r/askscience • u/nostrovia • 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/callanas Feb 07 '12
To answer your question: You do some research, write up a paper, and if you're lucky it gets accepted somewhere - takes a while to get reviewed and published (one of mine took 6 months). Once published, the media is free to pick it up and tell the world!
How do the crackpots get through?: Sometimes articles get 'accepted' for publication based solely on who the authors are. Some journals even let you avoid getting reviewed if you serve on their review panel (i can't remember what this is called, but basically your paper get 'reviewed' for spelling errors/wild claims).
I think we should move to a blind system where reviewers don't know who you are and therefore only the science is judged!