The Necessity for Academic and Scientific Editorial Boards and Peer-Review of Research Papers Published in Archived Journals

Peer-reviewed scientific journals are a necessity. It is the way scientists normally report scientific findings and theories. Articles submitted to such journals are carefully reviewed for adherence to scientific methods and the absence of speculation and polemics. Reviews are often anonymous. Facts are checked and formulas are examined. The review procedure can take a year or more to complete. Where multidisciplinary research is reported, referees with opposite views are sought whose reports are examined and decisions made, the final arbitration sometimes going to editorial boards representing the fields of inquiry for a final decision. For a discussion, see  http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/guide/g_infoac_peerev.jsp .

Banned for decades from publication in peer-reviewed, evidence-based scholastic journals guided by scientific editorial boards, the Internet offers a far-reaching tool by those without credentials to ‘distribute’ their non-physics or non-science, problematic material. Universally, they usually lack any real expertise or peer-reviewed journal documentation for the topic at hand. Their intent is to target like-minded in the general public through outlets with ‘sensationalism’ agendas; such as appear in popular newspaper articles, on television, or on talk-radio. When this material does appear, scientists cringe. [The same also applies to the ever-more-popular pseudo-dictionaries whose ‘editors’ (often college students) mold the content according to their own politically oriented, dogmatic approaches. In the process, the non-professional defamation of accredited researchers with whom they disagree is rampant].

In attempts to gain ‘credibility’ by circumventing the review process, a problematic hypothesis can be attached to valid academic, governmental, or industrial site information by plagiarism of the contents. It matters little to the plagiarizer to remove the name of the original researcher who may have spent decades to find a fifty or hundred year old reference. Some even go so far as to hi-jack the names of the originators, if especially notable, of the field. Bogus websites with like-sounding names; e.g., biophysics.info with biophysics.xxx are created. And for a modest fee, the imposter can advertise the counterfeit site on a 100,000 different Internet locations.

Peer review is the major process by which plagiarism is stopped.

While it is considered a sign of intelligence that a science researcher is able to hold two opposing ideas in equal regard in the absence of incomplete or definitive data, and knowing that knowledge can come serendipitously from any source at any time, this knowledge is still subject to scrutiny via the scientific method.

Anthony L. Peratt, Ph.D.
Los Alamos National Laboratory