Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

An ingenious proposal for improving peer review that would accentuate the biggest problem

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

It’s rare that people are so honest about their agenda:

Lost time in the current peer review process: In the current journal submission process, rejection is common, yet reviews are rarely shared from one journal to the next. Even when reviews are passed along, the lack of an industry-wide standard means that each journal in the chain solicits its own reviews before making a decision. All of this leads to reviewers repeating work that has already been done on the same manuscript by other colleagues. We estimate that over 15 million hours are spent on redundant or unnecessary reviews – every year.

Peer Review: How We Found 15 Million Hours of Lost Time” at AJE Scholar

But wait. Fellow Nobelists generally reviewed Albert Einstein’s papers. His only rejection occurred under the modern systemwhich this proposal would ramp up.

And science is stalemated today.

Ramping up the current system would merely enable 10 dunces to do the work of 100 dunces.

Science bureaucrats, promote this idea! YOUR lives are easier. The other people in the process… not so much.

See also: Einstein’s only rejected paper. It was the only one reviewed anonymously, as is the practice today. Today’s collection of scholarly literature is exploding in quantity and deteriorating in quality. One solution is to return to review practices at the time of Einstein. Today’s collection of scholarly literature is exploding in quantity and deteriorating in quality. One solution is to return to review practices at the time of Einstein. The reviewers were much better qualified and were not anonymous.

Why is it so hard to reform peer review? Robert J. Marks: Reformers are battling numerical laws that govern how incentives work. Know your enemy!

and

Anti-plagiarism software goof: Paper rejected for repeat citations The scholar was obliged by discipline rules to cite the flagged information repetitively

Hat tip: Pos-darwinista

Comments
News - No, we don't ask people like you to review manuscripts, If the proposal is for review to be re-used, that's already being done, and has been on a formal basis for some years. The publishers have set up their manuscript management systems so that if one journal rejects a submission, it can easily be transferred to another journal (at least in a given list). Not only does this move the reviews, but also the rest of the meta-data that is entered at submission. At the moment this system only works within a publisher, but I know there's interest in expanding it to move between publishers (although I've no idea if that will come to pass).Bob O'H
May 31, 2020
May
05
May
31
31
2020
08:14 AM
8
08
14
AM
PST
LoL! Acartia Eddie can't even follow along...ET
May 31, 2020
May
05
May
31
31
2020
06:45 AM
6
06
45
AM
PST
News
How about: The first 10 dunces could rule without involving 90 more.
First, only in rare circumstances would there be 10 reviewers in the first round. Secondly, what would be wrong with sharing these reviews? When submitting a paper one of the questions asked is if the paper has been previously submitted to another journal.Ed George
May 31, 2020
May
05
May
31
31
2020
06:21 AM
6
06
21
AM
PST
How about: The first 10 dunces could rule without involving 90 more.News
May 31, 2020
May
05
May
31
31
2020
04:05 AM
4
04
05
AM
PST
So what is this ingenious proposal?Bob O'H
May 31, 2020
May
05
May
31
31
2020
02:27 AM
2
02
27
AM
PST

Leave a Reply