
Most of what we know about coronavirus will change [es] - pachico
According to this article, most of what has been published about coronavirus hasn&#x27;t been peer reviewed.
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.eldiario.es&#x2F;sociedad&#x2F;Paciencia-leas-coronavirus-va-cambiar_0_1008249584.html
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gus_massa
Completely true. A preprint has the same value of a post in Wordpress. It
depends a lot on who wrote it. If the author is Terence Tao and it is abut
math, it is probably true
[https://terrytao.wordpress.com/](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/) All other
post must been read carefully.

The value of peer review depends a lot on the journal. There are predatory
journals that publish any crap if you pay the fee. And there are serious
journals. (And there are some journals in between.)

Anyway, the peer review is not a proof that the paper is correct or that the
data is real. It's only a check that the article is minimally inteligible and
the result makes a minimal sense. People has published fake data. Some
articles are just wrong. (Publishing usually involves a few review suggested
by the referees and editors. It is not so easy. But a lot of articles slip
through the cracks.)

In a good journal the peer review filter the very bad articles and the bad
articles, but there are some articles of dubious quality that has been
published. (Some get famous, like the arsenic in bacterias, of cold fusion.)

Most bad preprints and bad articles are just ignored. This part of science is
protected by obscurity. The problem is that in this emergencies, any preprint
or press release is immediately repeated in all major media, forums, facebook,
and whatever other platform is out there. So the bad articles have a lot of
diffusion.

> _La importancia del cribado periodístico_

Just assume there is no filtering by the journalism. Many just start the
article with "According to a recent scientific study" and then they repeat
whatever the article says.

~~~
pachico
However, I find it interesting what they say that in desperate times more
papers are being printed or at least taken in consideration since one of them
might be the key to unlock the situation.

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aaron695
That's not what peer review is for.

Honestly it's no different to normal.

You have to look at who is making the claim and if they can back it up.

And if it's outlandish they really really need to back it up.

Maybe there needs to be more of a barrier of entry or a fee paid or a rating
system with punishments.

But that's the same problem as peer review.

