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Can The Internet Cure What Ails Peer Review?

by Eric Rauchway

solve the problems of peer reviewMetafilterwrites
The peer review that instructs me to come inside a canon so that I can be understood by an audience of comparable specialists quickly becomes the peer review that cracks the whip to force me inside a political orthodoxy.
claims to have invented peer reviewcriticized
for delaying or even preventing the disclosure of research results that may have a bearing on the public interest.
the Internets to the rescuedownside
it is worth remembering that gates and gatekeepers serve the important function of keeping out barbarians; it would be regrettable if the world of science journals came to suffer the sort of "trolling" and "flaming" so common today in comments on blogs and Internet discussion boards. It would be unfortunate if the deliberate, measured character of scientific research and discourse were lost to a culture of speed, hype, and quick-hit comments.