peer review

I just received a form email containing some negative facts about the peer review system for journals, along with encouragement that I should join in and help criticize the system.

Generally it’s more fun to be on the crusading anti-institutional side of a controversy, pushing for radical change. But in this case, I have to admit that I don’t yet see what’s so horrible about peer review.

As I understand it, the idea is that the peer review system helps enforce a bland, consensus mediocrity so that new ideas never get a chance. Sounds plausible enough. However, I’m not sure how often it happens.

If you’ve been in academia long enough, then sure enough, you’ve probably had a couple of jerk reviewers from some mainstream current who want to smother your new idea in its infancy. But you know what? Your article eventually gets published anyway– sometimes even at the very journal where the jerk reviewer threw rotten tomatoes at you.

To put it simply, jerk mainstream reviewers can sink your boat at this or that journal in individual cases. But the idea of a massive, profession-wide conspiracy of mediocrity structurally incapable of letting innovative work through… however plausible this might sound, I find it completely implausible in terms of my own experiences in this profession. (And keep in mind, I had dumptruck loads of problems with orthodox Heideggerians in early career, so I do not speak here as any sort of teacher’s pet.)

Maybe I’ll be persuaded otherwise, or maybe I just don’t understand the argument yet. But up to this point, peer review seems to me like the least of academia’s problems. The vast majority of reviewers whose work I’ve seen obviously take the responsibility very seriously.