The Failure of Peer Review (Especially in Medicine)

[Dolphin]

The Failure of Peer Review (Especially in Medicine)
August 17th, 2017

By Brendan D. Murphy
https://wakeup-world.com/2017/08/17/the-failure-of-peer-review-especially-in-medicine/

 

[Dolphin]

The author himself looks to have some views based on the "about the author" section that I am very sceptical of but the article itself raises some interesting points.

 

[Woolie]

The author himself looks to have some views based on the "about the author" section that I am very sceptical of

I wish I hadn't looked at this. Some of his arguments are interesting. But then you look at his bio, and it looks like he's motivated not simply by a desire to get to the real truth - more a desire to find a platform for certain rather questionable beliefs.

 

[Snow Leopard]

The problem isn't peer review, the problem is people unwilling to use their brains. Wise people do not believe a conclusion simply because it was published in a peer reviewed scholarly journal. The only truth in a scientific paper (assuming no fraud) is the method and the results. Everything else is opinion.

 

[Sean]

Passing peer review only admits a paper into the highest level of debate, not into scientific heaven.

 

[Sbag]

The problem isn't peer review, the problem is people unwilling to use their brains. Wise people do not believe a conclusion simply because it was published in a peer reviewed scholarly journal. The only truth in a scientific paper (assuming no fraud) is the method and the results. Everything else is opinion.

peer reviews add legitimacy to papers and validate them so that everyone else doesnt have to delve into the science and intricacies of process to have to work out if it is true or not. As guideline committees etc assume that published papers speak the truth then showing peer review is flawed adds another piece to the jigsaw of evidence the ME community is trying to build.

 

[Snow Leopard]

not into scientific heaven.

That's reserved for articles published in the NEJM and The Lancet right?

 

[Skycloud]

I've not finished reading yet, but was struck by this

Consider the following words from The Lancet’s editor Richard Horton:

“The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability—not the validity—of a new finding…We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.”[6]

Best retract PACE then, eh?

One might wonder how he sleeps at night, and how he gets out of bed in the morning.

 

[lilpink]

The issues raised on this thread - http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ised-about-crawley-school-absence-stud.53544/ - illustrate how ethical questions/concerns raised by a peer reviewer (Matthew Hotopf) can apparently be ignored by the publishing journal - in this case BMJ Open. This surely makes a nonsense of the peer review process?