Here’s a simple question: does peer review actually do the thing it’s supposed to do? Does it catch bad research and prevent it from being published?
Here’s a simple question: does peer review actually do the thing it’s supposed to do? Does it catch bad research and prevent it from being published?
I think the most important thing is to look who is funding the research. Then you know how the results are weighted towards an outcome. The covid years have made that clear to me.
Every study regarding climate change and most regarding diet and health have made it clear to me.
You missed the “climate catastrophe” ones?
“Does it catch bad research and prevent it from being published?”
Not when the some guy is paying all the “scientists” to lie. Also not when politics are the motivating force behind the research.
Currently IMHO there is no peer review. There is political self-interest, virtue signaling and financial gain. Politics, propaganda and grant guzzling.
How could they “Peer” review something like a vaxx that isn’t a vaxx. You would need the same level of knowledge to review something that allegedly hasn’t been made before.
Thanks, Kate, for finding this! I’ve been on both sides of the author/reviewer process for over 40 years. I had no idea how peer review was introduced. This is a beautiful analysis of where it has gone.
The simple answer to the simple question is “no”.
There is a site called Retraction Watch that reports retracted papers and monitors papers that are being or should be retracted.
https://retractionwatch.com/
If peer review worked, such a site wouldn’t exist.
I’m not sure that’s entirely correct, H.R., and I could stand to be peer reviewed here myself! I have scientist friends in many fields, and a great interest in many fields of science, and a corresponding great respect for science and scientists generally (although some of that respect, like that for law enforcement, has taken a massive hit in recent years)! But I was shocked when I started accessing that excellent resource myself a few years ago! I knew there would be reports of honest mistakes there, fair enough. But the verified reports of sheer incompetence, let alone outright fraud, were shocking and not a little disheartening…
Ah well, we obtain perfection only in Heaven…
” But the verified reports of sheer incompetence, let alone outright fraud, ”
Hey, why bring Michael Mann into this? 😉
Politics plus peer review equals politics.
“Politics plus peer review equals politics.”
Absolutely. The only science ever applied to climate, gender or COVID-19 issues is political science.
“Politics plus peer review equals politics.”
AMEN
and politics plus religion equals politics (AKA Bullshit)
Surely “peer review” means the House of Lords gets to look at it?
“does peer review actually do the thing it’s supposed to do?”
Nope. Not since ClimateGate, when the world discovered what many of us already knew: that ‘climate scientists’ would threaten and extort the scientific journals and publishers of papers to prevent contrary opinions from being published. ‘Peer review’ officially became ‘Pal review’, and no thinking person has paid much attention to it since then.
That was great, thanks for sharing
Dr Piere Kory has said he doesn’t know who to believe anymore. For doctors, who have relied on journals for decades, it must feel like walking a tight rope without a net.
Dr Kelly Victory has proposed that statements concerning conflicts of interest be the first paragraph in the paper, not the last. COVID malfeasance has exposed this house of cards, so we shall see.
I’d opine it is more like dismayingly discovering you ARE walking a tightrope now instead of the solid floor you’d assumed it to be; you’re halfway along it and too far from either side to scurry to safety; and as you watch in disbelief, the safety net is removed or was never there in the first place…
The final nail in the coffin for me is when, in response to a flap over a researcher refusing to release her data set, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial in favor of not releasing data sets if the only reason other researchers wanted to see them is so that they could poke holes in the researcher’s findings. Their argument was that such things should only be released to other researchers that were supportive of the research, not to those who were critical of it. In other words, the NEJM was arguing against the scientific method. How the hell you can call yourself a scientist if you don’t believe in the scientific method is beyond me.
“In other words, the NEJM was arguing against the scientific method. How the hell you can call yourself a scientist if you don’t believe in the scientific method is beyond me.”
For sure. And how can you call yourself a doctor if you don’t believe in XX and XY chromosomes?
Shameful.
It annoys me that I have to pay for digital copies of papers that were published with government grants.
