Hi scientists, this interesting topic brought back to my mind a similar discussion I had with a colleague of mine and now I want to share it with you guys. As Vale already pointed out, the peer-review process seems to be far from an ideal system: there are many papers in which one of the author is himself the editor of the journal in which the paper is published; the impact factor of a journal is becoming the "only" way to judge the quality of a paper (and of the authors) [example: one of the European Commission grants has as mandatory eligibility criterium that the applicant should have at least one paper published in a "high IF journal"...I'm asking...Why?]. I have also the suspect (from my insignificant experience) that some papers are accepted in really high IF journals without a clear peer-review process, but basing the decision mostly on the authors listed in that paper. Anyway, for those reasons and more, I was wondering if maybe is nowadays needed to revisit the peer-review process. One thing that immediately came out was: the authors of a papers should be hidden to both the reviewers and the editors, so that paper will be judged only on the intrinsic quality and not from the names on it or from the country.
I'm looking forward to see your opinion. Marco Il giorno 09/ott/2013, alle ore 15.00, Miguel Ortiz Lombardia ha scritto: > Hi denizens, > > Now that Biology has gone missing, at least in the programs of the > funding agencies in this part of the world, the reflections that I'm > going to expose concern at best that even smaller field of natural > philosophy that we euphemistically call, not without a twist of candour, > "biomedicine". At worst, they only concern the world whose limits are > the limits of my language. > > As I understand it, the main purpose of really existing peer-reviewing > is to act as a filter. By selecting those papers deemed publishable it > spares us the herculean task of reading every possible piece emanating > from our overheated brains. This actually reveals a big problem of > really existing research (with the caveat expressed in the first > paragraph). But I'm not going to venture into that problem: more clever > minds have drowned in its muddy waters. Back to the point, if the need > of publishing were not such a strong source of inspiration and we > researchers would feel the compelling necessity of publishing only when > we could write well-structured and thoughtful papers, full of useful > data and rich in new ideas and hypotheses, we could then read a > reasonable percentage of the papers concerning our fields of interest. > In that utopia, peer-reviewing could be a continuous, transparent and > open process that would involve a relevant part of the community. Not > likely to happen and probably for good: knowledge seems to progress by a > combination of slow accretion of small steps and sudden > (re)interpretations of those steps. > > But what is interesting to see in that utopian/dystopian possibility is > that really existing peer-reviewing suffers from a fundamental problem: > statistical significance. Because, what significance is to be deposited > in the opinions, whether reasonably argued or not (another thorny > Pandora box I won't dare to open), of two, three or at best four people > acting as editors or reviewers? Anonymous people in the latter case, to > complete the scene. > > In the tension between these requirements trust is suppose to build up > and give us a reasonable path to pursue our noble endeavours. In my > insignificant opinion, in the current state of matters, trust is > seriously broken. Too much pressure to publish, too many journals, too > much money to make from publishing, too restricted and opaque a > peer-reviewing system... As a corollary, my impression is that while > many of us suspect we live in a bubble, we all seem to tacitly expect > that we will not see it explode. A good friend of mine once offered me a > book about the Spanish Armada; no joke. Its title was "The confident > hope of a miracle". > > To rebuild trust we need, among other things, to rebuild our tools. And > we better do it before the next big bang. Research is not the only human > activity involving knowledge and its transmission, we could use some > curiosity beyond our noses. > > Vale. > > Miguel Ortiz Lombardía > > Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques (UMR7257) > CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université > Case 932, 163 Avenue de Luminy, 13288 Marseille cedex 9, France > Tel: +33(0) 491 82 86 44 > Fax: +33(0) 491 26 67 20 > mailto:miguel.ortiz-lombar...@afmb.univ-mrs.fr > http://www.afmb.univ-mrs.fr/Miguel-Ortiz-Lombardia > > El 09/10/13 20:04, Navdeep Sidhu escribió: >> John Bohannon wrote about his experience writing "a computer program to >> generate hundreds of unique papers." Thought some of you might find it of >> interest: >> >> John Bohannon. Who's Afraid of Peer Review? Science 342 (Oct. 4, 2013) 60-65. >> DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6154.60 >> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full >> >> Best regards, >> Navdeep >> >> --- >> Navdeep Sidhu >> University of Goettingen >> --- >>
