf“, analysieren diese aber nicht weiter – das Argument bleibt im luftleeren Raum stehen.

Appell statt Argumentation

Große Teile des Textes bestehen aus Appell- und Bekenntnisrhetorik („Wir haben viel zu verlieren“). Es werden kaum Belege, empirische Beispiele oder Gegenargumente präsentiert. So ist der Beitrag dann doch eher Plädoyer mit Pathos  im Schlussabschnitt – um Wirkung zu entfalten, aber nicht um rational zu überzeugen.

Widerspruch zwischen Selbstkritik und Autoritätsanspruch

Am Schluss fordern die Autoren zwar „mehr Selbstkritik“ und „wissenschaftliche Klärung“ ein, ohne aber  ihre eigenen normativen Prämissen zu hinterfragen. Das schwächt den Anspruch *wissenschaftlich* über Wissenschaft zu sprechen. Es ist eine verpasste Chance, explizit die eigenen institutionellen Rolle reflektieren, wie sie an der Spitze des Wissenschaftsbetriebs profitieren von Macht und Geld und Strukturen, die Kritik erschweren.

Fehlende Auseinandersetzung mit legitimer Wissenschaftskritik

Un nicht zuletzt: Die „Elitenkritik“ wird erwähnt, doch die Autoren behandeln sie vor allem als Gefahr, nicht als möglicherweise berechtigte gesellschaftliche Rückmeldung. Dadurch wirkt der Text selbst elitär – ein blinder Fleck im Hinblick auf das von ihnen geforderte „Vertrauen in Wissenschaft“. Vertrauen sollte nicht nur gefordert, sondern muss verdient werden.

Wissenschaftliche Unredlichkeit wird ignoriert

Übersehen wird dabei die eigentliche Vulnerabilität der Wissenschaft – die Faulgase im Inneren des Systems: erfundene Daten und gefälschte Grafiken, Plagiate und mehrfach verwertete Daten, Zitierkartelle, Paper Mills und nicht zuletzt hochgradig selektive Darstellungen als Ursache der Replikationskrise. All das unterwandert die Idee wissenschaftlicher Redlichkeit von innen heraus und bedrohen ihre Glaubwürdigkeit weit stärker als der gesellschaftliche Erwartungsdruck, vor dem die Autoren warnt.

Finis

Der Text stammt offensichtlich von Nassehi; von Tschöp sind bisher nur Versuchsbeschreibungen von übergewichtigen Mäusen überliefert. Frühere Nassehi Rezensionen haben angemerkt, dass er zuweilen in einer stark theoretischen und abstrakten Weise argumentiert – etwa in seinen Überlegungen zur digitalen Gesellschaft, wo weitreichende Thesen formuliert werden, ohne auf eine solide empirische Fundierung zurückzugreifen. Charakteristisch ist sein wiederholter Appell an ein gesteigertes Bewusstsein für Komplexität, Ambiguität und Perspektivendifferenz, verbunden mit einer Skepsis gegenüber „großen Gesten“. Paradoxerweise verfällt er jedoch in diesem Text selbst in eben jene rhetorische Haltung, vor der er sonst gerne warnt.

(verfasst mit chatGPT 5 Support)

Postscriptum

Und was ist eine der ersten Amtshandlungen des neuen Präsidenten, nur zwei Wochen nach der Inauguration? Nach Kritik aus der CDU und einer Interessengruppe an einer geplanten Veranstaltung kommt nun diese  Pressemitteilung heraus “LMU als Ort des pluralistischen Diskurses”

Zu dem an der LMU geplanten Seminar „The Targeting of the Palestinian Academia“ hat die Hochschulleitung sich mit dem Veranstalter Professor Andreas Kaplony, Lehrstuhl für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft, ausgetauscht. Hierbei wurden sowohl der wissenschaftliche Charakter der Veranstaltung als auch Sicherheitsbedenken erörtert. Daraus resultierte folgende einvernehmliche Vorgehensweise:

  • Die für den 28.11.2025 terminierte Veranstaltung findet nicht statt.
  • Zeitnah werden Professor Kaplony, Mitglieder der Hochschulleitung und der Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften damit beginnen, geeignete wissenschaftliche Formate auch für derart aufgeladene Themen zu entwickeln.
  • Ein solches Format soll in absehbarer Zeit umgesetzt werden.

