Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)

MARTIN RUDERFER: The Fallacy of Peer Review: Judgement without Science and a Case History

RUDER! HR: Ulli I'AI.I.ACY ()!• PEER REVIEW 173 of delays in the dissemination process in quantitative terms? To what extent can these be eliminated without a sacrifice in judgement precision? The psycho-social factors affecting the review process and its consequences for authors also demand measurement. Can good and bad reviewers be predicted in advance by some suitable criteria? If so, would a cadre of professional reviewers, comparable to judges in the legal process, be useful in some way? Just how do authors react to the frustration from bad reviews and the powerlessness to deal with them? To what extent does this affect total scientific output? It is only by exposing the review process to public view that such questions may begin to be answered properly and a science of peer review established. It is in this vein that the following review history is presented in detail. 3. CASE HISTORY OF A REVIEW REJECTION Although contemporary cases of improper rejection have been discussed in the literature'

416

1 the secrecy imposed on the review process has precluded full disclosure. Since the journals have refrained from publishing complete review histories, the only available source is from authors. Hence it is not unexpected that the following case history derives from a personal experience. The relevant paper, entitled "One-Way Doppler Effects in Atomic Timekeeping", was submitted to Science in February 1976 and was finally rejected in April 1977. In July 1978 it was sent to Speculations in Science and Technology (SST) as a contrary example to public statements stimulated by its inception that established journals eventually publish all relevant ideas. The paper was published'

17

1 as it was when finally rejected by Science. It is accompanied by a short introductory history'

1*

1 and a follow-up study'

1

9 > confirming and extending the original paper. All page numbers in parentheses which follow refer to these SST papers. Also see "Errata" to these.'

2

0' The total information transfer between author and Science editor are included in the Appendices A through S at the end of this report and are identified in Table 1 preceding the appendices. The dates of receipt of manuscripts by Science were stamped on the original and were properly acknowledged. The rejected paper was stimulated by a prior paper in Science'

21

1 by Cannon and Jensen entitled "Terrestrial Timekeeping and General Relativity — A Discovery". Their discovery consisted of a dramatic equalisation in the rates of six coordinated worldwide atomic clocks from application of a terrestrial clock-velocity correction. Subsequent criticism'

22,

23

1 and the failure to affirm their discovery with uncoordinated clocks caused Cannon and Jensen'

24

1 to retract their explanation of the equalisation and to designate it as an artifact of the data. The rejected paper claimed to offer an alternative explanation of the Cannon-Jensen finding which was consistent with prevalent theory but was applicable only to coordinated clocks (pp.

401-2), extended the effect to the solar frame and clarified three unexplained effects reported by Sadeh and associates.