[SES1066]

It is interesting that in reading this full article, one can see both the advantages and deficiencies of peer review. The advantage comes that from the first articles, Bellesiles was on notice that his work had flaws. The disadvantages came from the fact that it was published and awarded the Bancroft Prize long before the criticisms caught up to the lies. One thing that this helps establigh, Bellesiles is an out-right fraud and liar.

[EBUCK]

One thing that this helps establigh, Bellesiles is an out-right fraud and liar.

Who was only exposed when an amature historian called him on it. If it wasn't for that unendorsed (by the state) little creep he would have walked away with a Nobel Prize!!

I think that is a really interesting side issue...That the state has a monopoly on credentials. If even one credentialed historian had brought up such reservations Bellesiles would have never gotten off the ground. It took an amature thousands of man hours to do what one credentialed historian could have done in a week.

EBUCK

[mrustow]

Peer review is only as good or bad as the peers. Often, peer review is a mere formality. The one time I submitted a scholarly article for publication, I made sure to politick for it behind the scenes, long before submitting it. Since I was only a lowly adjunct, the "peer review" panel didn't consider me a "peer," and all the work of researching, writing, and re-writing a huge ms. would otherwise have been a waste.

The article was published, with no negative comments. However, one of the peer reviewers later insulted me in a weirdly pedantic way. He published a letter in a later issue of the journal, in which he praised the more influential author of an article on a much different topic, and then suggested a number of consequences of the other man's article (as if they had just occurred to him) -- all of which were the very issues I had addressed explicitly and at length in MY article. The character had the nerve to say that no one had addressed the issues. This was his way, I guess, of putting me in my place, as an adjunct.

I'm convinced that much of what allegedly is done in the humanities and social sciences in the name of "peer review" by "blind" readers is actually based on rigged games, whether the journal is socialist or consevative. Most academics are either unable or unwilling to look at research and arguments based on the meirts, as opposed to based on the authority or pedigree of the person making them.