Die LMU hat sich die Entscheidung nicht leicht gemacht und die relevanten wissenschaftlichen und rechtlichen Aspekte abgewogen. Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft ist ein hohes Gut, es bestanden in diesem Fall aber Zweifel, ob es sich um eine wissenschaftliche Veranstaltung auf dem erforderlichen Niveau gehandelt hätte. Die LMU trägt dabei ihrem Anspruch Rechnung, die Freiheit der Wissenschaft, die freie Rede, die sachliche Austragung von Konflikten, sowie Respekt gegenüber unterschiedlichen Auffassungen zu leben.

Was auch immer auf dieser universitären Veranstaltung hätte diskutiert werden sollen, ob hier womöglich zu Rechtsbruch aufgerufen worden wäre,  das kann ich alles nicht sagen. Aber wir können festhalten, daß die Pressemitteilung behauptet, die LMU sei ein „Ort des pluralistischen Diskurses“, aber gleichzeitig eine geplante Diskussion absagt. Sie betont die „Freiheit der Wissenschaft“, knüpft diese jedoch an eine interne Bewertung des „wissenschaftlichen Niveaus“ – und schränkt damit gerade jene Freiheit ein, die vor wenigen Monaten noch so hoch gehalten wurde.

Die jüngsten Attacken der US-Regierung gegen die Universitäten sind nicht weniger als ein Angriff auf die Wissenschaftsfreiheit. Das ist eine ernst zu nehmende Gefahr. Denn Wissenschaft kann nur in Freiheit gedeihen.

Anstatt Debatten zu ermöglichen, wird der Diskurs verschoben und durch unbestimmte, zukünftige Formate ersetzt. Sicherheits- und Qualitätsargumente dienen dabei als Vorwand, kontroverse Inhalte nicht zuzulassen. So hat die Pressemitteilung das fatale Ergebnis, dass sie Offenheit verspricht aber faktisch Wissenschaftsfreiheit unterläuft.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Evolving minds: The university through time

There are several interesting papers on this topic during the last few weeks. The most interesting one was “How universities came to be – and why they’re in trouble now” by Philip G. Altbach. Higher education worldwide is under strain, facing deep financial and political challenges. In the U.S., universities are dealing with major federal funding cuts and political pressure on teaching and research. In the U.K. money troubles are pushing some institutions toward collapse. Global enrolment has exploded from 6 million in 1950 to 264 million in 2023, and by 2024 most countries—except in sub-Saharan Africa—were sending over half of school-leavers to higher education.  So we don’t have anymore an elite university but education for the masses.

As higher education became accessible to the masses across the world, research-intensive universities based on the original Humboldtian model have come to represent just a small proportion of all higher education institutions.[…] the rise of populist politics has compounded some of these pressures. Populism has many causes —Rejection of experts, science and evidence-based policy is part of many populist movements.

Therefore we have now less highly qualified scientists at universities who will even move to the private sector.  Clara Collier at  her blog analyses the historical development.

…  something happened to German universities at the turn of the 19th century — they developed a new system that combined teaching with research. Within a few decades, everyone in Europe was trying to copy their model. German scientists dominated chemistry and revolutionized modern physics. They came up with cell theory, bacteriology, the whole laboratory-based model of scientific medicine

The historical origins illuminate why modern universities may be in trouble: if the delicate balance between funding, mission, autonomy, teaching, and research shifts too far, the institution risks losing its raison d’être. All the financial and structural pressures that force now institutions to prioritise revenue, prestige, cost-cutting and global competition rather than education. In addition we have a legitimacy crisis, where universities are no longer seen as the unique centres of knowledge creation and public good – they compete instead with other knowledge platforms and feel more like businesses.

While the above analysis suggested that universities will decline when they lose their grounding in mission, and unity of purpose, a NYT article two months ago suggested that  decline already happens by finances and market pressures that force institutions to compromise on programmes, services, and expectations undermining their offer to students that doesn’t stress anymore “ideas” as much as “money & market”.

– Rising administrative and support costs, which have soared in recent decades, even as state legislatures have tightened public spigots.
– Higher tuition prices, among other considerations, which have turned off students, who are routinely paying more and oftentimes getting less.
– Some academic programs that draw few students.

