An institution I previously worked for had regular peer review sessions.
It was open invite, but in practice consisted of only a handful, maybe 3 regulars.
I didn't join in because it was time consuming (I was busy enough!), the subject material didn't always interest me, and most importantly, I didn't gel with the other "peers".
The sort of person who did attend the peer review sessions, were the exact same people who made it their business to be in every meeting (whether or not it directly involved them), and who never seemed to be doing any real work.
Busybodies & powertrippers.
Their productiveness so low that when they had a day off, no one noticed or cared (in fact, the place often ran more smoothly!)
I considered the peer review sessions, and all the circlejerk meetings, as ways for them to get paid to sit on their asses all day, but it was also a means of gaining influence.
I assume that they are still there, in their overpaid underperforming & untouchable niches.
During my PhD research, I made an interesting observation which challenged the dominant narrative in the field. Encouraged by my supervisor, I wrote it up & submitted it to a good journal. During peer review, it was rejected, citing questions with the novel methodology. In fact the methodology was superior to that used by peers. I had designed it to permit estimates of in vivo pA2, using pharmacokinetic principles, which theoretically should approximate pA2 values for pure antagonists obtained in vitro.
My supervisor found out through back channels that a jealous reviewer didn’t want their body of work to be thrown into question. I managed to publish it in a lesser journal.
As a post-doc, I had extensively characterised the impact of ozone on “twitchy” (“hyperresponsive”) airways, evaluating the effect (or lack of it) of various experimental treatments (this might have helped prioritise programs for clinical trials in asthma). A leading London researcher, who’d taken on the peer review, left my manuscript to age on his desk for six months, while his lab repeated my experiments & published ahead of me. I did get published but was required to make changes to acknowledge that my work was not entirely novel. I had to cite their papers! (they were “in press”).
It’s not just peer review that isn’t always objective, though mostly it was.
In my first professional job after obtaining my PhD, doing some “skunkworks” with another researcher in analytical a chemistry, we devised a method to measure concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) in exhaled breath. I did most of the sampling from multiple species & my collaborator measured [NO] using mass spectrometry. We were the first in the world to show that exhaled breath contained NO & measuring it in trials became quite common.
The research director liked the results so much that he added his name to the manuscript and booted me off it! I got a “technical mention”!
It was one of the most-cited papers of that year. I minded at the time but looking back it simply reinforced how badly I didn’t want to become an academic.
Thank you for putting this together. I always knew peer review was a self-serving con but to have it laid out so clearly is a great reference to show anyone who needs waking up to the fact.
"However, the massive recirculation of a single issue can generate up to 2 million euros in turnover for the magazine!
This is not nothing, when you know that the annual turnover of The Lancet is $ 40 million.[12] (and NEJM of 100 million)."
Pfizer and the other PhRMAs bought off the entire medical/scientific establishment for a few $billion a year. They did the same with the politicians. They did the same with the regulatory agencies. They did the same with the media and social media. By the time Covid and the vaxxx jabs were pushed out in 2020 they had bought and paid for shaping the entire world in their own image for what was essentially a rounding error on their balance sheets! It costs about $3 billion to develop a new drug legitimately and run all of the clinical trials and studies for approval. For $3 billion you can buy the White House, Congress, FDA, CDC, NIH officials you need to approve the Covid poison jabs or anything else with zero toxicology tests and fake clinical trials. For Pfizer and Moderna it was an easy financial decision to "follow the money" rather than to "follow the science."
Great comment. Yes, the "reprint" insight really stood out for me. That's clearly the pathway to paying them off, and rewarding them for their compliance...via the printers.
A mathematician once advised: "If you understand something and can prove it, then publish it in a mathematics journal. If you understand something, but can't prove it, then publish it in a physics journal. And if you don't understand something and can't prove it, then publish it in an engineering journal." To this I would add: "And if you don't understand something and can't prove it and don't care anyway because you're just trying to make a fast buck, then publish it in a medical journal."
