[MarkusQ]

Part of the problem is we got tricked into thinking "peer reviewed" meant "true," or at least something like it.

It doesn't. Not even close.

Peer review doesn't even mean that it's free from errors, free from fraud, free from methodological mischief; it doesn't mean anything at this point. Yet we continue to act like it does.

Darwin's work wasn't peer reviewed. Nor Einstein's. It's something we cooked up in the mid 1900's to deal with the fallout from another mistake ("publish or perish") that meant people had to try to publish even if they had nothing to say.

[bonsai_spool]

> Darwin's work wasn't peer reviewed. Nor Einstein's

Except it was…? This is absurdly ahistorical and the fact that you cross disciplines in trying to make an incorrect argument questions whether you are in science at all.

The structure of peer review in Darwin’s time was different, where experts wrote monographs and gave lectures at symposia that then led to letters among their peers. Which is what happens now, if you take a step back.

The volume of new work these days is incompatible with the older informal system, and is in some ways our new paradigm is superior as there is a formal period in which new works are reviewed.

[MarkusQ]

Sorry. I meant "peer reviewed prior to publication" as the phrase is presently used. I thought that was obvious.

What you're calling "peer review" is what I would call "discussed" or "debated" which it certainly was.

I dispute your claim that the new paradigm is superior.

[bonsai_spool]

> Sorry. I meant "peer reviewed prior to publication" as the phrase is presently used.

Accepted. But now there is Arxiv and Biorxiv and even Medrxiv—so we're back to where things were, it seems.

[snowwrestler]

> Part of the problem is we got tricked into thinking "peer reviewed" meant "true," or at least something like it.

No actual working scientist thinks this.

“Glitchc” has it right elsewhere in this thread: the motivating force behind journals is prominence and reputation, not truth.

[D-Machine]

Ah, but the naive public still broadly believes in peer review, and that high profile journals do good review. And the prominence and reputation that comes from these journals arguably then relies on this (increasingly false) public perception.

Would scientists feel the same if the public was more educated about how bad journals and peer review are? Not so easy to disentangle IMO.

[snowwrestler]

The naive public does not believe anything in particular about peer review. They think new scientific results are significant when they read about them in the popular media, that’s it.

People who do need to work professionally with peer review, do understand what it actually does and its limitations.

You seem stuck somewhere in the middle, caring deeply about a system you don’t seem to fully understand.

[D-Machine]

> The naive public does not believe anything in particular about peer review

You'd need to provide evidence or an argument for this. The media reports on things in part based on journal prestige, and likely when questioned, people will say they can trust such things because good scientists have looked at the work and say it is good. This would be an implicit belief that peer review is generally working well, even if they don't use the term "peer review".

> You seem stuck somewhere in the middle, caring deeply about a system you don’t seem to fully understand.

Extremely presumptuous, as I work in this system, and have provided plenty of evidence for my claims. You've provided only sneers.

[snowwrestler]

You've provided evidence that prominent journals experience retractions, fraudulent results, etc. All true. But it is not the job of peer reviewers to decide what gets published.

You've provided evidence that peer-reviewed science often turns out to be incomplete, inaccurate, wrong, fraudulent etc. All true. But it is not the job of peer reviewers to assure completeness, accuracy, or freedom from fraud.

A peer reviewer reads a paper and make comments on it. That's it! They don't check primary data, they don't investigate methods, they don't interrogate scientists, they don't re-run experiments just to double check. They assist a journal's editors in editing--that's it.

The check on published scientific results is the scientific process itself, not the publishing process. Prominent results attract further investigation, which confirms or disproves the reality of the underlying phenomena. Again: that's not the job of peer review.

Do some people ascribe too much authority to peer review? Yes, for sure. IMO your comments in this thread are exacerbating that problem, not addressing it.

[D-Machine]

> A peer reviewer reads a paper and make comments on it. That's it! They don't check primary data, they don't investigate methods, they don't interrogate scientists, they don't re-run experiments just to double check. They assist a journal's editors in editing--that's it.

Um, what? I have done all these things in reviews, and know other academics that have done these things as well. More confusingly though, if you are saying most reviewers don't do these things (which I agree with), this would only strengthen my point?

I'll let readers decide if it is my comments that exacerbate the problem, or if, perhaps, it is apologism for journalistic peer review that might be causing bigger issues in the present day.

[D-Machine]

Don't know why you are being downvoted, you are largely correct. I've provided plenty of evidence in another post in this thread showing that journal-based peer review is highly farcical.

EDIT: I still want review from a community of scientific peers. I just don't want this review to be in the hands of a tiny number of gatekeepers entangled with journals that largely just slow things down.

[MarkusQ]

Because a lot of people are deeply invested in the present system perhaps? As the article pointed out, there's a lot of money involved, and there are a lot of people who've built their lives around flourishing in the existing system, cut-throat as it may be.

[D-Machine]

> Because a lot of people are deeply invested in the present system perhaps?

I mean, right, yes, of course. Much of the downvotes are cognitive dissonance, obviously. I suppose I meant the question rhetorically.