Many thanks to Positive Internet, hope this continues to work out Ok for them aas well as for BadScience. And it’s good to see Ben back “on air”.

Cheers!

Seriously though, the future is a couple of shades brighter. Major kudos to Positive Internet and all who have helped with the migration. Let the plans for global domination commence!

While that is not per se all bad – there clearly needs to be social scientists examining “why do people find it so easy to believe nonsense” – this definition of the field really will not include “critical dissection and rebuttal of nonsense ideas”.

As a consequence, the protagonists will be social scientists, or perhaps people who started with a science degree and then moved sideways into the sociology of science.

One meets a somewhat analogous problem in science education – the journals of science education do not publish “here is a good class experiment that helps kids understand X and is engaging” as they don’t regard developing things like this as research into science education. They all exist to publish “A post-Piaget conceptual framework for understanding the cognitive process of childrens’ science learning” and similar.

Again, perfectly valid in its own way, but not where most of us frustrated science geeks would see the need as being. So it has been my experience that the academic “focus” of science education research (see above) mainly excludes actual scientists. I am afraid I see any “public understanding of science” field probably going the same way.

I used to work in science, now I don’t and I mostly socialise with non-scientists. I’m not sure how many scientists who are emerged in that world have started to realise the extent to which science is being rejected by the general population.
Much more study needs to be done on how this situation might be reversed. Everything needs to be covered from education to government health policy to media coverage.There are posts being created in the academic world to look at the problem and I think there could be room for a new field to emerge. Not just quackbusting, but ‘science in society’ in general.

As for serious thought-out scrutiny of kook ideas and scams though – they don’t deserve the honour. Scams, lunacy, and incompetence can be identified by means outside the scientific field where the offences occur.

A middle ground of honest, reasonable, radical theories deserves more careful examination, but is that neglected in existing journals?

Unfortunately, publishers publish scientific journals to make money. They would need to be convinced that enough people / Univs would take said journal for it to turn a profit – especially in a “new” market sector.

One of the depressing things about Alt Med journals is just how many truly utterly mind-twistingly barking mad ones there are listed on PubMed, where one kind of expects to find actual science. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (aka “Ye Journale of Alchemy and Compleat Magick”) is one of the more egregious examples. I would bet they get listed largely because they are backed by large scientific publishing houses and thus can afford all the paraphenalia of managing editors, editorial board, peer-review etc.

In contrast (cautionary tale), some years ago the “Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine” was set up in the US:

www.sram.org/

but my understanding was it never got a mainstream publisher and failed to make it onto PubMed.

…Again, suggesting there is less money in truth than in HotAir, at least if lots of people are enthusiastic consumers of HotAir.

Of course, it may be that Andrew Clegg’s idea that online-only offers a new way to do this is worth a look. Considering the huge slate of journals publishing Alt Claptrap, there really ought to be a demand for some of the opposite. There is certainly a need for a forum. For a recent example, see Lionel’s Milgrom’s blatherings about Quantum homeopathy, e.g.

ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/4/1/7

- This waffle is into it’s 8th (at least) “paper” essentially because multiple AltMed journals exist to publish such stuff, nonsense or not. In contrast, when Shpalman (who unlike Milgrom is a real physicist) tried to point out why Milgrom is talking rot:

shpalman.livejournal.com/2016.html

– the journal (OUP’s “Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine”, aka eCAM) simply declined to publish his response, even though they have a response thread for Milgrom’s paper.

So agree 100% there is a need for a forum, but I fear it will be harder than people think to get it running in Journal form.

Count me in, though. Would be proud to join the Editorial Board…!

Two – I am a php programmer and mysql admin and query mangler by day, and I’d be glad to help where I can – if’n you want to farm out small stuff to me. Let me know if I can help in some small way.

Unless… Ben uses his status as kick-ass ninja champion of the public understanding of science to negotiate a deal with them where they waive the fees in return for free publicity. Just an idea.

I’m happy to do peer review/editorial committee type duties if/when something does happen—I’m sure the articles would be more fun than the ones I get sent at the moment.

woodchopper said: “However, a less ambitions project might be in order. A pdf journal containing short articles like ‘The Reasoner’ would cost a lot less. It wouldn’t have to be be peer reviewed, but would have editorial input.”

I’m not so keen on this idea—it seems like a step backwards technology-wise and doesn’t use the web well. One advantage of web-based OA journals is you can link straight into (and out of) specific articles. Another is that readers can post comments and authors can post updates and additional materials.

Perhaps if BMC didn’t want to take it on as a charity case, we could hack up/adapt an existing web publishing solution (there must something open source out there) and host it here.

Andrew.

One suggestion I have is that I’d like to see is a wall of shame/Quakwatch page or something of the sorts. Where people could name perpetrators of pseudoscience and mystic gobeldygook, with reference to why they’re being named and have it as a kind of service. Of course the legality of it is dubious, and it lends itself to abuse … Still I think it’s an idea worth discussing.