ON PEER REVIEW (June 16, 2014)

There is a growing debate about peer review, which often centers on top scientific journals in any field. This is where the peers are supposedly the best. And peer review is double-blind nowadays. That is, the reviewers do not know who the author is, and the author does not know who the reviewers are. But there is an enormous amount of guessing who is who, it goes without saying. And there is an enormous amount of infighting among all concerned. Many scientific fields are rife with bile, and lots of it, which makes peer review an increasingly problematic notion. It is thus surprising that no-one in the debate is radical enough to propose abandoning it altogether. To begin with, peer review cannot be truly anonymous in a deeply interconnected world. Perhaps more important, it may be outright pernicious when truly new ideas are on offer. Only imagine the likes of Darwin or Marx or Einstein subjected to the opinion of their supposed peers. Perish the thought. So, what would be wrong with a world in which every scientist would have a blog with all the relevant arguments and data pertaining to their scientific work? Each blog could be easily found using keywords and phrases. And all the criticism could be placed on the blog by all the peers, subject to a simple rule: no anonymity. Everything would be out in the open, and all concerned could make their own minds as to who is who in any particular field. In short, peer review is for the birds, as are scientific journals, and especially the topmost ones.