For som reeson i started reeding about peer review, and i ended up reeding a lot of interesting articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review
Two quotes stand out, copyd from the Criticism section:
“There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.”
“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. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. 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. “
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/172_04_210200/horton/horton.html
Alternativs to standard practice and related topics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_peer_review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Science_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_%28publishing%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serials_crisis
The obvius paralel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software
And, did u no that “gratis” is used in English? I certainly didnt, but it is nice to see that English ‘has lerned’ somthing from the other Germanic languajes :p
