Peer review
From Conservapedia
Peer review refers to prepublication review of a professional's work by others in the same profession. "Peer-reviewed" medical and scientific journals require submitted manuscripts to be reviewed and approved by relevant experts before publication.
Normally, a journal editor receives an article submission and then sends it out to some readers (referees) who have some expertise regarding the article’s subject. These are usually selected from a pool of people who already published in that journal, and sometimes journals aks authors for suggestions for referees. The journal editor collects and anonymizes the answers of the referess and passes them to the authors, who may respond, change the article to clarify things, or retract the article. When enough referees approve the puplication the paper is published.
Peer review is no guarantee of correctness. It simply means an article is good enough to be approved by other scientists. If an article fails peer review, it is either because (1) the research was so poorly conducted or described that there's no point in other scientists bothering with it, (2) the reviewers concluded that publication of the article would not add substantially to previously published work, or (3) it represents such a challenge to established scientific belief that the journal chooses to suppress it.
A controversial form of peer review is when physicians on the staff of a hospital pass judgment on a fellow physician, and recommend that he be excluded from the medical staff. This has potential for abuse to eliminate competitors, which is known as sham peer review.
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Peer review and due diligence
Steve McIntyre wrote:
- IPCC proponents place great emphasis on the merit of articles that have been 'peer reviewed' by a journal. However, as a form of due diligence, journal peer review in the multiproxy climate field is remarkably cursory, as compared with the due diligence of business processes. Peer review for climate publications, even by eminent journals like Nature or Science, is typically a quick unpaid read by two (or sometimes three) knowledgeable persons, usually close colleagues of the author.
- It is unheard of for a peer reviewer to actually check the data and calculations. In 2004, I was asked by a journal (Climatic Change) to peer review an article. I asked to see the source code and supporting calculations. The editor said that no one had ever asked for such things in 28 years of his editing the journal. [1]
Time taken for Peer Review
The time taken for the peer review varies with the subject and the paper, but it not usually very long and some magazines aim for an average of 28 days from submission to decision. [1] The actual time taken by the reviewer is much shorter and varies from five hours [2] to one and a half hours. [3]. Obviously more important papers will tend to be reviewed first.
See also
External links
- Some Thoughts on Disclosure and Due Diligence in Climate Science - Steve McIntyre
- Kulikovsky, Andrew, Creationism, Science and Peer Review 2nd February 2008 (Creation Ministries International) (Documents some problems with and limitations of peer review).
