Post-Publication Review Is Vital For Science

Why peer-review is not the final word

Stock photos for “science” are mostly lab coats and benches, but this came up and it’s very pretty. Enjoy. Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

When I was first getting into science, nearly two decades ago now, one of the first things I was told was about the importance of peer-review. The scientific literature, you see, was not filled with opinions it was filled with facts, which we could be assured of because whenever someone wanted to publish something in a leading scientific journal they first had to make their way through the gauntlet of their peers and come out on the other side.

It’s a wonderful idea. Sadly, the longer I’ve worked in a scientific field, the more I’ve come to realize that publication isn’t the end. In many ways, getting a paper into an academic journal is only the first step on the road to objective reality.

Searching for “objective reality”, on the other hand, seems to bring up lots of…VR headsets? Neither reality nor objective. Photo by Sophia Sideri on Unsplash

This is not to say that peer-review is a complete waste of time. It’s the best system we have.

However, something being published in an academic journal does not necessarily make it accurate, and the scientific literature is definitely buyer beware. It can often be hard to really understand scientific studies unless you’ve had at least some training in the area of interest, and…