I believe at some (prestigious) journals the higher up editors actually invite prominent folk to peer review potential articles. I also know at less prestigious journals the author’s themselves list who they think would be appropriate to conduct a peer review.
Imagine if there was some sort of block chain for science peer review system, where peer reviewing articles which generated high impact factors beget access to journal articles or something, some clever alignment of all incentives that removed the strong-hold that journal brands often have on conferring perceived merit on a journal article.
“Superunknown: Scientific Integrity Within the Academic and Media Industrial Complexes”
In order to get a job as a tenured professor, you must incessantly publish research in scholarly journals. Academic search committees do not usually read candidates’ publications, nor do they consider the quality of the research or the benefit of the research for the public good, but the number of publications is a crucial factor in hiring and tenure decisions. Quantity is valued over quality, so the incentives in academia are not to design extremely rigorous studies, pour over carefully obtained data, and act with extreme consideration in analyzing results or drawing conclusions. The incentives are to publish as much as possible as fast as possible – empty productivity.
In graduate school I encountered an ambitious professor who advised his students to attempt to publish every paper they had ever written. This person made a name for himself in his field, but his work is questionable…
With competition fierce, academics are enticed to produce sexy, cool, headline garnering results, not necessarily truth. Not only is employment itself on the line, but grants and funding can be dependent upon these superficial goals. The emphasis on fame rather than truth corrupts science. Much like the rest of our consumer capitalistic culture, style is valued over substance. As Brian Nosek, professor and director of the Center for Open Science notes, “the real problem is that the incentives for publishable results can be at odds with the incentives for accurate results.”
