John PA Ioannidis, one of the authors of that paper (which is from 2018 btw) has published an average of 60 papers per year for the last decade, and more than 1100 in total (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Ioannidis+JPA&filter=d...). I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even have time to read most of his own papers.
It looks like he's second to last or last author on most of those papers which typically means he's the advisor for the graduate student/post-doc that's actually doing the work. It's still an insane number of papers to be a part of but considering Ioannidis is director of the Prevention Research Center and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford it's not really that insane.
There are also incentives for others to include him as a co-author despite the fact that, presumably, he has come nowhere near the minimum work that would be expected to allow him to be included as such.
The question "Did you publish a paper with [famous scientist/researcher]" is not too different from the question "Did you go to dinner with [famous actress/entertainer/]" in other contexts. The give some clout, recognition, some minor envy from others.
> Prevention Research Center and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford
Aren't those roles supposed to hold a significant amount of responsibility and therefore require a certain level of commitment? A day has only 24 hours.
How much time do you think someone in such a position can dedicate to reviewing papers?
I think the preamble of the article you linked is important for the consideration of others in opening the link:
"John Ioannidis is one of the most published and influential scientists in the world, someone whose skewering of bad medical research we at SBM have frequently lauded over the years. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Since then, Prof. Ioannidis has been publishing dubious studies that minimize the dangers of the coronavirus, shown up in the media to decry “lockdowns,” and, most recently, “punched down”, attacking a graduate student for having criticized him. What happened? Did Prof. Ioannidis change, or was he always like this and I just didn’t see it? Either way, he’s a cautionary tale of how even science watchdogs can fall prey to hubris."
If he had stated that SARS-CoV-2 would eventually mutate into something as serious as a cold or a flu he would have been correct. This is not what he stated.
Nothing happened to Ioannidis. He did his job as a scientist and said what he thought was right, even when everybody disagreed with him.
So he was wrong? So what? To be a scientist means to blunder a lot. In fact, to be a scientist means to (be willing to) blunder much, much more than everybody else because that is the only way to learn. Science, ultimately, only gives you the tools to know when you're wrong.
Well, he also decided it was appropriate to insult the physical appearance of grad students on twitter who disagreed with him. He definitely didn't come out of covid looking fully dispassionate.
> He definitely didn't come out of covid looking fully dispassionate.
No one did.
That said, despite the serious amount of professional scrutiny and and public harassment he was subject to, I think he made valuable contributions to the conversation around COVID-19 public policy.
I have no idea what incident you are talking about but, from the context, I have no doubt that it is something inconsequential that social media made a big deal about just to have some reason to be outraged at Ioannidis, with whom they were already outraged.
The linked article is 6,848 words, not counting the embedded tweets. Given the low-level content in the first couple paragraphs, and the constant quoting of tweets, I have no reason to read it. Social media is uniformly bullshit and I'm not in the habit of wasting my time with it.
If you would like to send me a link, or other reference, to the "peer reviewed article" in which "the commenting on personal appearance took place" please feel welcome to do so.
To clarify, I didn't say you said I should be outraged. I said that social media made a big deal of something in order for them (its users) to be outraged. That's what social media is all about, yes?
Passion is fine and great in all endeavors. Not being able to acknowledge when you are wrong in small or large is the problem. And it's a problem for both passionate and dispassionate people.
One of the earlier researchers on psychopaths was Hervey M. Cleckley. In his book on the topic The Mask of Sanity one of his vignettes of, I believe, "incomplete manifestation of psychopathology" was of a psychologist who gave public lectures on psychopaths, without apparently recognizing that he was almost one of them.
To sum up the parallel, there are two kinds of people who tend to talk the most about any social or personal ill: those who are worried about the ill, and those who are distracting from the fact that they themselves embody it. (Technically this probably overlaps a bit, as ex-alcoholics are often worried about alcoholism, for example.)
Why? He can't criticise his critics, unless they're scientists of his own standing? I don't know who wrote those rules but I don't remember reading them.
Are you sure this is not just you painting meaning and intensions on the exchange because of the people involved and preconceived ideas about "exalted professors" snottily dismissing mere grad students etc?
I think I read the biggest part of the appendix in the linked article and it doesn't come across as what you say. It comes across as irrelevant and unnecessary. The passage was put in an appendix but it really belonged in a blog post, or a tweet, but certainly not in a scholarly article. But other than that, it wasn't even particularly vituperative, just indulgent, really.
It certainly wasn't "insult[ing]" as the parent claimed.
And then of course he removed it from the appendix with a note taking responsibility for it. Yet here we are, still talking about it, as if he stabbed someone in the face or ate babies alive, or anyway whatever a scientist's reputation can reasonably be expected to never recover from.
A paper is only a few pages long usually. A read of a paper takes perhaps half an hour. And in that time, you might even be able to check some references, make a few edits, or drop an email to someone to gather some more results for a figure or two.
A close reading of a scientific paper of any consequence does not take half an hour. These days a published paper may typically be only a few pages but it isn't at all uncommon for the paper to be accompanied by 20-50 pages of supplementary text. When I'm asked to review a paper it takes me the better part of a day, at least. If I were a senior author on that paper that would be the bare minimum that I'd consider an acceptable commitment of effort.
It really depends on the field. @londons_explore is right that a lot of papers in some fields can be read in half an hour, or an hour, and sent back with feedback.