An Innovative Solution to the Failures of Peer Review
Academics are growing wary of the peer review process amid mounting evidence that it is compromised by ideological biases and that it does not effectively or reliably ensure the quality of published research.
Further, it is increasingly evident that the academic publishing industry’s primary reason for being is not to disseminate new knowledge to the public, but rather to serve as a bureaucratic metric for professional advancement. While the failure of the traditional peer review process might seem to justify pessimism on the part of scholars, the good news is that some academics are reimagining how academic publishing can work.
Recently, I had a chance to talk to two professors who have developed an alternative to the corrupted process of peer review. Dr. Harry Crane (Professor of Statistics at Rutgers) and Dr. Ryan Martin (Professor of Statistics at North Carolina State University) are the founders of Researchers.One, an online platform that allows scholars to publish new research and facilitates a critical dialogue to refine new scholarship.
Our conversation addressed some of the shortcomings of the peer review process as it currently exists, and we discussed how the Researchers.One platform not only restores the most important functions of academic publishing, but also how it returns the ownership of intellectual property to the scholars themselves.
Video of our conversation can be viewed here, and an edited and abbreviated transcript is available below.
Researchers.One invites scholars of all disciplines to use its platform to publish their scholarship without the middleman.
Adam Ellwanger (AE): There’s been some discussion across a variety of fields (and at the James G. Martin Center recently) about the shortcomings of the peer review process. What are some of those limitations in your field of statistics and beyond?
Ryan Martin (RM): It helps to step back and think about the origin of the peer review process. The initial idea was that it was difficult to communicate these scientific developments, and so some kind of centralized type of organization was necessary to disseminate these ideas. But recently, a positive judgment from peer reviewers is thought of as an objective indicator of quality. And that’s not necessarily true.
Today, the bestowal of this mark of quality has become the primary role of the peer review process. But this creates a disincentive, especially for junior folks, to try to branch out and develop genuinely new ideas. So, it’s kind of like these mob movies like Goodfellas and Casino: the strategy to be successful in a world like that is to keep your head down and stay in line. That also happens in the academic world.
Harry Crane (HC): Yes, academia operates like the mafia, as anyone on the inside knows. The key is to think about how peer-reviewed scholarship is viewed outside academia, and how it actually operates on the inside. Peer-reviewed research is referenced all the time as evidence that a published claim is true. If something was peer reviewed, then that means it’s been vetted, so people assume it must be true. But that’s not actually what peer review does. In reality, peer-review is a purely administrative process that allows people to rise up the academic ladder. Whatever scholarly purpose it serves is secondary. That’s why we started Researchers.One.
AE: Tell us the story, then, of how you two developed the idea for Researchers.One and the function that you hoped it would serve.
RM: Well, we were both dissatisfied with certain experiences that we had, and it got to a point where we thought, well, what could we possibly do about this? Obviously, at first it was very scattered. But we wanted people to be able to disseminate their research with fewer obstacles. And to ensure that they could still have access to feedback from other scholars. Our aim was to separate the publication process from the peer review process.
HC: As I said, the peer-review process today has been co-opted by bureaucrats to serve administrative ends, and most likely will continue to serve this role for some time. But we don’t need to cater to that corrupted version of scholarship. Our platform advances an alternative which focuses solely on the scholarly aspects of peer review and research. We started with the low expectation that very few people would adopt this at first, not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because of career pressures. We were right, but recently we’ve been contacted by more and more people from all different fields who want to work with us.
AE: So, tell us a little bit about how Researchers.One works. If a scholar wants to submit some new research to your platform, what’s the process?
HC: In a lot of ways, it’s much simpler than the way that you would go about submitting to a traditional journal. And that’s by design: it shouldn’t be hard or prohibitive, and anyone should be allowed to do it. How do you do it? You go to the website, you set up an account, log in, fill out your name, title, abstract, and upload. The article is published immediately, and every article on the site can be reviewed publicly: anybody can comment on it, but no anonymous comments are allowed.
