Peer review
Peer review in general refers to submitting scientific work to the scrutiny of other scientists, especially before making announcements to the general public.
In common practice, peer review is synonymous with anonymous peer review, a largely secretive process whereby referees review a scientific paper in strict confidence before an editor accepts the paper for publication. Ordinarily, this process will catch subtle errors in scientific work. When the stakes are high, however, it is easy to abuse the process.
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 ask authors for suggestions for referees. In anonymous peer review the journal editor removes the names of reviewers from their comments before passing them to the authors.
After receiving comments, the author may respond, change the article to clarify things, or retract the article. When enough referees approve the publication the paper is published.
There are numerous criteria which the scientific journals may ask the referees to check. One of the most important questions is if the referee believes that the topic of the article fits into the journal. If that would not be the case, the referee will usually suggest another journal to publish the article in. The next important thing is that the article should be coherent. This means it should not contradict itself, and if parts (e.g. measurement results) are ambiguous, this should be pointed out. The next criteria is obviously that the article should present sufficiently new material, and that the new material should be clearly distinguished from material cited. The next step is originality of the article. Even if new data are consistently presented, they may not fit into a given Journal. Last but not least, the style guidelines of the Journal should be followed quite exactly, and also a minimum standard in the language used must be adhered to. One should point out that Peer review is not very efficient against scientific misbehavior or plagiarism.
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.
Contents
Abuses by the IPCC
- "...the climate reconstruction of Mann passed both peer review rounds of the IPCC without anyone ever really having checked it." [1]
- Hendrik Tennekes wrote: 'The IPCC review process is fatally flawed....' [2]
Limitations of peer review
Richard Lindzen wrote:
- The combination of increased scale and diminished emphasis on unique talent is, from a certain point of view, a devastating combination which greatly increases the potential for the political direction of science, and the creation of dependent constituencies. With these new constituencies, such obvious controls as peer review and detailed accountability begin to fail and even serve to perpetuate the defects of the system. Miller (2007) specifically addresses how the system especially favors dogmatism and conformity.[1]
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. [3]
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. [2] The actual time taken by the reviewer is much shorter and varies from five hours [3] to one and a half hours. [4]. 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).
