• originalfrozenbanana
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    No, they can’t. Peer review is not the peers you determine - it’s the peers of your community. Science that is not public is not science, because it cannot be independently verified and reproduced. It is not a small point, it’s one of the foundations of the disciplines of science.

    • kernelle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      An organisation with fully independent teams tackling the same problems can absolutely be defined as peer review. Not in the traditional sense, but reviewing, confirming and replicating nonetheless. Following the scientific method is what makes something scientific, not the act of publishing.

      You can argue of the merits of those papers, an organisation can never make public statements about private research. But saying that what their doing is not science, then you’re just needlessly gatekeeping.

      • originalfrozenbanana
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        No it literally cannot be so defined. The last part of the scientific method is “report conclusions.” That means public scrutiny free of bias. Internal groups are not public.

        This is akin to saying that a corporation doesn’t need to use the courts because it has internal judges. They might have trials, but by definition they are not doing justice.

        • kernelle@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 months ago

          Reporting your conclusions doesn’t require being public. It means the larger group of people you release it to, the less bias you’ll have. Meaning in a closed organisation you have added biases of companies and marginally less people to prove you wrong, decreasing the overal quality of the conducted science. But still science, which by definition isn’t black and white.

            • kernelle@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              5 months ago

              He’s clearly taking the “but it’s better for human kind” stand, which I support with all I can. But academics can be guilty of gatekeeping and being pretentious, which I’ve seen by many lmao

              • originalfrozenbanana
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                Gatekeeping on following the scientific method is pretty good gatekeeping if you ask me. Again, what you are arguing is anathema to centuries of scientific endeavors. You’re applying your own interpretation to something that has literally hundreds of years of meaning already, in a way that is just not right. It’s not gatekeeping any more than “a court of law” gatekeeps the concept of justice.