[HN Gopher] Non-Hermitian topology in rock-paper-scissors games
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       Non-Hermitian topology in rock-paper-scissors games
        
       Author : RafelMri
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2022-03-06 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | jaqalopes wrote:
       | That abtract has big hermeneutics of quantum gravity[1] energy
       | for me. Probably I'm just ignorant, but is it actually necessary
       | to the march of science for academics to write this way?
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_si...
        
         | anonresearcher wrote:
         | It's unfortunately an artifact of the peer review process. Many
         | venues only accept 15-20% of submissions, and so otherwise good
         | papers get rejected for not following the formulaic structure.
         | 
         | The issue is really that reviewers (who are volunteers) don't
         | have a lot of time to read the manuscripts. Many of them are
         | overworked grad students. Thus, as silly as it seems, outside
         | of this style it's easy to be rejected because the reviewer
         | didn't correctly identify the contributions when they skimmed
         | the paper.
         | 
         | It is worth noting though as a difference between the linked
         | works that games are readily accepted to be tied to more broad
         | dynamical systems mathematically, while (having no knowledge of
         | the area) I'd speculate the quantum gravity social science is
         | not as established.
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | > reviewer didn't correctly identify the contributions
           | 
           | yeah, OR a creeping culture of slavish mimicry prevails over
           | valuation of unique insights, one paper at a time. no pure
           | answers in psychology
        
             | anonresearcher wrote:
             | I mean, maybe there's an aspect of pointless mimicry
             | (though I haven't seen evidence of it), but my comment
             | represented my general experience as someone who works the
             | dynamical systems area and has reviewed for that journal in
             | the past.
             | 
             | I have yet to receive a negative review based on using a
             | less standard technique/perspective beyond the occasional
             | "this work doesn't belong to this field, but instead to
             | [insert adjacent field here]" which seems to usually be
             | ignored by the editor.
             | 
             | I have, multiple times, had one of the three reviewers
             | write a negative review based on a (to me at the time)
             | seemingly conceivable misunderstanding of contribution of
             | the paper because I had done something like include a
             | simple example to better illustrate an idea. The editor
             | sometimes rejects submissions based on one negative review,
             | even if the other reviews are positive.
             | 
             | I think it's relatively easy to speculate that the
             | consistency in form is from the feedback of the system:
             | 
             | Assume a researcher wants to maximize his chances of
             | getting the paper accepted, and that, if accurately
             | reviewed, the content of the paper would merit acceptance.
             | Furthermore, assume that there are a finite number of
             | distinct styles of writing in scientific papers, and that
             | the likelihood of accurately reviewing a paper increases
             | monotonically with the number papers you've seen in the
             | given style (the source of which are papers that have
             | successfully made it through the process).
             | 
             | Then the researcher would aim to match the most prevalent
             | writing style. Even if they aren't always successful at it,
             | it skews the input distribution towards the most prevalent
             | writing style. This, in turn makes it more likely for that
             | style to be accepted in the future.
        
               | vba616 wrote:
               | >the researcher would aim to match the most prevalent
               | writing style
               | 
               | My easy method to determine if a paper is legit:
               | 1. Open PDF in Acrobat.        2. Select "properties".
               | 3. Choose Font tab.        4. Does it use Computer Modern
               | fonts?        5. Yes --> it's real; No --> it's a crank.
        
           | caddemon wrote:
           | The intention of this journal (Nature Scientific Reports) was
           | to peer review only for technical correctness and not judge
           | "interesting-ness". I don't think it's really panned out that
           | way but nevertheless this journal has a pretty high
           | acceptance rate. I'm sure there are still systemic pressures
           | to follow a certain formula, but I don't think one needs to
           | do so to publish in Scientific Reports.
        
             | anonresearcher wrote:
             | It's not so much the "interesting-ness" aspect. It's about
             | recognizing where the papers fit and if there is a novel
             | contribution in the first place.
             | 
             | Even though they emphasize technical correctness, it's very
             | easy for a reviewer to misread the intention of the paper
             | and assert that it, for instance, uses too simple of a
             | model for a different field, or didn't cite appropriate
             | literature for that field. It obviously doesn't happen all
             | the time, but the fact that there is that risk there
             | encourages the general formulaic writing (at least for me).
        
         | joe__f wrote:
         | I have a doctorate in mathematics, I didn't get those vibes
         | when I read this title
        
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