Category Archives: Philosophy

Joke, Philosophy

Reading this blog will improve your academic skills

Aren’t hat good news being published by Science this week?

Process-specific training can improve performance on untrained tasks, but the magnitude of gain is variable and often there is no transfer at all. We demonstrate transfer to a 3-back test of working memory after 5 weeks of training in updating. The transfer effect was based on a joint training-related activity increase for the criterion (letter memory) and transfer tasks in a striatal region that also was recruited pretraining.

Continue reading Reading this blog will improve your academic skills →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Joke, Philosophy

Placebo for placebo

or “Do placebo responders exist?” is a remarkable new review by researcher from the Harvard Medical School. I always wondered about the sheer size of the placebo effect (and its perception as nuisance parameter). The authors simply ask the question

… this paper also examines the evidence for the existence of a consistent placebo responder, i.e. a person who responds to placebo in one situation will respond in another condition or using a different type of placebo ritual….

Suggestibility is a human trait, yea, yea.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Philosophy, Software

Open peer review – publish first, review later

c’t 10.2008:82-89 has a nice article about open peer review “Die Weisheit der Massen” summarizing the current peer review process – the top line of the cartoon below. Following submission of a paper, it is initially screened for some formal requirements before being submitted to anonymous peer review and finally being published. Anonymous peer review lasts between 2 months and 2 years (!) and is abbreviated so far only by one biomedical journal Continue reading Open peer review – publish first, review later →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Philosophy

We are the model organisms

Genomeweb today reports Sidney Brenner (Nobel Prize winner 2002 and pioneer in the use of Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism) speaking on a conference. These days he’s pushing a new model organism: humans.

“We don’t have to look for a model organism anymore,” Brenner said. “Because we are the model organisms.”

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Genetics, Philosophy

To be honest

1 Comment

Bruce Alberts, the new editor-in-chief of Science magazine, has in his March, 21 editorial a nice comment that I would like to highlight here

Scientists share a common way of reaching conclusions that is based not only on the evidence and logic, but also requires honesty, creativity, and openess to new ideas.

Struggling in an area where no (or only seldom) conclusions ar being reached, I agree Continue reading To be honest →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Philosophy, Theology

Evolutionary psychology and science: The full error list

The appendix of Frey includes a list of errors based on evolutionary psychology (EP) – some acquired during development of our species, some acquired during individual ontogenesis. It is certainly the best what I have read since the famous study biases Continue reading Evolutionary psychology and science: The full error list →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Philosophy

Yes, it is true and and quite right too

1 Comment

Science reports that the NEJM is being sued by Pfizer

in various jurisdictions on product liability grounds. Plaintiffs are claiming that its products Celebrex and Bextra cause cardiovascular and other injuries. Pfizer asserts that in some cases plaintiffs are making use of published papers from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). So it wants to dig though the confidential reviews of those papers in search of something to strengthen its defense.

Two giants fighting each other… Continue reading Yes, it is true and and quite right too →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026
Philosophy

Phantastic, the peer-review system is broken

A comment on the online Nature website says it all

Phantastic. Moreover, the peer-review system is broken with top PI’s getting away with publishing high impact poorly reviewed rubbish. If more non-peer-reviewed research becomes more prominent it will hardly make a difference to quality and can overall only be a good thing.

commenting on the recent decision at Harvard to automatically publish all papers by its Faculty of Arts and Sciences on the university’s website (except there is a waiver). I am waiting for the first German university to follow; effectively since January 2008 we get all our ordered documents on paper again for copyright reasons.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 19.02.2026