It's an over reaction if you have a decade to argue with morons.
I've had papers sit in peer review for two years, get rejected, then when they are finally published the other editors of the journal that rejected them came crawling in asking for the next paper in the series and promising the front page. Worse they ran a news story about our paper _in the journal that rejected it_ saying how groundbreaking it was.
The only people who think peer review still works are people who have never used it or people who have never had a novel idea in their lives.
[−]hallway_monitor · 2026-07-01 Wed 22:00 UTC ·
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As an outside observer, it does seem that the whole process is tedious, capricious, and corrupt. No wonder academia is crumbling - it deserves to, and it needs to be replaced with a new, better system.
Yes, but academic reform is now a political issue, and it's the left that's the problem. Anyone pointing out the obvious - that peer review is broken and science hasn't worked in 40 years - is at best a flat Earther.
Even the people who know better use the politicians fallacy to defend it:
> Well we have to do something, peer review is something, so we have do it.
[−]throwaway894345 · 2026-07-01 Wed 23:47 UTC ·
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What does this mean “it’s the left that’s the problem”? The right’s solution to academic reform is literal pseudoscience. And I don’t mean this as whataboutism—I’m responding to the implication that some political faction other than the left has the right answer, and I don’t know who that would be.
> Anyone pointing out the obvious - that peer review is broken and science hasn't worked in 40 years - is at best a flat Earther.
Yes, if someone claims that science hasn't worked (what does it even mean?) for 40 years then he's not that far from being flat Eather. It's hard to expect other side to be reasonable while making such absurd claims.
We must live in different worlds, I’ve been literally blown away by the advances I’ve seen and the new research coming out in the past 40 years. In some ways it feels like we are just getting started, especially in bio. We finally have the tools to discover the wonderful nano machines that make up life and people are using them in wonderful ways.
It's only between 1920 and 1960 that you would have been literally blown away by scientific progress, first as we split the atom then fused it.
That you're impressed by the stamp collecting that science has become since then says a lot more about you than the state of scientific progress.
[−]throwaway676712 · 2026-07-02 Thu 07:01 UTC ·
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The commenter was talking about biology and you are talking about physics. Just because your view of one field stagnates doesn't mean the rest of science doesn't, and your quip about stamp collecting (referring to that sneering quote) means you are thinking in memes and are not a serious interlocutor
> I've had papers sit in peer review for two years, get rejected
And for people who aren't in academia, lets just say the unspoken part: While one or more of the reviewers are actively trying to replicate the work so they can beat you to submission after rejecting you.
I've had papers sit in peer review for two years, get rejected, then when they are finally published the other editors of the journal that rejected them came crawling in asking for the next paper in the series and promising the front page. Worse they ran a news story about our paper _in the journal that rejected it_ saying how groundbreaking it was.
The only people who think peer review still works are people who have never used it or people who have never had a novel idea in their lives.
Even the people who know better use the politicians fallacy to defend it:
> Well we have to do something, peer review is something, so we have do it.
Yes, if someone claims that science hasn't worked (what does it even mean?) for 40 years then he's not that far from being flat Eather. It's hard to expect other side to be reasonable while making such absurd claims.
That you're impressed by the stamp collecting that science has become since then says a lot more about you than the state of scientific progress.
Is there any human institution under the sun that doesn't labor under a litany of such criticisms?
And for people who aren't in academia, lets just say the unspoken part: While one or more of the reviewers are actively trying to replicate the work so they can beat you to submission after rejecting you.