Believe nothing and no one these days as the nation is running on lies. The medical profession, liars, politicians, always liars, police, liars, bureaucrats, liars, the list is endless.
VOWG
You forgot “religion”, biggest lie of all!
Tell me Kate, Just why would my comment about NME666 having 666 in his name not making fun of Jesus be censored? Why? Now I just said the same thing here.
Bubba makes a drunken decision to jump his motorcycle across the canyon. He hears that he should get his his work peer reviewed so he gets three other drunk hillbillies to look at his plans.
Science studying our problems is a blank check for politicians to solve them.. A system where both the problem and the solutions need to be fed through a computer model.. Its as opaque as any high priest coming out of a temple with the answers to our problems.. A dice roll where the observational data of success proves the Gods are pleased.. Or the observational data of failure proves you were not worthy..
On the contrary.
Peer Review is working perfectly.
Go back to Eisenhower’s Speech on the Military -Industrial complex.
And then admire the Long march through the Institutions.
The Scientific Method is a horror.
To Statist’s.
Truth might escape.
No Authoritarian Thugs can tolerate free range inquiry.
So Peer Review.
A wonderful tool to shut down intellectual leaps and mad ideas becoming real..Impose an authority..The Prestigious Journal..The Club of “great intellectuals” ..Everybody wants their very own Mensa..University Professor.
And it worked beautifully.
Western Science is “Environment Canada’s Science”.
It is “The Science”.
Where mental midgets poo poo every idea that challenges the ‘Narrative’.
And now we pay for this corruption.
Millions poisoned by the Jonestown Jab,that Government Goo has turned out to be very bad for you,leaving a whole bunch of well intentioned do-gooders exposed for the gullible idiots they are.
And leaving them exposed to the “love” of all those they harmed.
And that harm came through stupidity .
The Science..
Of herd madness and mass hysteria.
The fate of our helpers will now depend on just how persuasive they can be.
Having caused immeasurable harm because they believed impossible things, they face a damning choice.
Honesty?
We are arrogant Fools.With delusions of adequacy well exceeding our abilities.So sorry.
Or more Bullshit,greater deceit and attempting to blame those they harmed for giving in to their bullying..”You took the Government Goo voluntarily”..
“No body said it would prevent you from getting sick with covid or it would prevent the spread”
“We did the best anyone could under the circumstances”.
They are already telling themselves that one.
“Without the “vaccines” Covid would have been so much worse”.
Medals all around,commendations for all and we can all move on..
Nothing so see here.
Except there is no “Normal” to return to.
With most all past assumptions now exposed as Utter Lies.
Lies that served the Parasitic Overload.
The same crew who inflicted Dread Covid Theatre upon us.
So Peer Review.
Exposed as an Utter Lie and a tool of the Useless Authoritarians from Parasitic Overload.
Of course it never worked to improve the use of the Scientific Method.
That was never its intent.
“Respect Muh Authority”.
We are the “Peers”.
“Name one right or freedom that you lost during Lockdown”..
Fools can be tolerated ,from a safe distance.
As you cannot protect you and your own from the actions of a fool,you must maintain that distance.
(See the 5 basic laws of human stupidity).
When these fools freely mix in the affairs of productive men,the result is what we see today.
“Upper Class Prat of the year” was a joke,not a means to select your leadership.
Peer Review..
Pah.
More like driving by braille.
Without it?
We would have a better exchange of ideas.
Funny, but by publishing his papers on the internet, this author is subjecting himself to real peer review, instead of the woke facsimile that calls itself “peer review.”
IowaHawk once said, and I paraphrase, that the left will “Take an institution, kill it, gut it, then wear its hide as a skin, and call anyone who disagrees a hater.”
The Canadian right, in all its idiocy, still has not internalized this fact.
…so you get what you see here last night, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it.
Peer Review can be distilled down to:
“I review your paper so it gets published, you review my paper so it gets published”