Peer review is a relatively new form of gate-keeping used by the DISC to suppress ideas. It functions to keep out bad ideas and amplify good ideas. Like any human process, it fails in its function at times. It sometimes amplifies bad ideas such as those exposed by the Grievance Studies Hoax. It sometimes suppresses important ideas such as those discussed in The Portal Episode 19.
Criticisms of the peer-review crisis include the ad hominem nature of the review, the appeal to authority, the selection bias, the confirmation bias and the replication crisis.
Quotes
The pressure for conformity is enormous. I have experienced it in editors’ rejection of submitted papers, based on venomous criticism of anonymous referees. The replacement of impartial reviewing by censorship will be the death of science. — Julian Schwinger
Also, funding by peer review results in group-think and whole scientific fields floating off in a self-perpetuating irreality bubble for decades. Randomness will fund mavericks, mostly crackpots, but some may blow up established dysfunctional disciplines. — David Chapman
Resources & References
- Relevant tweet by Eric that exemplifies how peer review fails.