In the same vein is another Atlantic article on the disruption of the federal research-funding ecosystem (especially via the NIH) which ties into the broader theme of financial/mission distress.

Now many university professors and researchers believe that this special fusion of research and teaching is at risk. “I feel lost,” a research scientist at a top-five university who works on climate and data science told me.

It complements the notion that universities are vulnerable not only to enrolment/tuition pressures and mission drift, but also to external shocks in the research funding system. Many research universities have built major commitments around securing federal research grants and the indirect cost (“overhead”) payments from them. The Atlantic piece argues that when those are threatened, the whole institution becomes fragile.

That ties back to the origin‐story of the modern research university (the teaching + research model) — if the “research” side now collapses, the model itself is under threat. This injects more urgency: it’s not only decades of mission drift and funding pressure, but also sudden regulatory/policy upheavals.

 

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Allergy, Noteworthy, Philosophy

The dark arts of debate – and how to counter them

In my career I have experienced all kind of situations where reason often loses not to better logic but to tactics.

Pigeon Chess

One such tactic is pigeon chess . arguing with someone who disregards all rules of reasoning. Like the proverbial pigeon knocking over the chess pieces, they make noise, strut, and claim victory.
Engaging them rarely yields clarity; it only creates chaos.

Sealioning

This is subtler: endless polite questions asked not to learn, but to exhaust. It mimics curiosity, but its aim is delay, not understanding.
When faced with it, ask for sincerity—“Are you asking to discuss or to debate?”

Gish Galloping

The Chewbacca, borrowed from satire, floods the room with irrelevant noise. It works by confusing, not convincing.
Gish Galloping is its cousin: a barrage of weak arguments fired faster than one can refute. Both rely on overwhelming the listener rather than enlightening them.

Silencing

Silencing is the most insidious of all, discouraging speech through mockery or mobbing. It creates fear where there should be dialogue. It creates emptiness that is filled with new opponent arguments.

To counter these tactics, remember: calm is your armor, clarity your weapon. Refuse to chase every false lead—focus on one point, and hold it steady. Ask for definitions, sources, and limits to the discussion. And when reason cannot prevail, step back rather than sink into the mud.

In the end, not every debate deserves our participation.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Programmers, Professors, and Parasites

This is the title of a 2009 Stanford academic paper by Justin Solomon that analyzes the history of credit and co-authorship in computer science. The paper argues for a more consistent publishing standard in the field by addressing issues of inconsistent co-authorship, where some contributors may receive credit for minimal work, leading to potential accountability problems.

in fact, the 1993 Ig Nobel prize for “improbable research” in literature was awarded to “E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P.W. Armstrong, and their 972 coauthors, for publishing a medical research paper which has one hundred times as many authors as pages

Well, and their Fig 4 was only the beginning of the “gaming the system” enterprise…

Fig. 4 Trends in author list alphabetization in computer science papers (data gathered from the DBLP Computer Science Bibliography) by Solomon 2009

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy, Theology

Christlicher Realismus

Jan Lucas Dietrich in der Eule mit “Christlicher Realismus statt evangelikaler Faschismus”

Niebuhr attestiert Amerika einen Exzeptionalismus, in dem auf paradoxe Art und Weise Macht immer wieder mit größter moralischer Schwachheit zusammenkommt. Dass dieser Exzeptionalismus derzeit vor allem von ultra-rechten, fundamentalistischen Christen bespielt wird, zeigte zuletzt die Gedenkfeier für Charlie Kirk. In ihrem Selbstverständnis findet sich auch jenes Muster, das Niebuhr bei faschistischen Gruppierungen seiner Zeit entdeckte: Eine kollektive Hybris, in der die grundlegende Illusion menschlicher Perfektion gepaart mit der Persistenz der Sünde in kruden Selbsterlösungsphantasien gipfelt.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
One World, Philosophy

A liberal education is simply not valued the way it was 20 years ago, let alone 50 years ago

From a THE mailing today

It is a troubling sign of the times, and the crisis that many fear higher education is in, that several of our analyses this week relate to the theme of university collapse.

