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> With peer-review you know that someone will read your work that has the background to understand it and to catch errors. This is a remarkably naive (and char
by time_to_smile 5y ago
> With peer-review you know that someone will read your work that has the background to understand it and to catch errors.
This is a remarkably naive (and charmingly optimistic) view of peer-review.
For the vast majority of the history of academic research peer review did not play a major part. It wasn't until the 1970s that the modern day peer review system emerged and it did so as a reaction to a funding crisis in academia to produce the illusion of legitimacy.
It of course has done no such thing. It has done nothing to limit the reproducibility crisis which has shown it's ugly head in nearly all scientific fields of study. One could even argue that peer review coupled with a publish or perish culture is the cause of such a failure of science.
This also means just about any great scientific discovery you can think of prior to 1970 did not go through the peer review process as we know it today. If science seems less exciting today, peer review is certainly one of the reasons for this. I'll leave you with Geoffrey Hinton's words on the subject:
> Now if you send in a paper that has a radically new idea, there's no chance in hell it will get accepted, because it's going to get some junior reviewer who doesn't understand it. Or it’s going to get a senior reviewer who's trying to review too many papers and doesn't understand it first time round and assumes it must be nonsense. Anything that makes the brain hurt is not going to get accepted. And I think that's really bad.
Laking peering review is a feature, and not just because it speeds up time to results.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago>> This is a remarkably naive (and charmingly optimistic) view of peer-review. Great way to join a convesation. Well done. I didn't say anything about "the vast majority of history of academic research". I talked about my experience of peer review of my work. Are you responding to someone else's comment but quoting mine?