What are you actually saying here? Beyond me. Just anti-science??
Sorry, I've ranted on this before. Nothing to do with 'science'. '
Peer reviewed' is the new buzzword implying a work is truth and beyond challenge. That's carp. Anyone who works and has researched in science & related fields (like I have
) knows that the process of 'peer review' is riddled with dodgy practices, although, yes, most of the time it works OK. An editor can seal the fate of a paper by choosing the reviewers appropriately. Would they agree or disagree / sympathise or not with the thesis put forward? Simples!
The Hydroxychloroquine papers often quoted were peer reviewed, passed and printed in two prestigious journals. Now retracted and heavily criticised. The peer review process there was, as I said, rubbish.
As a science grad student, I went to my supervisor and discussed publishing my work in Journal X. My supervisor looked at me with contempt. "Don't you realise, that's edited by "Bloggs. It wouldn't get past first base". I went cold. It was Bloggs' work that my thesis principally took down. Rookie mistake. We published in a much more friendly journal where my supervisor knew the editor well.
When I was working as a geologist, a paper managed to get published in a major journal with me as a co-author, mis-using geochemical data I had generated. I knew the paper was being prepared by one of my colleagues in the USA, but the next thing I knew it was published! I contacted the editor, pointing out both the data mis-use and lack of co-author sign-off, and the reply was that the reviewers were satisfied, so that was that!
Now I'm back at Uni, in History, all I can say is things haven't changed much. I had a paper reviewed by two people who had absolutely no experience in the area the paper was on (I found out because they left their names in their Word documents
). It passed, but I had to swallow some silly revisions.
That's a long way of saying 'don't accept anything just because its 'peer reviewed' ' - but I suspect you knew that already
, but many don't.
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