[jsanders2001]

Let me take a stab. Half of them are related to global warming, right?

[expat2]

They should look very closely at the climate-research field, where pro-alarmist papers get special treatment and skeptic papers get un-special (i.e., negative) treatment.

[Rebel_Ace]

[Mase]

This is not surprising at all. The peer review process has been broken for a long time.

[JoeFromSidney]

For over 40 years I was an associate editor for a major journal. Part of my job was selecting reviewers for papers that fell within my area of expertise. I knew each potential reviewer personally, so there was no possibility of a fake review. Granted, when you have to pick a reviewer who is knowledgeable about the topic of a paper, it's almost inevitable that the reviewer will know the author of the paper. They're working in the same "invisible college." Thus there is some possibility of "back-scratching." That's why the journal kept the reviews anonymous. We even tried to keep the reviewer from knowing who the author was, but that's difficult when an expert in a field already knows who all the other experts in that field are. It looks to me as though the problem is not with peer review per se, but with the editors who select reviewers.

I've retired from that editorial position, but I still occasionally do reviews for that same journal, and for a couple of other journals that publish papers in my field. When I'm asked to undertake a review, it's always by an editor who knows me, not by the author of the paper.

Something has gone badly wrong in the journal business. I think we have too many journals needing to fill their pages, and quality has suffered as a result. The peer review issue is a symptom of this problem.