Iowa Climate Science Education
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A Modest Proposal For Improving Peer Review
Abstract.
A proposal is made for the design of a specific type of post-publication peer review.
Background
In 2006, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine published a widely cited paper (960 citations) by Richard Smith entitled ?Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals?. In it he noted the following problems with the peer-review system.
? There is no clear definition of ?peer-review?, nor any standardization of protocols.
He described this lack of a definition as follows:
?What is clear is that the forms of peer review are protean. Probably the systems of every journal and every grant giving body are different in at least some detail; and some systems are very different. There may even be some journals using the following classic system.
The editor looks at the title of…
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