Our idea was that if something is going to get a stamp of approval, if someone is going to say “this is good research,” that person should put their name behind that judgment. In the traditional review process, reviewers can stay anonymous and avoid repercussions for shoddy or misleading work. Similarly, if somebody’s going to say a piece of research on Researchers.One is bad, they have to put their name to it. Their criticism is publicly posted on the site and everybody can see it. Then, the authors can respond if they want, and the process continues.
AE: Let me clarify for readers just how revolutionary this is. Essentially, you guys have lifted any gatekeeping mechanism for publication of new academic research. But you have retained a way to provide critical feedback that might improve the research—just after publication. Is that right?
HC: We haven’t retained it. We’ve restored it.
RM: Yeah, that’s right. There are no barriers. So right away, you can send it out on social media to get feedback. At its core, Researchers.One is about the dissemination of your work and the ability to get broad, critical feedback, which is essential. It’s not just about having a paper published: it’s about producing quality work and advancing knowledge.
AE: Let me jump to the obvious question that most academics would ask of your model. How do you ensure the quality of the scholarship without the process of peer review? I think that they might say, “how do we know that this is reliable research?”
RM: The short answer is that we don’t think that it’s our job to be ensuring quality. The typical style of peer-review relies on the subjective assessment of two or three anonymous reviewers. From our perspective, that judgment is better left to a broader community of scholars that help one another refine and test the work that’s been done. That’s not something any individual viewer or an editorial board can do. What’s required is time and visibility and transparency to determine which work is impactful.
I think about Newton and Darwin. There was nobody there saying, “okay, you need to include this kind of example” or “revise and resubmit.” This was not part of any sort of peer review process. And yet over time, it was determined that their ideas were groundbreaking and impactful. That older tradition is what we want to build on. So, it’s not really the two of us making judgments, or a few anonymous peer reviewers. It’s the scientific community, or the scholarly community, more generally.
AE: For the scholars who are concerned about the qualitative, gatekeeping role of peer review, I would also add that we’ve recently learned that peer review is not performing that gatekeeping quality very well anyway. This is what things like the replication crisis in psychology and the so-called “grievance studies” affair by James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have shown us.
HC: Well, in regard to the failure of the peer-review process to perform this gatekeeping function, the response seems to be that if something’s going wrong, you have to control it even more—that what we need is an even more arduous peer-review process. And that’s an approach that has shown itself to fail over and over again in a lot of different domains—peer review is just one of them.
In fact, Ryan and I have argued that removing the gatekeeper is critical to restoring and ensuring the quality of scientific research. Why is that? Well, it’s not just about removing the gatekeeper. It’s about removing the veneer of quality that comes with publication. So, if I publish something in Science or Nature right now, it has a very strong veneer of quality, and anyone can cite it and say “it must be good because it’s in Science.”
And many will say that without having read a word of it. And that’s what happens in the media when their reports reference The New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet.
These are journals that have famously published false information over the past year with little or no consequences. There’s nothing wrong with publishing things that are false in the pursuit of truth. The problem is when you publish false things under the premise that they’re correct. We’re absolutely not doing that at Researchers.One.
The other part is on the author’s side. If I could publish something mediocre (or even false) in Nature or Science, then I’m better off—a publication in a “top” journal, a line on my CV, and all the academic fanfare that comes with it. Compare that to Researchers.One, where the transparent lack of gatekeeping creates a much lower bar to publication and, in return, a much higher bar for the work to be widely accepted and recognized.
So, there’s no incentive to publishing junk on Researchers.One, but a lot of incentive for publishing junk in Science, Nature, Lancet. That explains a lot of what’s happened with peer review and academia over the last 20-30 years.
AE: I know you’re both professors of statistics. Does Researchers.One publish work from any discipline, or just statistics and the sciences?
RM: There’s absolutely no restrictions. We’re happy to publish work in any field, English, History, anything. The great thing about talking with you is that you come from a very different disciplinary background than we do. What we want to do is bring scholarly communities together.
AE: It took us a while to schedule this chat because you guys have been working on some big expansions to the platform. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
HC: We’re in the process of adding two things. One is a platform to host virtual conferences in any field of study. We’ve had about four events so far, with more scheduled in the fall—some of which are the flagship events of certain professional societies. We also are going to be hosting journals starting very soon. Our first journal is in statistics. But we’ve also lined up a medical journal, a social psychology journal. And I think you may be starting a journal.
