> I'm inclined to give them a pass. It's easy enough to figure out that it should be germanium and not gadolinium, and dyslexia already exists among scientists.
People make mistakes and you probably mean well but this is also the sort of pass given that makes scientific research and reporting terrible.
If it's "easy enough to figure out" then it's even more important to get it right -- why should we trust someone who can't even get the "easy" things right?
> ... and dyslexia already exists among scientists.
The article is pointing out a problem that appears to be fairly common, is that really a suitable explanation? Even if it is a suitable explanation, is that a reason for lowering standards, which you can then apply to explain away every mistake?
Keep in mind that proper publications should usually have been reviewed by at least 3 people including the authors (typically more) by the time everyone else gets to read it. So that kind of mistake isn't really acceptable.
> What I think is more dangerous to understanding is skipping formulas in favor of initials! BFO instead of BiFeO3, or BT instead of Bi2Te3, SRO for SrRuO3, LSFO for La0.3Sr0.7FeO3 abbreviations that I think obscure too much detail. You can more easily wander into talking about different things with the same terms. Such abbreviations are already endemic in condensed matter physics.
If you have been trained in scientific writing, you would always introduce an abbreviation. For example, "BiFeO3 (BFO)" and "SrRuO3 (SRO). It's also common to include a list of abbreviation in some forms of scientific writing.
Because this kind of thing almost certainly crops up in the "related work" section, which is a weird section of the paper that doesn't really involve any of the actual core research. It's essentially a tiny little bibliography intended for people who don't know the literature, so it doesn't get the same level of deep care as the original work. I suspect often people copy titles and fragments from their previous papers or from other papers, on the theory that they can only make the section less accurate by adding novelty.
People make mistakes and you probably mean well but this is also the sort of pass given that makes scientific research and reporting terrible.
If it's "easy enough to figure out" then it's even more important to get it right -- why should we trust someone who can't even get the "easy" things right?
> ... and dyslexia already exists among scientists.
The article is pointing out a problem that appears to be fairly common, is that really a suitable explanation? Even if it is a suitable explanation, is that a reason for lowering standards, which you can then apply to explain away every mistake?
Keep in mind that proper publications should usually have been reviewed by at least 3 people including the authors (typically more) by the time everyone else gets to read it. So that kind of mistake isn't really acceptable.
> What I think is more dangerous to understanding is skipping formulas in favor of initials! BFO instead of BiFeO3, or BT instead of Bi2Te3, SRO for SrRuO3, LSFO for La0.3Sr0.7FeO3 abbreviations that I think obscure too much detail. You can more easily wander into talking about different things with the same terms. Such abbreviations are already endemic in condensed matter physics.
If you have been trained in scientific writing, you would always introduce an abbreviation. For example, "BiFeO3 (BFO)" and "SrRuO3 (SRO). It's also common to include a list of abbreviation in some forms of scientific writing.