I saw this article on Mastodon and thought it might resonate with some people here.
I don’t think peer review is killing science. Science still works, after a fashion. He is correct in saying that peer review has to do with maintaining scientific (I would say community) standards, and is often misunderstood as being science itself.
The publishing racket can be viewed also as a quality assurance filter. Only authors of a “worthy” paper can afford to publish it. But this isn’t the only way to signal their worth.
Another way is to require any prospective lead author to also have reviewed N number of papers (maybe of the same journal) before they can submit anything. This is assurance that they understand the standards of their chosen field.
1 Like