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Scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals

otokage007

Well-Known Member
everyone is likely to make a mistake. So no, they are not 100% accurate. But I would say they are accurate enough for you to rely on them without fear.
 

jarofthoughts

Empirical Curmudgeon
Are they 100% accurate?

How much accurate in percentages?

Nothing is 100% accurate.
But the sum of scientific knowledge and scientific consensus represent the best and most accurate knowledge we humans have access to.
In this, scientific articles and peer-reviewed journals play an essential role.
 

RedJamaX

Active Member
Mathematics is 100% accurate... but the theories math is applied to requires that the measured observations are also 100% accurate, that is not always the case.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
Are they 100% accurate?

How much accurate in percentages?

Science is a method for ferreting out the truth. It's never finished - there is always something left to learn, and we are always struggling against the filter of our own preconceptions. We can not give a score to the accuracy of any particular field of research because whatever it had left undiscovered is something we don't yet know. We can, on the other hand, assess the methodology, data and conclusions to get some idea whether the research is credible.

So, while it is impossible for anyone to ever be 100% accurate, scientific research is hundreds of times more accurate than anything else we've come up with to discover what is true, such as religion's approach of just making stuff up.
 

Alceste

Vagabond

Well, that's true enough. I suppose the difference is that scientists often get caught when they make stuff up or publish shoddy research. It's best to take individual studies with a grain of salt and lend more weight to consensus or meta-analysis.

Research published by scientists with financial ties to a corporation that stands to profit from a particular conclusion is particularly dodgy, but I consider that PR, not science.
 

Reptillian

Hamburgler Extraordinaire
The trivial stuff gets ignored and is probably not as accurate because no other independent researchers bother to double check the original findings. The useful and important and sometimes earth shattering stuff gets tested and retested and is likely much more reliable.
 

mycorrhiza

Well-Known Member
Are they 100% accurate?

How much accurate in percentages?

Not 100% accurate, but much more likely to be accurate than "scientific" articles that have neither been peer-reviewed nor researched using scientific method.

Measuring it in percentage would be impossible, as we first need to know everything before we can know if something is 100% correct.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Are they 100% accurate?

How much accurate in percentages?
Although such a number would be impossible to determine, generalities can be made. The peer-reviewed science presented in scientific journals, having followed established scientific methodology, is almost always accurate, however the conclusions may be argued. The peer-reviewed "science" in other journals, such as we find in creation science, not having followed accepted science methods, is usually worthless. For example, the International Journal for Creation Research. is a peer reviewing publication that only reviews papers favorable to creationism. Here's the headline for a story by CNET news.
"Creationists launch peer-reviewed journal

International Journal for Creation Research will published peer-reviewed papers, but authors mustn't contradict official creationist tenets.

IJCR provides scientists and students hard data based on cutting-edge research that demonstrates the young earth model, the global flood, the nonevolutionary origin of the species, and other evidences that correlate to the biblical accounts," according to the institute's description.

In the call for papers, it adds, "Papers can be in any scientific, or social scientific, field, but must be from a young-earth perspective and aim to assist the development of the creation model of origins." And the three or more people who reviewer each paper are advised that each paper must "provide evidence of faithfulness to the grammatico-historical/normative interpretation of scripture."
source
So, although it calls the research it reviews "scientific," it doesn't subscribe to the tenets of true science. True, that the science may well be accurate insofar as creation science goes, but in terms of true science the accuracy no doubt dips toward zero.

And this old cartoon sums up the difference between the two quite well.

real-vs-creation.jpg


So not all peer-reviewing is equal.
 
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Skeptisch

Well-Known Member
Scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals question absolutism through peer reviewed experimentation. Testing “absolute” through rigorous scientific examination is the best way to verify, know and support truth. Science has no vested interest in maintaining a theory if it is proven wrong. In fact, we can say that science is in the business of replacing archaic knowledge with stronger representations of provable absolute truth.
http://www.paleolibrarian.info/2011/12/what-does-it-mean-to-think-in-absolutes.html

We may say it is the closest approximation of the absolute truth at that time.
 

Tristesse

Well-Known Member
Are they 100% accurate?

How much accurate in percentages?

Nothing is 100% accurate. Whats valid is getting a consensus amoungst scientists on a working hypothosis or theory, once a hypothesis has gone through the rigor of validation through many scientific scources amoungst their peers, at that point it can be determined to be a valid theory. Whats not a good path way for figuring out whats true or real, is having an authority that is unquestioning on the issue. It's a good thing that the process of science allows for changes and modifications to give a more accurate view of reality.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Please read from the following links:


1. ***How Accurate Is Scientific Testing?
***How Accurate Is Scientific Testing?
This from a pseudoscience.
"The assertions by proponents of orthomolecular psychiatry were rejected in 1973 by a panel of the American Psychiatric Association.[1][11][12] Orthomolecular psychiatry has subsequently found little support in mainstream psychiatry"
Source:Wikipedia
The writer of the linked article is an orthomolecular psychologist
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member

jarofthoughts

Empirical Curmudgeon
And that is your blind-faith, in my opinion.

Nonsense.
Evidence based ideas will always have a better probability of being right than non-evidence based ideas.
And any evidence is better than no evidence. Always.

To say otherwise would not only be illogical, but reveals a blindness to reality that is disasterous.
 
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