Ready “to be slaughtered”? Asks David Gorski at Science-based Medicine:
It seems to me that, at the very minimum, the era of asking scientists for suggestions for peer reviewers for their own manuscripts must end. The reasons why many (but by no means all) journals have done so for so many years are quite understandable but no longer defensible in the wake of these damaging and large scale incidents of self-peer review fraud. This practice must stop, even at the price of more work for already harried editors. One technological solution that might help would be a database of peer reviewers, each with his or her relevant field of expertise listed, as well as collaborators and those with whom they’ve published, so that editors can know not to send a manuscript to an author’s friend or collaborator for review. In the wake of these scandals, it might even be profitable for a company to develop such a database and sell access to publishers. Lacking a system like this, it will fall on the shoulders of editors to be more careful and to pick peer reviewers themselves, rather than using any recommendations by authors submitting manuscripts.
He provides an interesting summary of ways researchers defeat the system, also noting
Certainly, one problem is that, as much as we scientists want to do a good job at peer review, the fact remains that peer review is unpaid and, from an academic standpoint, doesn’t really contribute much to our career advancement. For instance, when going up for promotion, assistant professors do have to show evidence of scholarly activity, such as peer review, but peer review is of low value in that equation compared to other activities. More.
Hmmm. One wonders if there is an unofficial separate system of reward in that case, for desired peer reviews. We’ll call it “brownie points.” That might explain something.
Peer reviews are not, in any event, likely to be better than the peers, and Gorski’s summary does not fill one with confidence.
“Science-based” is a good thing, but conventional honesty and transparency are even better ones.
See also: If peer review is working, why all the retractions?
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