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Published online 5 March 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/452006a
Crunch time for peer review in lawsuit
Ruling imminent on Pfizer's challenge to journal confidentiality.
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Open Review Serves the Best Interest of Public ------------------ Proponents for secret peer review have argued that, by withholding the names of the peer reviewers, an environment will be created so that reviewers would be willing to give a candid assessment on a scientific manuscript. This argument is ungrounded because it essentially means that a peer reviewer would not speak of truth when his/her name is put on the account. The contrast between the very low or even no retraction from open review new journals and the very high retraction rates from the secret review 'top' journals just proves that open review may be a better way for assuring the quality of the publications. As a matter of fact, open review is the only way that to get rid off the various notorious evils associated with the secret peer review. A transparent scientific publishing will serve public’s best interest that is seeking nothing but the truth. --------------- SVL@logibio.com (http://im1.biz) --------------- Complete article can be read free of charge at: http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/TW2008V3N1A2_OpenReview.htm or http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/TW2008V3N1A2_OpenReview.pdf
The matter is sub-judice. We need to wait for the ruling.
As a mathematical statistician, and one who is familiar with the peer review process in the sciences, I do not consider this a "fishing expedition." Papers are frequently denied publication if the results are not "statistically significant"; this causes a bias. This bias exists both in the non-publication of so-called negative studies when a drug is approved, and similar studies when a drug is criticized. All the relevant information is needed, not just what meets the significance now required for publication.
The peer review process preserves reviewers' anonymity so that the process remains impersonal. If reviewers are known, is a reviewer likely to harshly criticize an article if the reviewer is likely to see the author at an upcoming conference? Is the reviewer likely to give a fair assessment if the author gave a harsh review of one of the reviewer's works, and the reviewer knows this? No and no, behavioral economics and sociology experiments have shown that it is human nature to act differently when the identity of the agents are revealed. It is best to leave social aspects out of the review process.
Open competition in scientific games!!!---- In sports games, athletes win a game by their capability which is based on the objective assessments or open judgments of their performance in an open competition. True athletes will not shy away from any competitive opponent because they wish to break the records, not just to collect the awards. A boycotted game thus may become the ultimate sorry for some athletes even when they won the medals because they have lost a chance for directly competing with other known better athletes. --- How could scientific competitions be held in the dark and even based on some secret and subjective assessments? Is the secret peer review a true solution for the worries that peers have in offering true opinions? Or should we finding and eradicate the real sources of those evils that prevent the peers from speaking of truth? ------ If scientists whose mission is noting but seeking truth cannot speak out truth in assessing others' discovery on truth, then the whole scientific enterprise is not scientific at all. Then how can we the scientific publication represent the best science? -------- Shi V. Liu (http://im1.biz)
Currently, there are three major kind of peer review process: open, single blind and double blind. Open, the identity of reviewer and author are open for both, is the worst of the three. In one way, it is difficult for a reviewer to reject a manuscript if he will meet the author in later conference, especially when the author or corresponding author is an authority. Thus, it will lead to a high accepting rate, and decrease the quality of published paper. In the opposing way, it will reject some high-quality paper if the current author has rejected some papers of current reviewer, and exacerbate the relationship between scientists. Single blind, the identity of reviewer is secret while the identity of author is open, is used most frequently today, and has proved itself. The major disadvantage of it is that, when rejecting a manuscript, the reviewer does not need consider the incurred influence from the author. Thus, it is particularly unfair to young scientist (such as postdoc) and non-native-English-speaker scientists, since, in some cases, the judgment of the review is not based on the content of the manuscript but based on the identity of the author, which university, laboratory, or country the authors are from and how many paper or high-impact paper they have published, et al. Double blind, the identity of reviewer and author are secret for both, is very like the KEJU exam system in the history of china, which has worked more than 1,000 years and did a great help on the selection of eligible officials. The papers have to be transcribed by some employed workers before they are sent to the reviewer, to avoid that the reviewer can recognize the identity of the author from their handwriting. By this way, it can avoid the bias of identity, and poor and no-noble clerisy can also be selected as official as long as they can show their ability in their papers. I prefer the double blind since it can avoid the flaw of open and single blind.
An open peer review system is badly needed and has been for some time. I have suffered quite a bit in the last 4 decades. Craig Venter's life would have been ruined had he not left the NIH after a bad review. I would have never been able to have my online database Chromosomal Variation in Man www.wiley.com/borgaonkar had I 'acted' according to the 'peer' reviewers! Peer reviewers are a closed clubby group. Digamber S. Borgaonkar,Ph.D. Wilmington, DE
How could I possibly review a paper submitted by Pfizer if Pfizer would be told my identity and would therefore, if they took exception to what I had written, be at liberty to sue me for the impact on their commercial interests? It is not just a matter of being caught up in the middle of litigation; it is the much more serious possibility of finding oneself a target.
For the most relevant issue of divulging information in case of Pfizer, I agree with Paul Braterman. This is especially important when the involved companies can be as socio-politically strong as Pfizer. For the general argument of open vs blind reviewing- The analogy of sports for review process is flawed, in that in sports although the judging process is open, it is not the competitors who judge each other. So the competitor does not have an opportunity to "retaliate" an unfavorable judgment. In a review process such retaliation is easily possible, especially so by an influential author. Undoubtedly reviews will not be frank if identities of reviewers are open. There are certainly drawbacks of such secrecy, but it's a trade-off that has to be made. With the 'Single blind' method reviewers are still influenced by the significance of the authors; reviewers are hesitant to refute work by very influential authors even with anonymity. Ideally reviewers shouldn't be influenced by who the author is, but that isn't the easiest problem to solve. And open review system doesn't solve that problem in any way; it makes it all the more worse. Open review system would cause a bias in publication acceptance, unrelated to research quality, against young scientists or scientists from less influential institutes/countries.