The nuclear famine paper I analyzed earlier lied about this
I think it pays to have a higher bar for calling something a “lie”. The paper does explicitly state their assumption that stores last only one year. You provide good evidence that this is a bad assumption, and it’s possible that it was made in bad faith (i.e. the authors maybe knew it was a bad assumption), but I think calling it a lie based on current evidence causes more heat than light.
It actually is that bad. If that was the sketchy thing in the paper, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t. So many basic assumptions, like land under cultivation, which crops were planted where, ect., were bad. If you read a paper that concluded 99% of people in a building will die in case of a fire without fire alarms, because an assumption of the simulation was that people will continue to sleep while they are on fire, that’s not an honest mistake. That’s something a fifth grader can point out is nonsensical. Whoever wrote that is not acting in good faith.
If this was published in a low-impact journal or written by a first-time author, I would have ignored it as publication pressure induced padding. But the people who wrote it are good scientists. The primary author did a bunch of well-regarded models with aerosol modeling. Most importantly, Nature should have noticed something was wrong immediately. Everyone involved should have known better.
Did the papers offer underlying rationales for their assumptions? For instances, due to power disruptions much more grain would be lost to rot due to poor storage conditions? Or perhaps speak to how much of the stock might be too irradiated for consumption? Or transportation issues?
I wonder about your fire example as well. Dismissing the claim that most/nearly all will sleep through a fire is so nonsensical that even a 5th grader can see through it seems questionable. Fires do consume oxygen and low levels of oxygen do put people to sleep—or make them very drowsy—so suggesting people people might be expected to continue sleeping, and perhaps fall into a deeper sleep, seems to need a stronger argument than a 5th grader doesn’t accept that claim.
No rationale was given for their assumptions. It wasn’t even analyzed. There were no justifications, just single-sentence statements for what assumptions they used. There’s a big difference between “some people die to fires in their sleep”, which makes a lot of sense, and “99% of people asleep during a fire die”, which would require extremely good justification as an assumption in a simulation. You can’t just put that in a paper with no analysis.
This was published in Nature. I’ve seen papers get rejected from impact factor 1 journals for less.
Strongly upvoted for giving a reasonable comparable example.
I would agree in regards to the example of a building fire. If a group of very respected folks published a paper about the consequences of building fires, etc., with an assumption that nearly everyone will continue to sleep while on fire, that would seem to be ridiculous. And probably would be perceived as being made in bad faith, if clearly enumerated and not hidden away.
It’s somewhat disturbing that the editors at Nature would allow this through, it raises the question of what other absurd assumptions they allow in ‘impactful’ papers.
I think it pays to have a higher bar for calling something a “lie”. The paper does explicitly state their assumption that stores last only one year. You provide good evidence that this is a bad assumption, and it’s possible that it was made in bad faith (i.e. the authors maybe knew it was a bad assumption), but I think calling it a lie based on current evidence causes more heat than light.
It actually is that bad. If that was the sketchy thing in the paper, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t. So many basic assumptions, like land under cultivation, which crops were planted where, ect., were bad. If you read a paper that concluded 99% of people in a building will die in case of a fire without fire alarms, because an assumption of the simulation was that people will continue to sleep while they are on fire, that’s not an honest mistake. That’s something a fifth grader can point out is nonsensical. Whoever wrote that is not acting in good faith.
If this was published in a low-impact journal or written by a first-time author, I would have ignored it as publication pressure induced padding. But the people who wrote it are good scientists. The primary author did a bunch of well-regarded models with aerosol modeling. Most importantly, Nature should have noticed something was wrong immediately. Everyone involved should have known better.
Did the papers offer underlying rationales for their assumptions? For instances, due to power disruptions much more grain would be lost to rot due to poor storage conditions? Or perhaps speak to how much of the stock might be too irradiated for consumption? Or transportation issues?
I wonder about your fire example as well. Dismissing the claim that most/nearly all will sleep through a fire is so nonsensical that even a 5th grader can see through it seems questionable. Fires do consume oxygen and low levels of oxygen do put people to sleep—or make them very drowsy—so suggesting people people might be expected to continue sleeping, and perhaps fall into a deeper sleep, seems to need a stronger argument than a 5th grader doesn’t accept that claim.
No rationale was given for their assumptions. It wasn’t even analyzed. There were no justifications, just single-sentence statements for what assumptions they used. There’s a big difference between “some people die to fires in their sleep”, which makes a lot of sense, and “99% of people asleep during a fire die”, which would require extremely good justification as an assumption in a simulation. You can’t just put that in a paper with no analysis.
This was published in Nature. I’ve seen papers get rejected from impact factor 1 journals for less.
Strongly upvoted for giving a reasonable comparable example.
I would agree in regards to the example of a building fire. If a group of very respected folks published a paper about the consequences of building fires, etc., with an assumption that nearly everyone will continue to sleep while on fire, that would seem to be ridiculous. And probably would be perceived as being made in bad faith, if clearly enumerated and not hidden away.
It’s somewhat disturbing that the editors at Nature would allow this through, it raises the question of what other absurd assumptions they allow in ‘impactful’ papers.