Re: Peer review is frequently a way of controlling debate


<claudiusdenk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/4357

Alexander Cockburn


. . .

One way in which critics are silenced is through the accusation that
they are ignoring 'peer-reviewed science'. Yet oftentimes, peer review
is nonsense. As anyone who has ever put his nose inside a university
will know, peer review is usually a mode of excluding the unexpected,
the unpredictable and the unrespectable, and forming a mutually back-
scratching circle. The history of peer review and how it developed is
not a pretty sight. Through the process of peer review, of certain
papers being nodded through by experts and other papers being given a
red cross, the controllers of the major scientific journals can
include what they like and exclude what they don't like. Peer review
is frequently a way of controlling debate, even curtailing it. Many
people who fall back on peer-reviewed science seem afraid to have out
the intellectual argument.

. . .
Alexander Cockburn?? What would he know of the inner
workings of peer review? There are enough journals and
other respectable venues for anyone to get his views out
to the field. Can you provide any specific examples - don't
reference yourself - of where peer review stifled a view
which subsequently gained respectability and wide acceptance?

Rick Wagler


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