2 thoughts on “Peer Review”

  1. The alternative being what? Public review, all the opinionated lay people get to decide the merits of papers? Political review, the government decides the merits of papers? No formal review, papers written by any crack pot with an opinion is given the same weighting as papers by scientists who have actually studied the science they’re writing papers on?

    I’m happy to acknowledge that the current system can be improved upon, but I suspect the improvements you’d advocate would fall into the “Public review” or “no formal review” categories, but hey, lets see your suggested alternative system.

    1. “The alternative being what?”

      The alternative being the true gold standard of THE scienTIFIC METHOD, …*Replication*!

      PEER REVIEW, PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD, IS LITTLE MORE THAN A FILTER FOR THE JOURNAL EDITOR’S SLUSH PILE. IT GREW UP IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE PUBLISH OR PERISH HAD ALREADY JAMMED A SMALL NUMBER OF ELITE JOURNALS WITH TOO MANY REQUESTS FOR PUBLICATION, WHICH FLOOD HAS NEVER LET UP. ITS ONE FUNCTION OF WORTH, NOW THAT ANYONE CAN PUBLISH THROUGH ARXIVE OR PLOS, IS FOR REVIEWERS TO SUGGEST IMPROVEMENTS TO PAPERS.

      WE NEED BOTH MANY AVENUES OF COMMUNICATING RESULTS, *AND* MANY AVENUES OF FUNDING WORK. IT IS THE COMBINATION OF MONOPSONY FUNDING OF SCIENCE THROUGH GOVERNMENT, AND PEER REVEIW OF *FUNDING* BY THOSE IN TOUCH WITH POLITICAL HIERARCHS, THAT HAS MADE THE LACK OF REPLICATION SO IMMEDIATELY PERILOUS TO THE REPUTATION OF SCIENCE.

      “but I suspect the improvements you’d advocate would fall into the “Public review” or “no formal review” categories, but hey, lets see your suggested alternative system.”

      IT IS *NOT* REVIEW, EITHER BEFORE OR AFTER completing a project THAT WILL IMPROVE SCIENCE BUT THE FUNDING OF IMMEDIATE AND multiple replications. If any one reform could improve things it would be including in grants for new work the price of awards for first, second and third replications, successful or not, of the original work. The refusal of governments so often, to fund replication studies, is the biggest problem, followed by “good old boy” funding peer review that lets through funding for so few projects “not in the main line of research”. Of course, that is nearly the first half of a good definition for “breakthrough” projects.

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