Of Freedom, Country and Vaccination

[luka_skywalker_77]

One of the reasons peer review is valuable is precisely because bias can be present in a study. 

Peer review can, but doesn't always mean, the paper was checked for factual basis an accuracy. You can read the reviews and find out what the reviewers were looking for. 

And the peer review process is precisely because no single paper and no single review should be entirely trusted. The reviews aren't even automatically trusted. The author gets to respond to her reviewers and may very well be able to show that the reviewer was off. 

In peer review, when it's done correctly, everything is on the table for the entire profession to see, along with any non-experts that are interested. With humans involved, it's a good process we have for vetting our hypotheses.

Can be valuable. As far as vetting for human hypothesis, narrative matters in science it matters just as much as actual science. Corruption doesn't stop at the door to the lab.

"The traditional anonymous peer review has been criticized for its lack of accountability, the possibility of abuse by reviewers or by those who manage the peer review process (that is, journal editors), its possible bias, and its inconsistency, alongside other flaws."

"[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-we-shouldnt-take-peer-review-as-the-gold-standard/2019/08/01/fd90749a-b229-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html][/url]Why we shouldn't take peer review as the 'gold standard"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/w...story.html

"Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Corruption of peer review is harming scientific credibility”
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10...8057/full/

My favorite: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...eer-review

"Nobel Prize winner calls peer review “very distorted,” “completely corrupt,” and “simply a regression to the mean”
https://retractionwatch.com/2014/03/03/n...-the-mean/

But you get the idea. PR in 2021 is the barrier to entry for many established scientist to get the work seen and taken seriously and those that bar the boors, controls the flow of information.