4 ms·

Not OP, but I'm a former academic still doing research, and I appreciate peer review as gatekeeper. When I was younger, I wrote a lot of garbage on a blog that

by xamuel 8y ago

Not OP, but I'm a former academic still doing research, and I appreciate peer review as gatekeeper. When I was younger, I wrote a lot of garbage on a blog that I wish had been better filtered. Worst case, if I publish a paper and it turns out to be garbage, I can pin the blame on the journal. I find it especially important if the paper has any danger of being perceived as crackpot material. For example, my paper "A type of simulation which some experimental evidence suggests we don't live in" [1], recently featured on the HN frontpage, took years to prepare and finally publish, even though it's literally less than one page in the journal. With something as 'pop' as whether we live in a simulation, I wanted to be sure what I wasn't just deceiving myself or something. [1] https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf

cultus 8y ago
Traditional peer review can filter out complete crackpot garbage, but it empirically is not effective at improving paper quality. Just because it may have filtered out some wrong things you said does not mean it is effective at it in general. Open, non-anonymous comments on preprint services hold much more promise. Peer review without anonymous gatekeepers.
- xamuel 8y ago
  I've had papers greatly improved by peer review. Maybe mathematics is an outlier. All my best papers were significantly informed by reviewers. I've had cases where my initial thought was "this reviewer is an idiot!!!" When I calmed down and forced myself to give them the benefit of the doubt, I ended up realizing they were right, and they improved my papers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
sndean 8y ago
I've begun to appreciate peer review as gatekeeper as well. Another common situation for me is more or less arguing over a certain method/experimental design. If a colleague thinks a method is garbage, all I have to say is "yes, it's not optimal, but we published in <American Chemical Society journal> using it." It effectively ends the discussion, because ACS doesn't publish nonsense and everything is nitpicked to death. It may turn out to be garbage later on, but at the time it was sufficient.
noobermin 8y ago
I think it varies. As a scientist from a lesser known group, PR is essentially a way for the establishment to keep others from docking units off their genital length as well as threatening their grant funding. I find that more established scientists from the most prestigious universities make tend to be okay with PR because it seems to benefit them and they tend glowingly review each others papers. After recieving my dearth of harshness from reviewers and seeing trash (that is often rife with the same issues and worse!) from these same cats make it into Phys Rev it becomes too painfully obvious it's almost self-satricizing. I think the primary issue with PR is its fundamental assumptions are flawed. Papers authors are NEVER anonymous and can't be while reviewers make it obvious who they are. BTW, that you have a paper that took you years to prepare puts you in the far tail of the distribution.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Thank you for the paper and link - given i have just binge watched half a dozen how-to-repeat-understand the double slit experiment it's nice to have a real, academic, bucket of cold water :-)
michaelmior 8y ago
> Worst case, if I publish a paper and it turns out to be garbage, I can pin the blame on the journal. Certainly the journal should catch garbage, but authors shouldn't rely on this.

by xamuel 8y ago

cultus 8y ago

Traditional peer review can filter out complete crackpot garbage, but it empirically is not effective at improving paper quality. Just because it may have filtered out some wrong things you said does not mean it is effective at it in general. Open, non-anonymous comments on preprint services hold much more promise. Peer review without anonymous gatekeepers.

xamuel 8y ago
I've had papers greatly improved by peer review. Maybe mathematics is an outlier. All my best papers were significantly informed by reviewers. I've had cases where my initial thought was "this reviewer is an idiot!!!" When I calmed down and forced myself to give them the benefit of the doubt, I ended up realizing they were right, and they improved my papers.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

sndean 8y ago

I've begun to appreciate peer review as gatekeeper as well. Another common situation for me is more or less arguing over a certain method/experimental design. If a colleague thinks a method is garbage, all I have to say is "yes, it's not optimal, but we published in <American Chemical Society journal> using it." It effectively ends the discussion, because ACS doesn't publish nonsense and everything is nitpicked to death. It may turn out to be garbage later on, but at the time it was sufficient.

noobermin 8y ago

I think it varies. As a scientist from a lesser known group, PR is essentially a way for the establishment to keep others from docking units off their genital length as well as threatening their grant funding. I find that more established scientists from the most prestigious universities make tend to be okay with PR because it seems to benefit them and they tend glowingly review each others papers. After recieving my dearth of harshness from reviewers and seeing trash (that is often rife with the same issues and worse!) from these same cats make it into Phys Rev it becomes too painfully obvious it's almost self-satricizing. I think the primary issue with PR is its fundamental assumptions are flawed. Papers authors are NEVER anonymous and can't be while reviewers make it obvious who they are. BTW, that you have a paper that took you years to prepare puts you in the far tail of the distribution.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

Thank you for the paper and link - given i have just binge watched half a dozen how-to-repeat-understand the double slit experiment it's nice to have a real, academic, bucket of cold water :-)

michaelmior 8y ago

> Worst case, if I publish a paper and it turns out to be garbage, I can pin the blame on the journal. Certainly the journal should catch garbage, but authors shouldn't rely on this.