Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Scientist: "Is Peer Review Broken?"

Read the full article by ALISON MCCOOK in The Scientist. ( Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 26, 1 February 2006.)

The most prestigious journals are flooded with submissions, and may reject half or more without peer review.

"An abundance of data from a range of journals suggests peer review does little to improve papers. In one 1998 experiment designed to test what peer review uncovers, researchers intentionally introduced eight errors into a research paper. More than 200 reviewers identified an average of only two errors. That same year, a paper in the Annals of Emergency Medicine showed that reviewers couldn't spot two-thirds of the major errors in a fake manuscript. In July 2005, an article in JAMA showed that among recent clinical research articles published in major journals, 16% of the reports showing an intervention was effective were contradicted by later findings, suggesting reviewers may have missed major flaws."

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