AE: That’s correct. I’ll be starting a journal of humanities and qualitative social sciences research called The Peerless Review. I think the title says it all. So, I encourage people who have inquiries about that to contact me. In the meantime, if somebody wants to check out Researchers.One, how can they access the site?
RM: That’s the URL: Researchers.One. If you don’t already have an account, you can easily create one for free, and then you’ll be ready to start submitting articles or reviewing other people’s research.
HC: We have a Twitter account, which is @researchersone.
AE: We forgot to mention one other thing: that authors retain all the rights to their work that appears on the site. So, if an author decides tomorrow that they don’t want to have it published on that platform anymore, they can take it down at their discretion.
RM: That’s a good point. There are some copyright terms, but the terms are meant to be as flexible as possible. You don’t give up any copyright privileges when you post research on Researchers.One. Authors are free to publish the paper on Researchers.One and submit to other journals.
HC: Why would you want to restrict your work to one place? Why wouldn’t you want to publish it as far and as wide as you possibly can? That’s our point of view. We’re just a platform. We’re not taking your ideas. We’re helping you to get your ideas out there and to build a community and to engage with other people. That’s what other journals and communities and platforms should be doing, too.
AE: You’re doing great work to restore some of the dignity to the process of academic publication. I wanted to bring this to the audience of the James G. Martin Center because I know that there are faculty among them who have wonderful, quality research that is sitting around unpublished due to the vicissitudes of the peer review process. Researchers.One would be a great home for that work, and we encourage you to submit your work.
See more here: jamesgmartin.center
About the author: Adam Ellwanger is an associate professor who studies rhetoric, writing, and politics. He is a member of Heterodox Academy, an organization that works to increase viewpoint diversity in American universities. You can reach him at [email protected].
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Ken Irwin
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“Publication Bias” is a well documented phenomenon in the field of published academic papers and is the result of several influences.
1) Bias To Publish Positive Outcomes – research has shown that various scientific journals tend to publish work that had a positive outcome (by a ratio of 5:1 to 10:1) even though negative outcomes are useful information academically. This problem is much worse for the popular media.
20 Bias To Submit Only Positive Outcomes – research has shown that researchers tend to feel that a negative outcome is a failure and tend not to write up the report for submission – seems like a waste of effort especially given that it is much less likely to be published in any case.
It is thought that as little as 5% to 1% of negative outcomes are fully written up and submitted to academic journals.
Note: From the last two points – if 20 different researchers test a hypothesis and only one finds a positive result and gets it published and the others don’t bother – then the outcome is that the published research being the odd man out is likely erroneous. This will cause very serious imbalance in the Journals – that is why negative outcomes should be published so they can be included in larger meta-studies.
It has been suggested that journals should require notification of any research intended to be submitted to them and refuse to publish any paper that was not pre-advised or any author who did not write up a report – particularly a failure – for any pre-advised topic.
That way any similar research finding a positive outcome can be queried against the failed research and/or submitted to those researchers for critical review.
An alternate suggestion is an international register for all academic work be maintained for the same purpose.
This Bias To Submit Only Positive Outcomes is further exacerbated by the fact that most journals decline to publish papers that refute a prior paper published by themselves – obviously it makes them look foolish – retractions are typically only forthcoming when the contrary evidence is overwhelming and being widely published in other journals.
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2019/06/26/failed-replication-of-famous-research-rejected/ as an example.}}
3) Bias To Funded Research – research has shown that researchers are 5:1 more likely to find positive results in research for a sponsor than in non-funded research – admittedly a plausible hypothesis is more likely to be funded than an apparently outrageous one and sponsors can be choosy.
At this juncture “Global Warming / Climate Change” is the darling of the academic journals (not to mention the popular press), government and private academic funding (by advocacy groups) is severely biased towards the pro-camp which in turn makes this area of study unduly likely to attract interest from academics seeking funding to conduct research supporting the established dogma and ultimately get published – the “publish or perish” syndrome that is academia.
Conversely the contrary position is therefore unlikely to attract interest from either sponsors or academics.
