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Peer reviewed paper calls for changes to Darwinism

Stay tuned. If conclusions that cast doubt on settled, easy Darwinism are allowed to just be published and stay published, with no one punished - think of the huge swathes of sloppy Darwinian claims in the literature that could suddenly become subject to actual scrutiny… Omigosh… it would start to look like actual science… Read More ›

As 24 nonsense papers are retracted, Daily Sceptic asks, What happened to peer review?

That’s what “Trust the Science” does. It enables a superstitious reverence for nonsense at best and corruption at worst. And only occasionally does anyone in charge need to pretend to reform anything. Read More ›

Robert J. Marks: Time to change the peer review system

Marks: The assumption that today’s peer-reviewed paper has been vetted by experts and therefore has been awarded a blue ribbon for excellence is far from the truth. Peer review often does not do its job. Consequently, today’s collection of scholarly literature is exploding in quantity and deteriorating in quality. Read More ›

A novel suggestion at Nature: Publish the peer reviews

But can the internet handle all the spite and unseemliness? Another risk is the ‘weaponization’ of reviewer reports. Opponents of certain types of research (for example, on genetically modified organisms, climate change and vaccines) could take critical remarks in peer reviews out of context or mischaracterize disagreements to undermine public trust in the paper, the field or science as a whole. Queries to eLife, The BMJ and EMBO Press about this problem revealed only one, mild example (see go.nature.com/2piygkb). But weaponization could be a greater concern for journals that publish work that is more likely to be politicized. One precaution would be to add a disclaimer explaining the peer-review process and its role in scientific discussion. Opening up materials and Read More ›

All peer reviews should be published, argues bioengineer

From bioegineer and editor Nicolai Slavov at The Scientist: Have you read a paper and thought: “How could peer reviews support the publication of such a paper?” I have. More than once. Other times, I have read fascinating papers outside of my field and wondered what the concerns of the experts who peer reviewed the study were. What important caveats am I missing? Sometimes, I am lucky and find the answers to such questions: A few publications, including those from EMBO Press and eLife, publish the peer reviews alongside the papers. Reading such peer reviews has provided an additional dimension of appreciating and understanding the experiments and the findings, especially when I am not very familiar with the topic. But Read More ›

Peer review 9-11: China leads the world in biomedical fraud

From Alex Berezow at Foreign Policy Review: In early 2017, R&D Magazine forecast that China would spend nearly $430 billion on research and development by the end of the year, amounting to nearly 21 percent of the estimated global total — a contribution second only to that of the United States ($527 billion). That money, however, is not being put to good use. In 2010, Nature reported that “many of the country’s scientific journals are filled with incremental work, read by virtually no one and riddled with plagiarism.” A 1998 study found that Chinese scientists almost never reported negative results — a scientific impossibility.A 1998 study found that Chinese scientists almost never reported negative results — a scientific impossibility. Little Read More ›

At Times Higher: Peer review an “ineffective and unworthy” institution, some reforms proposed

From Les Hatton and Gregory Warr at Times Higher: First, peer review is self-evidently useful in protecting established paradigms and disadvantaging challenges to entrenched scientific authority. Second, peer review, by controlling access to publication in the most prestigious journals helps to maintain the clearly recognised hierarchies of journals, of researchers, and of universities and research institutes. Peer reviewers should be experts in their field and will therefore have allegiances to leaders in their field and to their shared scientific consensus; conversely, there will be a natural hostility to challenges to the consensus, and peer reviewers have substantial power of influence (extending virtually to censorship) over publication in elite (and even not-so-elite) journals. … However, for any innovations in scientific publication Read More ›

Would this proposal for peer review reform work?

From Jennifer Franklin at Elsevier Connect: A new sort of peer review: RMR articles are sent for review without the results, discussion or conclusion (although data has already been collected) and reviewers are asked to evaluate the article on the research question and the methodology only. The review process is split into two stages. In stage 1, only the research question and methodology are sent for review, and reviewers are asked to provide a recommendation. If the paper is given an in-principle “accept” decision, the paper moves into stage 2 where the author submits the full paper for review. More detail on this process can be found here. Get this: If you asked a compelling question, used rigorous methods and Read More ›

Peer review: Predatory journals are not just a Third World thing

From Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch: “Common wisdom,” according to the authors of a new piece in Nature, “assumes that the hazard of predatory publishing is restricted mainly to the developing world.” But the authors of the new paper, led by David Moher of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, found that more than half — 57% — of the 2,000 articles published in journals they determined were predatory were from high-income countries. In fact, the U.S. was second only to India in number of articles published in such journals. We asked Moher, who founded Ottawa Hospital’s Centre for Journalology in 2015, a few questions about the new work. More. An interview with Dr. Moher follows. It’s not fair to developing Read More ›