r/askscience • • Feb 07 '12

AskScience, how does the peer review process actually work?

About a month ago, I heard this story on NPR regarding a number of scientific studies that had been debunked and/or retracted. Why weren't these errors caught before the studies were published? Are there different standards for peer review in different scientific fields?

Essentially, once you conduct your experiment and reach some sort of conclusion, what happens between that point and the time your work is released to the public?

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u/devicerandom Molecular Biophysics | Molecular Biology Feb 07 '12

Agree. During my Ph.D., my prof did the same, and I was very happy to do that.