Archaeologica.org

he past few years have been a period of significant turmoil—some of it quite constructive—for publishers and editors of science journals. Controversies regarding potential conflicts of interest have led some journals to reexamine their rules for revealing the financial relationships of published researchers. Competition from free online “open access” journals, such as the six new journals published by the nonprofit Public Library of Science, has led several mainstream print journals to beef up their online offerings. And some notable journals concerned about fraudulent research have reportedly improved the screening of manuscripts under consideration, in an attempt to catch those who would misrepresent or “beautify” their data. (“Let’s celebrate real data,” the editors of Nature Cell Biology recently wrote, “wrinkles, warts, and all.”)

In reality, peer review is a fairly recent innovation, not widespread until the middle of the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, many science journals were commandingly led by what Ohio State University science historian John C. Burnham dubbed “crusading and colorful editors,” who made their publications “personal mouthpieces” for their individual views

Perhaps the most powerful criticism of peer review is that it fails to achieve its core objective: quality control. Shatz describes a study in which “investigators deliberately inserted errors into a manuscript, and referees did a poor job of detecting them.” And critics of peer review need look no further than recent high-profile papers that turned out to be hoaxes—like the massive case of scientific fraud perpetrated by South Korean stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk in Science. Of course, no one should expect a perfect system, or condemn peer review as a whole for its occasional failures

'who is watching the watchers?'