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This argument makes no sense. Why would "less than average" referees block a paper? And why would editors select referees from the population at random? I don't

This argument makes no sense. Why would "less than average" referees block a paper? And why would editors select referees from the population at random? I don't know about other fields, but that's certainly not how things work in physics. I would say it's more like a club where everyone knows each other. If you are authoring a paper you often know who the potential referees are (those that published most in the field), and you politely ask the editor to exclude referees that are in open conflict with you. Editors usually abide and you get a reasonable review of your paper. I agree about most other issues raised about peer review in general and related incentives, but the issues raised here are not some that I recognize.

biomcgary 4y ago
In biology (my area), it is quite frequent for reviewers to "suggest" additional analyses/experiments that reference the the reviewers work or sub-field, which delays publication and inflates citations of reviewers. Thus, some people seem to make a strategy of volunteering for review to get more citations. My understanding is that physics has used arXiv much longer and more consistently than biology has used bioRxiv, so communication suffers less from the impact of delayed (not just blocked) publication. Physics is a smaller research community than biology, so it is not surprising that club effects have more pronounced. Some less funded sub-fields of biology definitely have that feel (e.g., ecology and evolution), but anything remotely biomedical seems to suffer from the rando reviewer effect much more. In my experience, the historic "squishiness" of biology and the rapid growth of NIH funding (and hence graduate students mills) leads to a larger population of less rigorous thinkers than in physics. We don't have math requirements to filter those folks out.

biomcgary 4y ago

In biology (my area), it is quite frequent for reviewers to "suggest" additional analyses/experiments that reference the the reviewers work or sub-field, which delays publication and inflates citations of reviewers. Thus, some people seem to make a strategy of volunteering for review to get more citations. My understanding is that physics has used arXiv much longer and more consistently than biology has used bioRxiv, so communication suffers less from the impact of delayed (not just blocked) publication. Physics is a smaller research community than biology, so it is not surprising that club effects have more pronounced. Some less funded sub-fields of biology definitely have that feel (e.g., ecology and evolution), but anything remotely biomedical seems to suffer from the rando reviewer effect much more. In my experience, the historic "squishiness" of biology and the rapid growth of NIH funding (and hence graduate students mills) leads to a larger population of less rigorous thinkers than in physics. We don't have math requirements to filter those folks out.