What Would We Do Without Peer Review?

4 Replies to “What Would We Do Without Peer Review?”

1. Here’s a related article:
   http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/11/13-of-the-dumbest-academic-papers-to-actually-get-published/
   Isn’t academe wonderful?

2. http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-06-16
   Today’s Dilbert seems appropriate

3. Academics, like their students, resemble delicate snowflakes/cry bullies rather than critical thinkers and debaters. Defending their work and ideas was obviously too difficult, it’s so much easier to regulate out dissent and challenging ideas. Another example:
   MARINE SCIENTIST CENSURED BY JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY FOR QUESTIONING MISLEADING CLAIMS
   Date: 13/06/16 Graham Lloyd, The Australian
   When marine scientist Peter Ridd suspected something was wrong with photographs being used to highlight the rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef, he did what good scientists are supposed to do: he sent a team to check the facts.
   After attempting to blow the whistle on what he found — healthy corals — Professor Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack. After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd — a renowned campaigner for quality assurance over coral research from JCU’s Marine Geophysics Laboratory — was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”.
   I suspect that most academics would never survive in the private sector, industrial world or any place where you are required to be accountable and competent.

4. The private sector also has a lack of accountability and competency. I know because I worked for people who were like that. And, yes, one can be a complete failure ans still keep one’s job if one happens to know the right people. I saw that first-hand at some of the outfits I was with.
   Questionable conduct by academics is nothing new. I noticed that soon after I started grad studies in the late 1970s. Some people are clever and aren’t caught. Some people have unassailable reputations and, thereby, have immunity.