Comments on: Addressing Marinov’s Element 122 Claim

By: Blog of ACS Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology » Nuclear waste treatment & new element discovery in the news

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:56:44 +0000

[...] For those who are following the element 122 discussions, a fellow DNCT member wrote an excellent review on the validity of their data. To learn more or join the discussion, check out Addressing Marinov’s Element 122 Claim. [...]

By: mitch

mitch — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:43:48 +0000

Most chemical publishers wouldn’t publish a paper that is already in the public domain, so this may be a mute point for chemists.

I’m glad ArXiv has been shown to be successful previously, but the fact this paper has attracted as much attention as it has, I feel, makes my point about non peer-review services.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:18:15 +0000

I think you’ve misunderstood the status of the arxiv and of the “Physics Arxiv Blog.” Arxiv.org is a preprint service currently run by Cornell University library that allows researchers to rapidly share their work. As far as I know it is not used by chemists (or certainly not widely), but in some fields of physics (most notably high energy physics) it is the most important means of communicating research to ones peers. The fact that some websites and news sources don’t understand that most preprints submitted have not yet been peer reviewed (although many do go on to be published in peer reviewed journals later) does not make it “silly”.

The “Physics Arxiv Blog” is not officially associated with the arxiv, although judging from the posts, I do think it is run by a physicist.

Just to be clear, while I maintain that the arxiv is an extremely useful method of scholarly communication, I agree that there is a risk of papers on the arxiv being promoted in the press before they have been peer reviewed. There is a nice discussion of these issues from the founder of the arxiv here:

http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/pg02pr.html

A recent example showing way too much press coverage for an arxiv preprint is Garrett Lisi’s paper on E8 getting very wide converage despite being dismissed by most working high energy physicists. Here’s a discussion at Cosmic Variance:

http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/11/16/garrett-lisis-theory-of-everything/

By: Don

Don — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:30:55 +0000

Nice Job, Mitch. Good summaries of what their figures show…and what they don’t.

I was rather intrigued by news of the paper…until I saw the author list. I think that the jury needs to still look at and evaluate the data closely and fairly (that’s what peer review is about), but must also keep in mind the history of Marinov and Kolb claiming heavy element discoveries in nature that have not been verified or reproduced. (I’m thinking in particular of the claims to have seen element 112 and fission activity from Hg sources in the early 70’s.)

This would be exciting if true, but such a low N/Z ratio combined with sparse data leaves me doubtful.

By: mitch

mitch — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:21:58 +0000

Since there is clear confusion whether the paper was peer-reviewed from reading websites and news sources, I am solidly in the corner that the preprint service is silly.

You were right there was no stereotypical press release, but I was using the term loosely. Although, since the blog of the publisher covered the paper, I would argue that it was very similar in nature.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:34:34 +0000

First of all, thanks for taking the time to do this. It’s a great post. On to nitpicking:

I didn’t actually see a press release (although I only looked briefly) and you can hardly say that publishing a paper on the arxiv is publishing by press release or that “society & science are not served well from the absence of even cursory peer-review” for those arxiv papers. Overall peer-review is important, but publishing preprints before peer review on the arxiv helps advance science and (I would argue) therefore society.

Besides, the power of the internet in addressing these claims is what I find more exciting. (recall that cold fusion was pre-internet).

By: sam

sam — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:08:12 +0000

good, level-headed, response.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:07:17 +0000

I hope the authors of this ArXiv paper take your comments into consideration before they submit for peer review! Maybe they can present their data in better ways to make it more convincing.

Or, it’s all BS.

By: Some Guy

Some Guy — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:54:57 +0000

I’m impressed how that initial post didn’t snowball.

By: Daniel Drucker

Daniel Drucker — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:13:37 +0000

That is a great argument. I’m going to have to remember that one. Next time a reviewer has the temerity to reject one of my articles, I can just counter “but it must be right; I’m Jewish!”