Replies

"It's [peer review is] the best test there is for scientific truth or validity"

I strongly disagree. The best test for scientific truth and validity are repeatable experiments which we observe.

"Anyone deliberately dodging it to the extent Wells does is almost definitely doing a snow job."

Dr. Wells and Dr. Denton and anyone else who writes that homologous structures fail to provide evidence for evolution are not doing a snow job just because all of their books/articles are not always peer reviewed by evolutionists. Perhaps it is worth noting that the articles/books they write get both a hostile and friendly peer review nearly every day.

"Peer review is the best tool we have for discerning accuracy in the technically complex realm science has become, but obviously, you seem unsatisfied with it. With what mechanism would you suggest it be replaced?"

Peer reviews are very beneficial in many areas of study and I don't think they should be replaced. The book "Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins" is an example of a work (although originally intended for the high school level) which the quality has improved as the result of a very extensive peer review. The peer review for this book is as impressive as any.

Although the reviews on amazon are not always strictly 'scientific' reviews, it is interesting looking at the reviews on amazon for "Of Pandas and Of People". Nearly all of the reviews are either the very highest rating or the very lowest rating. I suspect that if the reviewer held a presupposition that the world evolved via chance and natural process that most of the time the reviewer gave the very lowest rating. Conversely, I suspect that if the reviewer held a presupposition that the world was created via an Intelligent Designer that most of the time they gave the very highest rating.

It's [peer review is] the best test there is for scientific truth or validity

I strongly disagree. The best test for scientific truth and validity are repeatable experiments which we observe.

repeating experiments and conducting independent analyses of the same root data set ARE peer review.
what? did you think "peer-review" was analogous to a Harlequin reading-circle?

The peer review for this book is as impressive as any.

Books aren't peer reviewed by scientists, scientific journal articles are.

A good science book explains the conclusions articulated in the work of scientific journal articles (and should cite such material, directly or indirectly), explained at the appropriate educational level. Pandas and People does not meet these criteria.

Any science book that draws conclusions that are not shared by the consensus of working scientists in the field is not a good science book.