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The formal pre-publication peer-review system doesn't date back to C17: it was a response to the surge in submissions to the prestige journals in the post-war p
by leoc 9y ago
The formal pre-publication peer-review system doesn't date back to C17: it was a response to the surge in submissions to the prestige journals in the post-war period. For example, Nature's BSD editor John Maddox first introduced it to that journal, but wasn't very fond of it. So it's another of the weird and sometimes damaging changes produced by the postwar boom in university education and science funding, for all that that boom greatly increased the quantity of scientific research and the number of people who got to participate in it.
- dnautics 9y agowe might do better to bring peer review BACK to the 17th century, when it was "actually being reviewed by your peers" instead of "a gateway to publication"
- twtw 9y agoI don't know much about the 17th century, but late-19th century "peer review" was definitely way more fun than today. There were a ton of published criticism by peers, often with colorful language and creative ad hominem attacks. As an example, the exchanges between Heaviside and Preece are highly entertaining. > Mr. Preece is much to be congratulated upon having assisted at the experiments upon which (so he tells us) Sir W. Thomson based his theory; he should therefore have an unusually complete knowledge of it. But the theory of the eminent scientist does not resemble very closely the eminent scienticulist." (Heaviside, The Electrician, 1887, qtd in Nahin's biography) Heaviside commonly referred to Preece with names such as "the eminent scienticulist," the "unscientific speculator," and occassionally "the Nameless One."