How to fix peer review
PEER review, many boffins argue, channelling Churchill, is the worst way to ensure quality of research, except all the others. Marcus Munafò, of Bristol University, believes it could be improved—by injecting a dose of subjectivity. The claim, which he and his colleagues present in a (peer-reviewed) paper just published in Nature, is odd. Science, after all, purports to be about seeking objective truth (or at least avoiding objective falsity). But it is done by scientists, who are human beings. And like other human endeavours, Dr Munafò says, it is prone to bubbles. When the academic herd stampedes to the right answer, that is fine and dandy. Less so if it rushes towards the wrong one.
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