What do you think Peer Review is? I've come to the conclusion that it's an IQ test. Or a way to separate adult minds from child minds. Because the reality is it's a glorified spell check. A high level review that assures that your hypothesis is clearly spelled out, your experiment is relevant and clearly described, your math doesn't have obvious, glaring errors, and your conclusions seem plausible based on the above. That's it. It's a couple of your friends looking over your work so you don't overlook some silly thing and look stupid. But somehow it has become idealized as some sacred process where hidden high priests weigh every publication on some mythical truth balance against a bald eagle egg, purified baby giggles and 2 sprinkles of uncut good-intentions powder. Some hardcore, fine tooth combthrough of the data, complete with an FBI background check and a lie detector test. Like WTF?! You go to your contemporaries for peer review. They know the subject matter best. Because they do the same work as you. They might even work for the same company, or agency, or under the same grant. Because conflicts of interest shouldn't matter. It's just a proofread. It doesn't matter. You have a few beers and make sure you didn't say 'one hundred' when you meant ' one thousand'. That all.
But what if it did matter? What if they falsely made it out to be some opaque but binding standard of proof? That only required five of your cronies, all paid by the same person, loudly agreeing, to make something a 'peer reviewed scientific fact'. What if they took it a step farther and pre-emptively installed those cronies at the top of research institutions and the editorial staff of Journals?
Then the person paying all of them could say "This vaccine is 95% safe and effective" and they would all line up to echo that claim and assert it as fact. Just as they could all line up and assert as 'horse paste', any competing product that might be a verifiably better. And completely corrupt the scientific process around anything from medicine to climate, for a generation. Could you imagine?!
So do us all a favor and never talk about or think about 'peer review' again. It was once a useful thing that has been corrupted to the point of irrelevance. Scrap your plans, admit you got duped and move on. If it sounds and smells fishy to you it probably is. Go with your gut. Because if you're waiting for total strangers to do your reading for you then decree for you that which is truth, FOR FREE, you never had a chance.
What is the use of peer reviews when the reviewer does not have all the data?
What do you think Peer Review is? I've come to the conclusion that it's an IQ test. Or a way to separate adult minds from child minds. Because the reality is it's a glorified spell check. A high level review that assures that your hypothesis is clearly spelled out, your experiment is relevant and clearly described, your math doesn't have obvious, glaring errors, and your conclusions seem plausible based on the above. That's it. It's a couple of your friends looking over your work so you don't overlook some silly thing and look stupid. But somehow it has become idealized as some sacred process where hidden high priests weigh every publication on some mythical truth balance against a bald eagle egg, purified baby giggles and 2 sprinkles of uncut good-intentions powder. Some hardcore, fine tooth combthrough of the data, complete with an FBI background check and a lie detector test. Like WTF?! You go to your contemporaries for peer review. They know the subject matter best. Because they do the same work as you. They might even work for the same company, or agency, or under the same grant. Because conflicts of interest shouldn't matter. It's just a proofread. It doesn't matter. You have a few beers and make sure you didn't say 'one hundred' when you meant ' one thousand'. That all.
But what if it did matter? What if they falsely made it out to be some opaque but binding standard of proof? That only required five of your cronies, all paid by the same person, loudly agreeing, to make something a 'peer reviewed scientific fact'. What if they took it a step farther and pre-emptively installed those cronies at the top of research institutions and the editorial staff of Journals?
Then the person paying all of them could say "This vaccine is 95% safe and effective" and they would all line up to echo that claim and assert it as fact. Just as they could all line up and assert as 'horse paste', any competing product that might be a verifiably better. And completely corrupt the scientific process around anything from medicine to climate, for a generation. Could you imagine?!
So do us all a favor and never talk about or think about 'peer review' again. It was once a useful thing that has been corrupted to the point of irrelevance. Scrap your plans, admit you got duped and move on. If it sounds and smells fishy to you it probably is. Go with your gut. Because if you're waiting for total strangers to do your reading for you then decree for you that which is truth, FOR FREE, you never had a chance.