An essay on the massification of UK higher education argues that “the current state of UK universities seems like a very bad deal for those involved, bad for society and ultimately unsustainable”, with high participation rates and declining income levels creating a system that author Lincoln Allison compares to that of the Soviet Union.

“The reasons to fear the collapse of the system, however, are not that it’s bad or unfair but that it’s unfundable,” writes the emeritus reader in politics at the University of Warwick.
“The university sector has been bloated to an unsustainable level and is now bound to decline; the questions are by how much and how will it happen.”

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

The decline of science is now official

Coming from an official announcement

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/improving-oversight-of-federal-grantmaking/

Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests.  This often does not happen.  Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, trained doctoral candidates in critical race theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs.  In 2024, one study claimed that more than one-quarter of new National Science Foundation (NSF) grants went to diversity, equity, and inclusion and other far-left initiatives.  These NSF grants included those to educators that promoted Marxism, class warfare propaganda, and other anti-American ideologies in the classroom, masked as rigorous and thoughtful investigation.

While I once believed that funding should primarily support the advancement of core scientific methods and studies rather than numerous DEI initiatives, this view is a grotesque distortion of reality, especially when we consider the so-called “study” the White House is citing. Many DEI projects are, in fact, valuable educational efforts or have an environmental focus, often addressing critical research needs that receive little to no funding from other sources.

Here is  a brief overview how these numbers were produced, and key problems that I have with the methods. The statement comes from the October 9, 2024 Senate Republican staff report Division. Extremism. Ideology: How the Biden-Harris NSF Politicized Science from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, then led by Sen. Ted Cruz (PDF, the original is no more available on Aug 12, 2025).  The underlying dataset was released on February 11, 2025 (press release and database).

https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/FA4D5565-5056-4916-AF87-64C96EAB8FEA

Staff analyzed 32,198 NSF prime awards with start dates between January 2021 and April 4, 2024. Using a keyword-based tagging process, they identified 3,483 awards they labeled as “DEI/neo-Marxist,” totaling more than $2.05 billion. The report says that for 2024 (measured only up to April 4), 27% of new grants fell into this category. Appendix A of the report explains the method. Staff pulled all NSF awards from USAspending.gov with start dates in the 2021–2024 window. They ran an n-gram/keyword search using glossaries from sources like NACo and the University of Washington, expanding the list to more than 800,000 variants. Awards with zero or only one keyword match were removed, and additional filtering plus manual checks produced the final set of 3,483. Grants were grouped into five thematic categories (Status, Social Justice, Gender, Race, Environment). The “27% in 2024” figure came from the share of awards in that subset with start dates in the first quarter of 2024.

Faults and shortcomings in the method

  • The keyword approach equates the presence of certain words with being a DEI-focused grant, and the keyword list is very broad (including terms like “equity,” “privilege,” “climate change,” “systemic,” “historic*,” and “intersectional”), which can capture unrelated research.
  • The 27% figure comes from only part of the year (January–April 2024), not a full year.
  • There is ambiguity between counts and dollar amounts; the 27% refers to counts, not necessarily to total funding share.
  • Removing all single-keyword matches and applying manual pruning introduces subjectivity and potential bias.
  • Categories like “Social Justice” or “Race” are based purely on word presence, not actual research aims, conflating standard NSF education/broader impacts work with political advocacy.
  • Reliance on abstracts and spending descriptions means the screen often catches standard boilerplate language that NSF requires by law.
  • A House Science Committee Democratic staff review in April 2025 found numerous false positives in the Cruz dataset, such as biodiversity studies flagged for the word “diversity” or wildlife grants flagged for the word “female.” That review also notes that NSF is required by statute to consider “broader impacts” in all awards.
  • The Senate report is a partisan staff product, not peer-reviewed, and uses normative framing (“neo-Marxist,” “extremist”) rather than neutral description.

Restoring „gold standard“ of science by non-scientists?
An US health secretary who wants to retract an Annals paper for personal opinion?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Philosophy

Many new PPPR kids

I have summarized the history of Post Publication Peer Review starting  with  Pubmed Commons  to the leading website PubPeer. But most recently there are at least  three new kids on the block: Peer Community In, Paperstars and alphaXiv.

What is the difference?