4) Bias in personal beliefs & paradigms :-
Clearly deeply held beliefs are difficult to change – over historical time we have seen firmly held belief’s which now almost seem bizarre such as a flat earth or the earth as the centre of the universe.
More recently we have seen the acceptance of tectonic plate movement which was vehemently opposed by geologists even into the late 60’s in spite of the fact that even children could see that the continents seemed to “fit” into each other.
5) Bias in personal observation :-
Our vision system has evolved to discern patterns as a survival mechanism.
We “see” things that aren’t there – such as a stalking predator – a false positive only causes us alarm whereas a false negative (failing to see a stalking predator) could kill you.
This carries over into observing experiments and data, we can easily allow ourselves to see false positives.
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through his detective Sherlock Holmes.
6) Bias in research grant funding :-
When applying for research funding or responding to calls for papers, it is often the case that the body offering the funding or calling for papers also has a bias or an agenda.
If the IPCC calls for papers on global warming you can be certain that your paper on natural causes will get no further than the wastepaper basket.
7) Bias in Academia :-
This has some of its origins in all the aforementioned. Existing academics will be unwilling to support controversial research.
Try to get academic support of an “unpopular” topic for your dissertation and see how far you get.
Without a professor sponsoring your work, you will get nowhere – so you end up doing what is little more than indentured slavery to the professor’s pet projects or next published paper.
This process tends to lead to “groupthink” and academic stagnation and a tendency to find what you (or your professor) was looking for…
Under these circumstances it is miraculous that any contrary position is researched and published at all – but in science, the truth will out and the skeptics are becoming more strident in their demands to be heard.
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Mervyn
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It is time every scientist should have to get licensed before they can start publishing their studies. If they get it wrong, they should suffer the same consequences as external auditors of corporations. If they publish fraudulent papers, they should be jailed.
There’s too much scientific fraud going on.. Michael Mann put out a fraudulent hockey stick temperature graph that was relied upon by the IPCC, Al Gore and governments around the world. Mann has been celebrated ever since by the global warming brigade. Yet Mann is a fraudster who should be in jail as a consequence of immense damage his fraudulent hockey stick graph has caused.
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Lunatictoctarian
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How to kill actual science 101: Turn it into a legal, political, licensed corporate construct.
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Lunatictoctarian
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Personally I mostly agree with their idea..
“These are journals that have famously published false information over the past year with little or no consequences. There’s nothing wrong with publishing things that are false in the pursuit of truth. The problem is when you publish false things under the premise that they’re correct. We’re absolutely not doing that at Researchers.One.
The other part is on the author’s side. If I could publish something mediocre (or even false) in Nature or Science, then I’m better off—a publication in a “top” journal, a line on my CV, and all the academic fanfare that comes with it. Compare that to Researchers.One, where the transparent lack of gatekeeping creates a much lower bar to publication and, in return, a much higher bar for the work to be widely accepted and recognized.”
That is, pretty much anyone can publish anything, but there’s very little incentive, and if it’s garbage it’ll likely be ignored (well, considering so much of “science” is political, agenda-driven, garbage will be peddled by assholes, regardless).
If it’s useful, you’d be able to substantiate at least some of it, independently. Whether even ANY credentials or academic, institutional associations are related, or not.
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Hi Adam and PSI Readers,
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Hi Adam and PSI Readers,
Another excellent article this morning. Should keep serious readers busy writing good comments which become conversations that John O’ (PSI editor) has recently encouraged.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Saeed Qureshi
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In principle, there should not be any wrong with the peer-reviewed articles/publications. However, as described in the above article (BTW, excellent article in describing the problem)
“In fact, Ryan and I have argued that removing the gatekeeper is critical to restoring and ensuring the quality of scientific research.”
The problem is that peers have turned into gatekeepers. Modern-day gatekeepers are organizations that are conglomerate versions of peers. The FDA, CDC, and other similar authorities are faces of such gatekeepers with invited peers (buddies) to say what is expected of them to say.