Carl Sagan has a point. However, the evolution of our societies have passed the point of relying on the quality education of the people and upholding the attitude of scepticism. Below is one video from Tucker Carlson that demonstrates that ordinary people do have strong common sense and they practice scepticism, but that is no more found among the professional classes. The reason is our societies have put in place, more speedily after WWII, institutional processes of production of meanings for every aspect and domain of human practices. Until a few decades ago, for example, midwifery was practiced outside the hospital system in Canada, but on Jan. 1, 1994, the Midwifery Act in Ontario was implemented and a system to regulate the practice was established. From that day on the meaning of birth giving became an institutionalized practice. At the time, it was most probably viewed as great advancement without any concerns. But, the plan demic coup taught us that when a midwife becomes a provider of birth giving labor at a hospital, those managers who run the hospitals and who have different priorities, could just put that labor on hold, even worse ask them to be exemplary in taking experimental vaxxines and even worser than that to shut their mouths unless they choose to lose their jobs. What is true of midwifery is true for all the regulated, certified professions. There are also many other controlling dimensions, such as putting university graduates in debt, families in mortgage debt, which require monthly earnings.
The alteration of the established meanings for institutional practices which covers every aspect of the life of contemporary citizens has become the risky endeavor of a minority who can afford to live and work against all odds and attacks by those situated at the bottom or the top of institutions.
Secularism I proved that it could be worse than the clerical. Now human civilization have to shift to Secularism II, which requires that knowledge, science, meaning, news production has to be separated from governments and states and be viewed as professional enterprises which have to exist in a competitive and level playing environment.
My role model is the one in the crowd who says "The Emperor Has No Clothes"
Fascinating.
I have some tangential experience here.
An institution I previously worked for had regular peer review sessions.
It was open invite, but in practice consisted of only a handful, maybe 3 regulars.
I didn't join in because it was time consuming (I was busy enough!), the subject material didn't always interest me, and most importantly, I didn't gel with the other "peers".
The sort of person who did attend the peer review sessions, were the exact same people who made it their business to be in every meeting (whether or not it directly involved them), and who never seemed to be doing any real work.
Busybodies & powertrippers.
Their productiveness so low that when they had a day off, no one noticed or cared (in fact, the place often ran more smoothly!)
I considered the peer review sessions, and all the circlejerk meetings, as ways for them to get paid to sit on their asses all day, but it was also a means of gaining influence.
I assume that they are still there, in their overpaid underperforming & untouchable niches.
Wonderful comment, thank you. The "busybodies & powertrippers" insight is an important one!.
I think our future is well documented in the movie Idiocracy.
Yes, indeed. It was a documentary after all :)
Nice clip of Sagan. Good article. Thank you.
During my PhD research, I made an interesting observation which challenged the dominant narrative in the field. Encouraged by my supervisor, I wrote it up & submitted it to a good journal. During peer review, it was rejected, citing questions with the novel methodology. In fact the methodology was superior to that used by peers. I had designed it to permit estimates of in vivo pA2, using pharmacokinetic principles, which theoretically should approximate pA2 values for pure antagonists obtained in vitro.
My supervisor found out through back channels that a jealous reviewer didn’t want their body of work to be thrown into question. I managed to publish it in a lesser journal.
As a post-doc, I had extensively characterised the impact of ozone on “twitchy” (“hyperresponsive”) airways, evaluating the effect (or lack of it) of various experimental treatments (this might have helped prioritise programs for clinical trials in asthma). A leading London researcher, who’d taken on the peer review, left my manuscript to age on his desk for six months, while his lab repeated my experiments & published ahead of me. I did get published but was required to make changes to acknowledge that my work was not entirely novel. I had to cite their papers! (they were “in press”).
It’s not just peer review that isn’t always objective, though mostly it was.
In my first professional job after obtaining my PhD, doing some “skunkworks” with another researcher in analytical a chemistry, we devised a method to measure concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) in exhaled breath. I did most of the sampling from multiple species & my collaborator measured [NO] using mass spectrometry. We were the first in the world to show that exhaled breath contained NO & measuring it in trials became quite common.
The research director liked the results so much that he added his name to the manuscript and booted me off it! I got a “technical mention”!
It was one of the most-cited papers of that year. I minded at the time but looking back it simply reinforced how badly I didn’t want to become an academic.
Thank you Mike. Great comment and very useful context for the rest of us.
