Reviewing Peer Review

It has been criticized again and again. Many people deem Peer Review to be a flawed process. And in many ways it is. To analyze privilege, for example, many authors with big names or prestige seem to have the upperhand. People who are less known, and publish scholarly articles from less-well known institutions are underestimated. Furthermore, there could be bias in gender as well, with women’s names as well as their institutions being undervalued by the reviewer. Perhaps one way to prevent such a thing would be to completely blind the author from the reviewer’s eyes. Yet there are criticisms against this. For example the reviewer can use context clues to figure out the author’s stance or who the author is, etc. Such a case may not be perfect. Furthermore, one could open up the reviewing process more democratically in that many reviewers could review its content and give it a majority vote of some sort. It seems a little far-fetched of an idea however. The strength and energy we place into putting our faith on peer review is saddening because it is a flawed system that provides no evidence of it actually working. There are no positive effects noted, only some myopic belief.

Citation: Smith, Richard. “Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The Royal Society of Medicine, Apr. 2006. Web. 29 June 2015.