Moreover, the perception of peer-reviewed needs to change as well. Public and scholars perceive that peer-review is an unbiased third-party reviewed, which is not correct. Third-parties, particularly in the medical and pharmaceutical areas, are actively brushed away, considering inexperienced and incompetent to read and understand what is described. Therefore, any nonsense, of course, reviewed and accepted by peers, becomes science.
A recent example is the COVID virus and PCR testing. Everything related, including COVID virus and PCR test, is nonsense and garbage, but considered as science (modern and sophisticated), based on peer reviews. However, if there had been any third-party involvement, there is no possibility that COVID or its pandemic would have happened, and the “experts” existed.
So, getting out of the current peer review system is a timely call. However, besides open publishing and reviewing, a third-party review should be given appropriate priority and weight.
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Lunatictoctarian
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“However, if there had been any third-party involvement, there is no possibility that COVID or its pandemic would have happened, and the “experts” existed.”
Which means it’s entirely a political problem, likely peer review or not. How do you escape marketing, “authority” projections?
Personally, in principle though, yeah, I appreciate their idea of transparent publishing, without gatekeepers and the fact is if it’s garbage it’s garbage.
GL selling that to politicians and industries.
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Lunatictoctarian
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Sorry, that was meant as reply to Saeed Qureshi.
So the thing is, how can you have discernment, without imposing arbitration?
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Saeed Qureshi
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To: Lunatictoctarian and others
Appreciate your response. The point you made is valid.
My point is the same as yours, i.e., arbitrator. An arbitrator should be, in principle, third-party and supposedly unbiased. However, in the current system, arbitrators are either peers(buddies) or dependent on peers.
For example, consider the FDA (re virus and vaccines), which is the arbitrator or a third party. However, everything is dependent on peers. Even the final touch-up (approval) is based on the advice of the “expert (peer) advisory committee.” The reason is that the regulatory authorities, including the FDA, are as knowledgeable on the subject as any member of the public, i.e., not much. The current system demands that one be part of the same faculty or group (peer) to be the judge. Otherwise, the subject is presumed to be not understandable or comprehendible by others. This is where the problem is.
On the other hand, the peers and experts must be able to explain the subject to the third party or the public at their understanding level for an independent assessment. This reminds me of a quote associated with Einstein, i.e., “if you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough.” I am sorry that the “you don’t understand it well enough” part belongs to the “peers and experts.” They are not able to explain their claims or “science.”
If the peers/experts say that there is a virus, it causes the disease, and the vaccine protects, then they have to explain “simply” how they reached these conclusions. Where is the virus? Where is evidence of a link between virus and disease? And how did vaccines got tested against the virus when no one has seen or isolated the virus?
There are no explanations or answers. Only peers/experts are talking to one another. Where is the third party or arbitrator? This is the missing part that requires an answer or solution.
Like you, I am also looking for an arbitrator!
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Lunatictoctarian
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Well, it seems to me truth is the unattainable arbitrator.
Consensus, is is well established, is often completed separate from reality. But it’s constantly projected. So consensus could never be an arbitrator, as the majority, whether peer review or whatever “voting” system, happens to be mediocre. Mostly detached from any given topic.
It’s like, yeah, you and I could notice a relative truth regarding some topic, within our perceptive limits and agree on it. But, we’re likely still incorrect to some degree, at best. So there is always some need for correction.
As soon as the possibility of correction (skepticism, cynicism, counters) are rejected, you’ve sort of fundamentally identified agenda, rather than science. And that’s why science is “believed in”, rather than “vaguely understood”.
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Lunatictoctarian
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Yeah excuse me typing…
*Consensus, as is well established, is often completely separate
Howdy
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Hi Saeed,
Truth, and honour, are the arbitrators. I doubt they will put in an appearance any time soon.
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Howdy
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“Academics are growing wary of the peer review process”
So are others. You don’t need to be an “academic” to know peer review is pointless.
“if someone is going to say “this is good research,” that person should put their name behind that judgment. In the traditional review process, reviewers can stay anonymous and avoid repercussions for shoddy or misleading work”
Doesn’t mean anything. Use a fake name. It doesn’t automatically imply that one is underhand. Contrary to the open book presented by the majority of people on the planet, some of us value our privacy.
