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Re: Off Topic-How Many Papers Have You Reviewed?
Author: David.Curlee
Date: 03-17-2015 - 00:47
For some reason Altamont Press timetables are popular in the academic world. I think it's because they can't locate timetable data anywhere else.
Sometimes I get inquiries asking for help interpreting the timetables.
Anything connecting railroads with emissions and the environment seems to be a total disaster. The prevailing thought is that trains (all trains) run the speed limit like trucks do on an interstate highway. Nobody is aware that trains with empties have to run slower, or that fuel conservation speeds are often in effect limiting many freight trains, even intermodal, to say 50 MPH instead of 70 MPH.
The worst I've heard came from a professor under the impression that throttle position on locomotives correlates with speed such that Run 1 = 10 MPH and Run 8 = 80 MPH. He was using an Altamont Press timetable to calculate average speed over a subdivision (a terrible method for many different reasons) and then used the result to deduce average throttle position. That's how he was calculating average fuel burn, average emissions, etc.
He didn't care one bit when I pointed out the many flaws in that logic. I think his response was "yeah, well, you know..." I wonder if his research ever made it into print?
BOB2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a peer reviewer of a number of published
> academic papers in transportation, my main concern
> is the poor state of the peer review process,
> where any really serious criticism of really poor
> science, data, or attempts at data manipulation in
> many really bad papers, more often results in
> replacing the peer reviewers, than in pulling the
> often misleading and really bad papers. These
> papers then still seem to often get published,
> anyhow, and then are often cited...... as somehow
> representing a "finding" of fact.
>
> I found several papers during my career where the
> data and analysic clearly did not support the
> "finding" or "outcome" purported in the paper. I
> had a grad student in near tears once when I
> pointed this problem out.... This poor kid was
> trying to win "approval" from a graduate advisor
> who had stated a contradictory view, to that
> supported by the actual data this student had
> collected, and he was terrified, even though the
> advisor was clearly wrong.
>
> In another case (out of UC Berkeley, no less) I
> found that when a certain oft cited researcher
> could not get the conclusion they claimed from the
> data, that researcher simply excluded a major part
> of the part of the data that caused the problem
> (because it contradicted the researchers preferred
> conclusion), for no apparent valid statistical
> reason that could be found. And then, as the old
> cartoon goes, "the miracle occurred....".
>
> True believers, house whores responding to funders
> dollars, and careerist's or young grad students
> who desire to win the "approval" (for tenure,
> political correctness, outside funders and
> contracts) of their department, or the tyranny of
> a grad advisor appear to be among the most
> egregious causes of this kind of dubiously
> "scientific" behavior that I have seen, for this
> kind of nonsense.
>
> Caveat Emptor......
Sometimes I get inquiries asking for help interpreting the timetables.
Anything connecting railroads with emissions and the environment seems to be a total disaster. The prevailing thought is that trains (all trains) run the speed limit like trucks do on an interstate highway. Nobody is aware that trains with empties have to run slower, or that fuel conservation speeds are often in effect limiting many freight trains, even intermodal, to say 50 MPH instead of 70 MPH.
The worst I've heard came from a professor under the impression that throttle position on locomotives correlates with speed such that Run 1 = 10 MPH and Run 8 = 80 MPH. He was using an Altamont Press timetable to calculate average speed over a subdivision (a terrible method for many different reasons) and then used the result to deduce average throttle position. That's how he was calculating average fuel burn, average emissions, etc.
He didn't care one bit when I pointed out the many flaws in that logic. I think his response was "yeah, well, you know..." I wonder if his research ever made it into print?
BOB2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a peer reviewer of a number of published
> academic papers in transportation, my main concern
> is the poor state of the peer review process,
> where any really serious criticism of really poor
> science, data, or attempts at data manipulation in
> many really bad papers, more often results in
> replacing the peer reviewers, than in pulling the
> often misleading and really bad papers. These
> papers then still seem to often get published,
> anyhow, and then are often cited...... as somehow
> representing a "finding" of fact.
>
> I found several papers during my career where the
> data and analysic clearly did not support the
> "finding" or "outcome" purported in the paper. I
> had a grad student in near tears once when I
> pointed this problem out.... This poor kid was
> trying to win "approval" from a graduate advisor
> who had stated a contradictory view, to that
> supported by the actual data this student had
> collected, and he was terrified, even though the
> advisor was clearly wrong.
>
> In another case (out of UC Berkeley, no less) I
> found that when a certain oft cited researcher
> could not get the conclusion they claimed from the
> data, that researcher simply excluded a major part
> of the part of the data that caused the problem
> (because it contradicted the researchers preferred
> conclusion), for no apparent valid statistical
> reason that could be found. And then, as the old
> cartoon goes, "the miracle occurred....".
>
> True believers, house whores responding to funders
> dollars, and careerist's or young grad students
> who desire to win the "approval" (for tenure,
> political correctness, outside funders and
> contracts) of their department, or the tyranny of
> a grad advisor appear to be among the most
> egregious causes of this kind of dubiously
> "scientific" behavior that I have seen, for this
> kind of nonsense.
>
> Caveat Emptor......
