Abolish Peer Review

[@JJvdm27]

Peer review in itself is not inherently bad. It is a method to keep scientists accountable and as a quality control for research. It's to check the quality of the methods used, the data gathered and the math used. Without peer review any bad research could be published and be indistinguishable for an average reader. It could hinder scientific progress and misinform the population with the wrong data and wrong conclusions. Also the fact that in history anyone could publish research and that peer review was only invented recently does not indicate that it is a bad concept. As i said it's a quality control and in history any wrong research could be published and believed. I agree that there are flaws with the accessibility and monetary situation, but i think this would call for restructuring and not outright abolishment. The fact that research papers are boring is not an indication that they're bad. The papers are meant to show the process of the research and the results and conclusions gathered, they're not meant for entertainment. I agree that less complicated words should be used so that more people can understand the article, but i disagree that the articles should be written in a funny way. It's not entertainment, it's science. Also if bad reviews, fraud and bad research happen, this is not an indication that peer review is bad, but flaws with the execution and methods. Researchers skimming through articles is a flaw with how peer review is managed and not peer review itself. This can be fixed by making sure they're actually reviewing articles, and not by abolishing it. Fraud is also a political problem and not a problem with the system of peer review. Almost every person has some sort of bias and sometimes that can get in the way, but to fix that you need to make sure that reviews become more objective. It's a people problem and not a peer review problem. And yes if bad research comes through the peer review process people will believe it, but there is lots of bad research that doesn't get through. And a fraction of the papers coming through peer review might be bad, but the minute amount of accidents doesn't mean the whole thing should go. And without peer review a lot more bad research will be published and believed because at face value they're on the same level as good research. There are problems that can and should be worked on, but this doesn't mean it should be abolished.

[@EngineerNick]

We dont really get to "give up" on an essential part the process just because it has flaws. ... it is not in the category of things that can be "fixed" or "broken". Like all processes involving people it kinda just works on average dude. Thats the only way anything ever works. Just giving up on quality control is crazy. If factories gave up on quality control we would all get sick. Science cant give up on quality control either or we would just stop making progress.

[@RawrItsJuul]

I think a more interesting approach for a video would be to start from the beginning. What is peer review, what is the purpose and is it fulfilling its purposes? If not, in what ways and how do we fix that? All I'm hearing are flaws in the proces, but not why the act itself is bad and should be abolished. It's very easy to criticize an established system, but what do we replace it with? Even if I agreed with every point you made in this video, that still doesn't convince me that it should be abolished. At best your arguments show that there is room for improvement in the process. If you really want to abolish peer review, then what would you replace it with? I think that would make for a much more compelling case if the goal is to convince people to do away with peer review.

[@LiquidDemocracyNH]

@@RawrItsJuul the simple answer to "what do we replace it with?" Is nothing. We publish directly and allow the best ideas to rise naturally rather than worrying about their contamination by coexisting alongside bad ideas

[@LiquidDemocracyNH]

@@RawrItsJuul but thank you for engaging though

[@RawrItsJuul]

@@LiquidDemocracyNH I have to give it to you, it is a simple answer. But it's not very satisfying. The goal of peer review is to filter out the nonsense, if we stop doing it and flood the space with all kinds of articles it's going to make our jobs even harder (I work as a researcher in a lab). I would much rather have a flawed system that ensures the validity of research than no system at all. In the end it would waste more time. Additionally I'd like to add to something you mentioned in the video. I do think it would be good to have scientific articles more approachable to regular people, but often this regards highly specific topics. In these journals you have very limited space and very strict word counts you have to adhere to. There is no room for fluff and colorful language. As someone that has to read a lot of articles, it would seriously hinder effectively distilling the useful information from the article. We have a specific way to skim through the article before we decide to sit down and read the whole thing. We need to be able to see if the study is relevant as soon as possible so we know not to waste our time reading it. I don't know how we can balance that and make things more readable for the masses. Reading these articles is a skill that one can develop if they are interested in it, depending on the topic I also have a hard time getting through it sometimes, because it just is highly specific material that people usually study years for to understand. No problem, it is nice to see people that have an interest in the scientific field. It's good to question the status quo, it can encourage people to think about things they've not thought of before.