That's not isomorphic. To put it bluntly, medicine didn't.
Medicine was often harmful in the past, with some occasional parts that helped, e.g. amputating gangrenous limbs was dangerous and people died, but probably was still a benefit on net. Admiral Nelson had multiple surgeries and was in serious danger of infection and death afterwards, but he would have been a goner for sure without surgery.
Science was pretty similar, it was mostly nonsense with occasional islands of sense. It didn't really get underway until, what, Francis Bacon wrote about biases and empiricism? That is not very long ago. The early "gentlemen scholars" all did informal peer review by sending their stuff to each other (they also hid discoveries from each other due to competition and egos, but this stuff happens today too).
you seem to have no interest...
Gwern, peer review is my life. My tenure case will be decided by peer review, ultimately. I do peer review myself as a service, constantly. I know all about peer review.
get a photograph of its leader and see if he has a red nose!
The burden of proof is on MIRI, not on me. MIRI is the one that wants funding and people to save the world. It's up to MIRI to use all available financial and intellectual resources out there, which includes engaging with academia.
I have little first-hand experience; my vitriol comes mostly from having read over the literature showing peer- review to be highly unreliable, and biased, from the unthinking respect and overestimation of it that most people give it, being shocked at how awful many published studies are despite being 'peer reviewed', and from talking to researchers and learning how pervasive bias is in the process and how reviewers enforce particular cliques & theories (some politically-motivated) and try to snuff opposition in the cradle.
I really think you should moderate your criticism of peer review. Peer review for data analysis papers is very different from peer review for mathematics or theoretical physics. Fields are different and have vastly different cultural norms. Even in the same field, different conferences/journals may have different norms.
I find it hard to see why other people can't get worked up over things like publication bias or aging or p-hacking.
I do a lot of theory. When I do data analysis, my collabs and I try to lead by example. What is the point of being angry? Angry outsiders just make people circle the wagons.
Admiral Nelson had multiple surgeries and was in serious danger of infection and death afterwards, but he would have been a goner for sure without surgery.
This argument seems exactly identical to the argument for trepanning, even including the survivorship bias. (One of the suspected uses of trepanning was to revive people otherwise thought dead.)
While we're looking at anecdotes, this bit of Nelson's experience with surgery seems relevant:
...Although surgeons had been unable to remove the central ligature in his amputated arm, which had caused considera
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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