Thank you for putting this together. I always knew peer review was a self-serving con but to have it laid out so clearly is a great reference to show anyone who needs waking up to the fact.
The person that has no peers is called crazy, there, took care of that.
Follow the money!
"However, the massive recirculation of a single issue can generate up to 2 million euros in turnover for the magazine!
This is not nothing, when you know that the annual turnover of The Lancet is $ 40 million.[12] (and NEJM of 100 million)."
Pfizer and the other PhRMAs bought off the entire medical/scientific establishment for a few $billion a year. They did the same with the politicians. They did the same with the regulatory agencies. They did the same with the media and social media. By the time Covid and the vaxxx jabs were pushed out in 2020 they had bought and paid for shaping the entire world in their own image for what was essentially a rounding error on their balance sheets! It costs about $3 billion to develop a new drug legitimately and run all of the clinical trials and studies for approval. For $3 billion you can buy the White House, Congress, FDA, CDC, NIH officials you need to approve the Covid poison jabs or anything else with zero toxicology tests and fake clinical trials. For Pfizer and Moderna it was an easy financial decision to "follow the money" rather than to "follow the science."
Great comment. Yes, the "reprint" insight really stood out for me. That's clearly the pathway to paying them off, and rewarding them for their compliance...via the printers.
A mathematician once advised: "If you understand something and can prove it, then publish it in a mathematics journal. If you understand something, but can't prove it, then publish it in a physics journal. And if you don't understand something and can't prove it, then publish it in an engineering journal." To this I would add: "And if you don't understand something and can't prove it and don't care anyway because you're just trying to make a fast buck, then publish it in a medical journal."
Magnificent! 🤣
Peer review is actually conformity policing, aka censorship. Peer reviewers start with religious beliefs, either god-centered or secular, and purge based upon that. It's not about the illumination of truth. https://www.asifthinkingmatters.com/blog/proof-of-the-cause-of-all-human-made-problems
Thank you for this post and for the Sagan video clip.
Have u ever listened to the LYRICS of the Charlie Rose theme song?
(Go to 2min 38 sec. End at 2 min 54 sec)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1XCBp5Qlec
😉
P.S. To minimize one's exposure to Colbert just start watching at 2min 38sec. Stop at 2min 54 sec.
I hadn't, thanks. And special thanks for helping me minmise Colbert exposure. I break out in a rash, even with trace amounts.
Carl Sagan has a point. However, the evolution of our societies have passed the point of relying on the quality education of the people and upholding the attitude of scepticism. Below is one video from Tucker Carlson that demonstrates that ordinary people do have strong common sense and they practice scepticism, but that is no more found among the professional classes. The reason is our societies have put in place, more speedily after WWII, institutional processes of production of meanings for every aspect and domain of human practices. Until a few decades ago, for example, midwifery was practiced outside the hospital system in Canada, but on Jan. 1, 1994, the Midwifery Act in Ontario was implemented and a system to regulate the practice was established. From that day on the meaning of birth giving became an institutionalized practice. At the time, it was most probably viewed as great advancement without any concerns. But, the plan demic coup taught us that when a midwife becomes a provider of birth giving labor at a hospital, those managers who run the hospitals and who have different priorities, could just put that labor on hold, even worse ask them to be exemplary in taking experimental vaxxines and even worser than that to shut their mouths unless they choose to lose their jobs. What is true of midwifery is true for all the regulated, certified professions. There are also many other controlling dimensions, such as putting university graduates in debt, families in mortgage debt, which require monthly earnings.
The alteration of the established meanings for institutional practices which covers every aspect of the life of contemporary citizens has become the risky endeavor of a minority who can afford to live and work against all odds and attacks by those situated at the bottom or the top of institutions.
Secularism I proved that it could be worse than the clerical. Now human civilization have to shift to Secularism II, which requires that knowledge, science, meaning, news production has to be separated from governments and states and be viewed as professional enterprises which have to exist in a competitive and level playing environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jop8ooKfoLY
Great comment, thank you.
Towards the bottom of this article, I wrote some thoughts on Capital and Collectivism...I'd be very interested in your thoughts.
Thank you! Fixed.