4 ms·
"Reviewers often are in competition with the authors of the papers they're reviewing, hence the term peer-review. They have an incentive to prevent publication
by digbyloftus 11y ago
"Reviewers often are in competition with the authors of the papers they're reviewing, hence the term peer-review. They have an incentive to prevent publication of competing work."
This seems backwards to me. There isn't a fixed amount of interest in a field that is captured by peers. If others in your industry are getting attention then it draws attention to your industry as a whole. I'd think reviewers would be biased towards having competing work published not against.
- clarkmoody 11y agoIn some fields, there is extreme pressure to be "first to publish" specific results, and sometimes multiple labs are working on the exact same problem. In this case, if the "peer" is with a competing lab, they are faced with the unethical decision of rejecting the paper in favor of their lab. Or even worse, of stealing the results and trying to publish first.