What is PubPeer capable of?

Many scientific studies are flawed. Often, the reason is poor methodology. Sometimes, it is outright fraud. The conventional means of correction — a letter to the journal concerned — can take months. But there is now an alternative. PubPeer is a website that lets people comment anonymously on research papers and so, in theory, helps purge the scientific literature of erroneous findings more speedily.

Emotions can spread through a group the same way a cold or the flu can, and a lot faster. Earlier in this lecture we talked about social validation — the idea that people look to others to decide what to do — and imitation and mimicry. If you combine social validation, imitation, and mimicry, you start to understand how emotions can be noticed, identified, and reproduced in other people.