Prof. Bruce
Charlton. The Peer Review Cartel. http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x66j.pdf
Dr Charles McCutchen,
New Scientist, 29 April 1976
Scrutiny of the
reviewer-establishment axis suggests that the anonymous reviewing system is
both harmful and unnecessary
Dr Charles McCutchen works at the Laboratory of Experimental Pathology,
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
To be refused
publication of a new discovery is a bewildering shock to the beginning
scientist. Referees are supposed to despise error and cherish novelty. In fact
they have suppressed important discoveries. F. W. Lanchester’s
circulation theory of aerodynamic lift was held up for ten years. J. J.
Waterston’s work on the kinetic theory of gases anticipated Maxwell by 12 or 13
years, and Boltzmann by 21 years. It was published, 47 years after submission,
only because Rayleigh found the manuscript in the archives of the Royal
Society. It was “nothing but nonsense, unfit even for reading before the
society,” according to a referee. Publication of Krebs’s citric acid was
delayed also. (The present editor of Nature
says that Krebs was not refused outright, only told that other journals might
publish his article sooner. But dates of submission show that Nature was, at the time, publishing very
quickly.)
Why should an
apparently counter-productive institution like reviewing exist? It does not and
cannot succeed in its supposed function of protecting journal readers against
error. Reviewers, chosen by editors, are seldom as well matched to articles as
the eventual readers. Reviewing’s real function is what it does successfully,
to deny innovators access to publication.
People fear change. It
lowers the value of anyone who does not exploit it. It puts us all on a down
escalator, where we climb just to stay even. Innovation occurs faster than
society will use it, perhaps faster than it can be used. As the guilds
controlled progress in the middle ages, so the scientific and technological
establishments slow the pace of change to a rate they can accommodate to.
Reviewing is part of the mechanism for doing this.
When people cooperate
for an unacknowledged purpose their association is called a conspiracy, yet
suppression of novelty by review is not a plot cooked up between referees and
the establishment. But conspiracies can arise by evolution instead of by
design, with the members falling into their roles by accident and finding them
congenial. The establishment gives referees great power over other peoples’
lives. The referees repay the establishment by suppressing new discoveries. It
is not necessary that either side understand the arrangement.
Reviewers reject good
ideas because reviewing inflates their egos and puts peoples’ careers in their
hands. Being anonymous, they cannot be called to account. This combination of
exaltation and power would warp anyone’s behaviour.
Original work is often
sketchy, the writing brash and sometimes confusing. When it is not
misunderstood it excites jealousy. Of course there are then good reasons why it
must be rejected. The result is familiar to most scientists, a rejecting review
compounded of error, insult, and sometimes brutality, with little chance of a
rehearing and none of retribution against the reviewer.
Scholarly review is
such an effective barrier to novelty that a new idea can seldom be announced to
the world until it has been sold to the establishment. Most innovators are
ill-suited to promotional work, and begrudge the time and effort. Many ideas
die at this stage. The innovator must buttonhole people to enlist their
support, or perhaps apply for a grant to study his innovation. If successful,
this gets the idea onto the grapevine, which is its announcement to and
acceptance by the world. Publication is a formality, like a letter confirming a
telephone call. By thus standing astride the channels of communication the
establishment maintains its rule and regulates progress for its own
convenience.
Accepting that the rate
of progress must be regulated, need it be done this
way? The review system is poisoning the atmosphere in science. Must we keep it?
If innovations were freely published the establishment would still decide which
of them to develop. With the power of the purse, does it need the gag as well?
The conventional answer
is that a reviewing system that accepts all i9nnovations must let through a
flood of junk. In my experience as a reviewer I found no junk, just right ideas
and wrong ideas. In explaining to authors where they went wrong the power to
reject was only an embarrassment.
Can a reviewer who
wants this power be trusted with it? At most, reviewers should be able to delay
publication for a six month “second thoughts” period, and impose a reasonable
length limit. If a reviewer felt strongly that readers should be warned he
could have his signed comments published next to the offending article. A
reviewer who only advised could remain anonymous.
Mass circulation
journals like Nature and Science would still have to reject
papers, or their issues would be the size of telephone books. But for the
specialised journals the quantity of submitted manuscripts might well decrease
and the quality improve. With publication itself no accomplishment, and
carrying no presumption of quality, each article would stand on its intrinsic
value, and the rewards for quantity would be much less than at present.
The first journal to
try this system might even get too many manuscripts. Its principles would
require it to refuse all contributions for a while. Problems with repeating
contributors who would monopolise the journal should be dealt with when they
arise, not by making elaborate restrictions at the beginning.
This need not be the
only experiment. A journal that actively solicited rejected articles and
printed good ones beside foolish parts of the rejecting reviews might
illuminate the status quo. If scientists once realise what they are doing to
themselves with the review system, they may think of ways to let innovators
publish their ideas and discoveries without having first to promote them.
http://www.naturalphilosophy.org/site/ivorcatt/2016/02/13/the-decline-of-science/