> This looks remarkably like an attempt by Science to smear their open-access competitors, ....
That may be. I wish this had been done differently, and I wish "open access" were not the term used. It may be true that the author is trying to paint with an overly broad brush, throwing some FUD at the movement to make scientific papers easier to get at; I'm not sure.
But it is clear to me that this article is describing a real problem. The problem is the recent proliferation of new journals with very low standards.
> ... and in fact we know they do, including Science! ....
I don't agree. Problems with the peer review system have been demonstrated. It is inconsistent, sometimes lazily done, and subject to corruption in some fields.
But if someone were to claim that you could take 300 journals of the caliber of Science, send them all a worthless paper, and get acceptances from half, then I would call that ridiculous. The occasional acceptance of a poor paper means that the review system needs work. The acceptance of poor papers as a matter of course indicates a lack of standards. There is a difference.
I think the point of the comment is that Science's study is purely self-serving, since they did not also send their sting paper to the more traditional journals to test their peer review rejection rate of this bogus paper.
That may be. I wish this had been done differently, and I wish "open access" were not the term used. It may be true that the author is trying to paint with an overly broad brush, throwing some FUD at the movement to make scientific papers easier to get at; I'm not sure.
But it is clear to me that this article is describing a real problem. The problem is the recent proliferation of new journals with very low standards.
> ... and in fact we know they do, including Science! ....
I don't agree. Problems with the peer review system have been demonstrated. It is inconsistent, sometimes lazily done, and subject to corruption in some fields.
But if someone were to claim that you could take 300 journals of the caliber of Science, send them all a worthless paper, and get acceptances from half, then I would call that ridiculous. The occasional acceptance of a poor paper means that the review system needs work. The acceptance of poor papers as a matter of course indicates a lack of standards. There is a difference.