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ArdentGrasshopper 18 points ago +18 / -0

People think "peer review" actually means something important. Can't be further from the truth. Peer reviewing isn't a validation of your research. It's a rough cut to see if any glaring faux pas has been committed. The actual scientific discussion happens by competing papers.

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deleted 10 points ago +10 / -0
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deleted 3 points ago +3 / -0
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r_u_srs_srsly 7 points ago +7 / -0

We think it's important because the entire academic profession claims peer review as the basis for checks and balances on their fields of study. If peer review is a circle jerk, the academics need to stop committing fraud by claiming peer review is anything other than a old-boys-club rubber stamp.

2 weeks of "peer review" after it was published raised these questions

  1. The study had a higher number of deaths than the known death count in austrailia (scientific data usually lags far behind real-world, unredacted data)
  2. The study claimed invitermicin did a better job, yet at the time of the study, invitermicin wasn't a suggested remedy and is unlikely to have been used off-label in so many cases (they were still pushing people to ECMO or ventalators)
  3. the study claimed to have access to tens of thousands of hospital records (maybe but hospitals don't just chuck data at every startup company who asks - later a reporter called every single hospital in austrialia, none of which knew about a partnership with that company - you think at least one of them would give an answer like "our partners go though appropriate vetting" but every single one flat ut denied a relationship)
  4. The company says it was the hospital's job to redact data so data problems are the hospital's fault (hospitals would never do this, you want the data, you clean it up and pass it though board review)

These are major questions came by medical professional "peers" within days that actual "peer review" could have at least asked

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ArdentGrasshopper 4 points ago +4 / -0

Regarding 1-3, as I mentioned, the review process doesn't actually get into the validity of claims. Just sees if you've ticked a list of checkboxes.

Regarding 4, it sounds like this should have been caught.

That said, there are reviewers who are hardcore and care deeply about their review. But it's not the rule by any means and especially not outside of hard sciences (math, physics etc).

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r_u_srs_srsly 3 points ago +3 / -0

I'm not disagreeing with you.

Academics sell "peer review" as the ultimate checks and balance on prohibiting junk science from entering the field.

I completely agree that actual peer review is basically spell check.

Peers in the medical profession began calling out this study almost immediately, why weren't they on the journal "peer review"? And we're back to spell checking.

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BaronFalcon 2 points ago +2 / -0

I have a fam member with a phd in physics who stated unequivocally that peer review is a joke, and he has submitted hundreds of papers to be reviewed. It's basically gaming the system for research funds.