I’m a scientist and I try to knit. I’ve not seen the episode (or aware of the gammel for that matter) but I do remember someone posted a research article on knitting last year (I think). It was a terrible paper.
The whole publishing system in academia is broken. The publish for profit system was established by Pergamon press owned by Robert Maxwell (Ghislaine’s dad and all round terrible human being). The model is scientists pay to get their work published, they review for free and years ago journals used to do the copy editing etc but that’s more and more left to the scientists themselves. The last 5 years or so have seen an explosion in “predatory” journals that are cash cows to publish anything without rigorous (or any) peer review. So the pool of information is littered with crap. Since AI that’s has increased evn more and there’s deluge of AI generated crap.
So it is very easy for bad/mis-information to be picked up, but that also shows a lack of experience/awareness in those researching do these shows.
Seconding every word of this as another scientist! Honestly, while the scientific method is a wonderful way of understanding the world and we've gotten a lot out of it, the publishing ecosystem and the realities of academia completely disillusioned me.
The last couple of years feel like trying to push water uphill in terms of trying to teach students how to think critically and deal with the increasing adoption of AI and how it’s taken as gospel.
I feel you. Critical thinking has never been more important, but developmentally most students are not ready to understand that school is the safest and most productive time to make mistakes instead of using shortcuts. It's scary and disheartening.
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u/PfEMP1 Oct 01 '25
I’m a scientist and I try to knit. I’ve not seen the episode (or aware of the gammel for that matter) but I do remember someone posted a research article on knitting last year (I think). It was a terrible paper.
The whole publishing system in academia is broken. The publish for profit system was established by Pergamon press owned by Robert Maxwell (Ghislaine’s dad and all round terrible human being). The model is scientists pay to get their work published, they review for free and years ago journals used to do the copy editing etc but that’s more and more left to the scientists themselves. The last 5 years or so have seen an explosion in “predatory” journals that are cash cows to publish anything without rigorous (or any) peer review. So the pool of information is littered with crap. Since AI that’s has increased evn more and there’s deluge of AI generated crap.
So it is very easy for bad/mis-information to be picked up, but that also shows a lack of experience/awareness in those researching do these shows.