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alfresco
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This is from the most recent Letters to the Editor section of The Economist. I thought it good food for thought. If the original article needs to be published for comparison I will do so.
Peer Pressure
I suspect you have not examined the evidence behind your statement that the quality-assurance system of scientific journals “generally works well” (“Handsome prints”, February 5th). Peer review is the main assurance system for science journals, but remarkably, until about 40 years ago nobody had studied the process.
When studies did begin researchers found little or no evidence of effectiveness. They did find that peer review is slow, expensive, inefficient, poor at detecting errors or fraud, prone to bias and something of a lottery. It is also anti-innovation, in that truly original studies that win Nobel prizes are often rejected. We know too that journals are filled with statistical errors and studies where the conclusions are not supported by the methods and data. Drummond Rennie, one of the pioneers of peer-review research, summed up the evidence by saying, “If peer review were a drug it would not be allowed onto the market.” Paradoxically peer review, which is at the heart of science, is faith-based, not evidence-based.
Richard Smith
Former editor
British Medical Journal
Peer Pressure
I suspect you have not examined the evidence behind your statement that the quality-assurance system of scientific journals “generally works well” (“Handsome prints”, February 5th). Peer review is the main assurance system for science journals, but remarkably, until about 40 years ago nobody had studied the process.
When studies did begin researchers found little or no evidence of effectiveness. They did find that peer review is slow, expensive, inefficient, poor at detecting errors or fraud, prone to bias and something of a lottery. It is also anti-innovation, in that truly original studies that win Nobel prizes are often rejected. We know too that journals are filled with statistical errors and studies where the conclusions are not supported by the methods and data. Drummond Rennie, one of the pioneers of peer-review research, summed up the evidence by saying, “If peer review were a drug it would not be allowed onto the market.” Paradoxically peer review, which is at the heart of science, is faith-based, not evidence-based.
Richard Smith
Former editor
British Medical Journal
