The Problem With Peer Review - Eric Weinstein | The Portal Podcast Clips

"Peer review is a cancer from outer space. It came from the biomedical community. It invaded science." - Eric Weinstein

In this portal podcast clip, Eric Weinstein discusses the issue of peer review with Bret Weinstein.

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"Peer-review is not peer-review. It sounds like peer-review. It is peer-injunction. It is the ability for your peers to keep the world from learning about your work."

"There are reasons that great work cannot be peer-reviewed. Furthermore, you have entire fields that are existing now with electronic archives that are not peer-reviewed."

#ericweinstein #peerreview #theportalpodcast

[kennybrhouston]

Eric, small point. you need to let people finish their points. You interrupt too much.

[milton]

I think what may be overlooked here is that science is still something done by human beings in human organisations.

As in _any_ organisation, politics, power play and simple (conscious and unconscious) bias _will_ play a role no matter what.

[joanblond]

I became acquainted with the peer review process in 1972 when I published my first paper in the journal Brain Research. I had some minor problems getting it published, but it was finally published and I got a lot of reprint requests. The lesson I learned was that you sometimes have to argue with the journal editors to get your work published. I later became an assistant editor of a journal and made the mistake of sending perfectly good work to a very nasty, envious, and embittered (albeit highly intelligent and productive) reviewer. The reviewer made mincemeat out of the submission. I felt awful for the author of the paper, but felt that there was nothing I could do. I believe in the peer review process, but it certainly has its weaknesses. I was glad to eventually get out of academics (too much envy, competition, narcissism, and outright corruption). Every field has its problems, but academics is vicious.

[kesstron]

Eric is so close to putting his bro in a headlock

[jomaka]

Eric's hair is in line for a Nobel Prize.

[christheother]

I was peer reviewed in middle school. It did not go well.

[Xalgucennia]

I can understand where they're coming from, but what's the alternative?
Ultimately all systems depend on people and their judgement.
Their ultimate critique is that some people (reviewers) are stupid, but what's their alternative? That editors take over the role? What prevents the editors from being morons?
That we not review? How can you possibly work if there's no-one to at least filter out some of noise?
That we base it on the Journal's reputation? We already do that.
At best we can instill some scepticism on the whole process and have people recognise it's not some magical standard, but ultimately whatever flaws are in the peer review process, I dare you to come up with a better system.

[jamesarthur]

Peer review really means truth by consensus.

[jccusell]

"I don't care about my nobel prize. All I care about is finding out." - Richard Feynman.

[Psycopat]

I don’t think this was a very compelling argument against peer review. It’s just one guy airing a grievance without the other person even there to tell their side of the story ...

[nathanjones]

Look, everyone. The Weinstein brothers don’t want to shield work from peer review. They want peer review to be a publicly accountable process. There’s a ton of questionable gatekeeping that goes on when a reviewer doesn’t have to put their name on their review. I hear the Weinsteins saying that editors of journals should have control, and the bar for publication should be a little lower than it currently is. Journal editors can make reasonable decisions about what is “worthy of being publicized” and THEN the peers will review it out in the open. Double blind peer review enables a lot of shady stuff to happen before the work is even granted a wide audience.

[BitcoinIsGoingToZero]

Scientist here. Peer reviewer is flawed. But without it, the quality of science would go down.

[stanleyklein]

I have had to put up with peer review for over 120 papers (all published). It can be infuriating. But as awful as it can be, there is no better system in the offing.

Weistein's take on the process strongly suggests he has not had much actual experience with the process.

[Xx_Eric_was_Here_xX]

'don't bother this is a podcast' lol

[SoloRenegade]

no science needs "peer review". It only takes a single person with one good correct idea, with no supporters, to be right and for everyone else to be wrong.

If a published paper is wrong, or you believe it to be wrong, test it yourself and see if it holds up. If it holds up, write your own paper saying so. If it doesn't hold up, write your own paper saying so. But do not deny a person their paper because it lacks "peer review".

[hermeswright]

Two guys who intimately know the terrain and how the game is played calling out the gatekeeper censorship swamp that has infested the hallowed halls medical community for a century already. If ever there was a case for cloning, we could use a million more like them.

[caricatureparty]

Some people in the comments are saying essentially "what's the alternative?" In my opinion the alternative is not grant too much weight to the peer review process.

[davidstork]

The fact that peer review is a relatively recent innovation in scholarly publication is irrelevant and in no way a criticism of it. There have been a number of "much more recent" innovations that scholars in different disciplines nearly unanimously applaud, such as the strong push in computer science for authors to make all their data and algorithms available so others can independently test the paper's claims. Even the case presented in this podcast as an argument against peer review (with an implied adversary giving a long list of misguided criticisms) was handled perfectly. A single short email by the original author was answered within an hour and led to publication; the author has only himself to blame for his delay in contacting the journal. I have experienced similar cases myself and save for one case, been fully satisfied with the journals' responses. The discussants do not address the far more prevalent flaws that arise WITHOUT peer review. (I have extensive experience, and perhaps 20 peer-reviewed papers and literally hundreds of scholarly presentations rebutting a widely promoted non-peer-reviewed claim/thesis that should never have seen the light of day.) We simply cannot leave decisions up to a single editor, who can never be expert on the full range of topics in the journal. (Further, editors can take sides in scholarly debates. I have first-hand knowledge of how a journal editor sped publication of his/her own submissions compared to that of rivals... an injustice that was exposed in part because of a vigorous peer-review system.) The claim that there are some fields in which currently progress without peer review shows only that this (might) work (temporarily) in NEW and VERY SMALL fields. I agree that in some cases it is beneficial to have someone other than the original authors "take responsibility" for a publication. I strongly favor the approach of The Proceedings of the National Academy and a few other journals in which each paper is "Communicated by..." to show another scholar who places his or her reputation on the line.

[milton]

I understand the critique of peer review, but the alternative Eric is describing of basically having a single editor being the all-knowing gate keeper of what is quality and worthy of publication sounds like it has some massive weaknesses as well.

I do love his final statement that real peer review happens after publication (paraphrasing here). But as a journal only has so much space you need some kind of filtering mechanism to decide what gets published and what doesn’t

[almcdonald]

You’ve just pointed out why peer review works. A valid critique raises valid points. A stupid unjustified peer review can be ignored. Either way the right paper gets published. What’s the alternative, just accept any old paper because it kinda looks right?