At the deep end, peer review is nothing more than a game, played by agenda driven people. Money makes It a profitable game for those with power or position. It’s unfortunate that lesser known contributors will lose out, as usual.
If policing the users is not an option, then there is no hope. Unless, actual evidence, as In real science, should be a requirement, but then, peer review would be defunct. Otherwise, treat It as the “interesting reading” section” because It means little more. Perhaps once people realize It can’t be played anymore, you never know, It might become truthful enough to be of value.
I must say, It all sounds rather exclusive. As in, not for the man In the street.
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Lunatictoctarian
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Why does toxicology, a high-level abstract concept, very clearly influencing say, results associated with virology, get ignored?
Coz compartmentalization. Singular focus. That sort of exclusivity. Virology for instance, uses results from methods, processes relating to physics and yet has no fucking idea about any of it.
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Howdy
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“Coz compartmentalization. Singular focus”
Ah, you mean blinkered. Why not just say that!
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Tom
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That’s the problem. It’s publishing by academics based on theory and assumptions and without a doubt, the final conclusions fitting the desired result, whether the research truthfully does or not.
The problems go much deeper than just research…there is global corruption in all areas of endeavor. Trust is no longer a sustaining factor. The perps who have the most to gain from corrupt research will never allow the truth to be known.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Adam and PSI Readers
The problem is not the peer review process.!!!
It is the vast majority of the “SCIENTISTS’ of a given SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY!!! This claim is supported by the Lewis Frank (U of Iowa) small-comet controversy. Which I personally followed on the internet from its beginnings because I was early alerted of its existence by the American Chemical Society’s weekly news magazine. It is now not easy to find the plainly stated historical facts.
For example, this link (https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/mop/files/2019/08/Dessler1991.pdf) is a long review written by A. J. Dessler which began (after the review’s abstract): “In early February 1986, L.A. Frank, J. B. Sigwarth, and J.D. Craven (FSC henceforth) submitted two papers to Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), the subsequent publication of which resulted in spirited response and public attention.”
What Dessler does not write is that he was the new editor of GRL who published these two papers over the objections of the peer reviewers. He did this because Lewis Frank was a very respected SCIENTIST.
At (http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/wp.html) Frank describes the “spirited response” which drew the public’s attention. “Scientists reacted to my announcement as if I had plowed through the sacred field of established science with a bulldozer. I had. If the small comets were real, one scientist commented, textbooks in a dozen sciences would have to be rewritten. And so scientists dismissed the small comets, in much the same way they discounted Alfred Wegener and his theory of continental drift in the early part of the 20th century.”
At (https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12817434-900-review-chunks-of-ice-oceans-of-life/) you can read: “Even in childhood, it seems, Frank was ostracized: by teachers who banished him ‘because I depressed the students by my [his?] performance,’ and by the poor depressed students themselves. Now, ostracized again by his fellow scientists, Frank adopts the familiar tone of the beleaguered maverick, praising those who agree with him, questioning the motives and the gumption of those who do not.”
For immediately after Dessler published the two papers, Frank’s fellow SCIENTISTS of the GEOPHYSICS COMMUNITY totally ostracized him. And not as well documented is that Dessler the editor also took ‘heat’ from the COMMUNITY for overriding the decision of the PEER REVIEWERS. So Dessler’s long review, contradicting Frank’s observations, seem an attempt to win back the favor of the COMMUNITY (my opinion).
Now, a fact is I tried to get involved in this controversy. For at that time I had read Motte’s English translation Newton’s Latin of THE PRINCIPLIA. And I knew that in Book III of THE PRINCIPLIA he had written extensively about comets. And I knew that Newton had considered ancient comets had possibly done exactly what Frank claimed to be observing. I emailed him about this information and attempted to contact him in other ways. But I never got any response.
While this small comet controversy has no obvious influence upon public life; the present two SCIENTIFIC controversies DO!!!
But the Small Comet Controversy and the Continental Controversy are evidences that the issue is not PEER REVIEW!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Climate Heretic
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Total removal of the ‘paper’? No, a copy of the paper and all the criticisms should remain on the website. The author can take his paper and publish it elsewhere, if they so want to, again retaining copyright of their paper.
Regards
Climate Heretic
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