Peer Community In was founded in 2017 by Denis Bourguet and colleagues, targeting researchers across disciplines with a focus on peer-reviewing and recommending preprints as an alternative to traditional journals.

Paperstars, launched in 2023 by currently undisclosed founders, is aimed at both the general public and researchers, focusing on making scientific papers more accessible through AI-generated summaries and visuals.

alphaXiv was created in 2024 by the Allen Institute for AI to serve researchers and academics by enhancing preprint discoverability through AI-powered search and summarization tools.
BTW Science Guardians is a scammer website.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Sagan Standard

This is not about the extraordinary cyclist Peter Sagan but about the astronomer Carl Sagan who postulated  in his 1979 book  “Broca’s brain” that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”

A major part of the book is devoted to debunking “paradoxers” who either live at the edge of science or are outright charlatans.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Noteworthy, Philosophy

Fragen und Antworten zur Staatsräson

Warum steht der Begriff „Staatsräson“ nicht ausdrücklich im Grundgesetz, wenn er doch angeblich das oberste Interesse oder Prinzip beschreibt, nach dem ein Staat handelt, um sein Bestehen, seine Ordnung und seine Sicherheit zu wahren?

– Ursprünglich wurde der Begriff in der Frühneuzeit geprägt, etwa durch Niccolò Machiavelli und später Giovanni Botero oder Richelieu.
– Er diente zur Legitimation staatlicher Machtpolitik, oft losgelöst von ethischen oder rechtlichen Maßstäben.
– In der Moderne ist er normativ begrenzt – d. h. im demokratischen Rechtsstaat muss Staatsräson mit Recht, Moral und Verfassung vereinbar sein.

Also ist Staatsräson das, was ein Staat für unbedingt notwendig hält, um sich selbst zu schützen und zu erhalten. Müsste in das nicht doch in das Grundgesetz?

Das Grundgesetz ist eine rechtsstaatliche Verfassung – kein Machtinstrument. Das Grundgesetz von 1949 wurde bewusst als Gegenentwurf zur NS-Diktatur geschaffen. Es soll:
– Macht begrenzen, nicht rechtfertigen,
– die Grundrechte des Einzelnen schützen, und
– Recht und Moral über staatliche Interessen stellen.
Ein Begriff wie „Staatsräson“, der traditionell die Zwecke des Staates über Recht und Moral stellt, passt nicht zu einer rechtsstaatlichen, demokratischen Verfassung wie dem Grundgesetz.

Continue reading Fragen und Antworten zur Staatsräson →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Joke, Philosophy

LLM crazyness

We do not need to discuss all dystopic  X posts about LLMs.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1936333964693885089

 

Whenever Nature Mag, however, publishes nonsense  like “A foundation model to predict and capture human cognition” this may deserve a comment…
Fortunately Science’s Cathleen O’Grady already commented

“I think there’s going to be a big portion of the scientific community that will view this paper very skeptically and be very harsh on it” says Blake Richards, a computational neuroscientist at McGill University … Jeffrey Bowers, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol, thinks the model is “absurd”. He and his colleagues tested Centaur … and found decidedly un-humanlike behavior.”

The claim is absurd as training set of 160 psych studies was way to small to cover even a minor aspect of human behavior.

And well, a large fraction of the 160 published study findings are probably wrong as may be assumed from another replications study in psych field

Ninety-seven percent of original studies had significant results … Thirty-six percent of replications had significant results.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Philosophy

Most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic


 

All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found to be unsatisfactory. Hence, a change of mind in a scientist, and particularly in a great scientist, is not only not a sign of weakness but rather  evidence for continuing attention to the respective problem and an ability to test the hypothesis again and again.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025
Philosophy

The Südhof Nomenclature

Blurred as I have no image rightsSource: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wissen/medizin-nobelpreistraeger-thomas-suedhof-wie-boese-ist-wissenschaft-110567521.html

The video can be found at the Lindau Mediathek.

Here is my annotated list of excuses numbered as SUEDHOF1, SUEDHOF2, …,. SUEDHOF15 in chronological order.

Is this really “an unprecedented quality initiative” as F.A.Z. Joachim Müller-Jung wrote?

IMHO this looks more like a larmoyant defense but form your own opinion now. Continue reading The Südhof Nomenclature →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 23.11.2025