> Why don't the peer reviewers demand higher standards? I'm not sure peer review can change a field's direction. Say the top journal in a field used to publish

> Why don't the peer reviewers demand higher standards? I'm not sure peer review can change a field's direction. Say the top journal in a field used to publish the top 10% of papers. If only 1% of papers meet some higher standard, then if the journal chose to enforce this, they would essentially cease to exist. And the people who would otherwise have got hired/promoted/tenured based on publications there, will now win these tournaments based on their publications in the second-best journal. Their contests are with others in the same field. I guess the more hopeful scenario is that, besides the 1 of 10 top papers that are actually solid, there are (somewhere) 9 other solid papers with less-flashy results -- presumably carefully proving things that everyone thinks, not counter-intuitive things which get you a TED talk. Here it's more complicated, as if the journal chose to publish these instead, it seems to me that hiring/promotion/tenure committees may simply start to view it as a less-prestigious venue.