How important is peer review? How reliable?

[_EAllusion]

Which suggests that peer review, while useful, is not essential for the production of good work.

This isn't a point I would dispute, but it also is a point that would be a reply to a strawman of any comment I'd have on the importance of the peer review system to modern academia and science in particular.

Which is, in fact, untrue.

By peer review system, I am not referring to submitting manuscripts to quasi-incestuous publications with no actual impact on the broader academic community. In one sense, this post is being "peer reviewed" by Gadianton if I ask him if it's cool, but that's clearly not what is meant. I am referring to submitting apologia to the network of relevant journals with accepted impact. I'm not suggesting this isn't done at all, but I want to avoid the tendency to claim that submitting to FARMs review, for instance, somehow counts.

[_Daniel Peterson]

By peer review system, I am not referring to submitting manuscripts to quasi-incestuous publications with no actual impact on the broader academic community.

Nor am I.

I want to avoid the tendency to claim that submitting to FARMs review, for instance, somehow counts.

That agenda is made crystal clear in your ad hoc redefinition of peer review.

[_Mister Scratch]

[

criticizing Peterson et. al. for not seeking out publication in the peer review system.

Which is, in fact, untrue.

Oh, really? Which academic journals have you and other Mopologists submitted to? And yes: I am referring to journals which, via peer review, would help to authenticate the most controversial facets of Mormonism (e.g., Lamanite DNA, Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon historicity, etc.)

[_EAllusion]

Nor am I.

Good. We don't want dubious fringe publications Mormon apologia oft finds itself in being improperly implied as part of the peer review system simply because it involves reviews by peers in the same way that journals that range from young earth creationism to Atlantis archeology do.

That agenda is made crystal clear in your ad hoc redefinition of peer review.

I'm not redefining anything. I'm avoiding an equivocation. The peer review system refers to something beyond the literal meaning of each of its terms.

[_Jersey Girl]

Scratch

Oh, really? Which academic journals have you and other Mopologists submitted to? And yes: I am referring to journals which, via peer review, would help to authenticate the most controversial facets of Mormonism (e.g., Lamanite DNA, Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon historicity, etc.)

What academic journals would accept the work of apologists for peer review? Science and Nature? What?

[_Gadianton]

I'm not redefining anything. I'm avoiding an equivocation. The peer review system refers to something beyond the literal meaning of each of its terms

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/119937.html

LOL!

[_Daniel Peterson]

For the Scartchmeister: Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, Katunob, etc.

Good. We don't want dubious fringe publications Mormon apologia oft finds itself in being improperly implied as part of the peer review system simply because it involves reviews by peers in the same way that journals that range from young earth creationism to Atlantis archeology do.

I absolutely agree.

I'm not redefining anything.

Oh, but you are.

Peer review is an editorial process. Whether or not the journal or book in question has an "impact" on the wider field -- how much "impact" constitutes sufficient "impact," anyway? -- is a question about readership, not about editorial process. A new journal, with as yet no "impact" whatever, can still be launched with an entirely suitable system of peer review in place. In fact, such journals are launched every week. And that peer review process, if valid, remains valid whether the journal's circulation is 500,000 or 5.

[_EAllusion]

Peer review is an editorial process.

The peer review system refers, however, to a network of journals that have certain traits that go beyond the mere presence of review by peers. If Gad and I publish The Proceedings of Gad and EA, agree to copyedit something Scratch wrote, then publish it, it is true that Scratch received a form of peer review. To say Scratch has published a peer reviewed article is misleading, and to say that our journal is in the peer reviewed system is an outright equivocation. In any normal context, that would refer to something more unique.

Whether or not the journal or book in question has an "impact" on the wider field -- how much "impact" constitutes sufficient "impact," anyway? -- is a question about readership, not about editorial process.

I'm not sure why you choose to use scarequotes around the term impact. It's an accepted metric for measuring the worth of publications. Readership affects impact, but there isn't a one to one correspondence here. Impact has more to do with the breadth and depth of value other scholars place on the papers contained in the journal. Obviously, there is a correlation there, but it is a distinct concept from circulation. Impact isn't a perfect measure, and there are great journals with low impact that exist for highly specialized subfields, but even those are easily distinguished from publications who lack any sort of real integration into the scholarly community. The Creation Research Society Quarterly is easily distinguished from peer review in the relevant sense here despite having a peer review process of sorts. This is a question that comes up in court cases over scientific expertise from time to time, and this distinction is necessarily and properly made.

A new journal, with as yet no "impact" whatever, can still be launched with an entirely suitable system of peer review in place.

It can. And when that journal shows that it has been appropriately integrated into the community of scholarship, we'll say it is part of the peer review system.

[_EAllusion]

I'm not redefining anything. I'm avoiding an equivocation. The peer review system refers to something beyond the literal meaning of each of its terms

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/119937.html

LOL!

With the exception of one paper that was backdoored in a way that violated the journal's editorial practices and almost immediately repudiated by the journal, there are no creationist (interchange Intelligent Design here if you wish) papers in the peer reviewed scientific literature. That hasn't stopped creationists from claiming otherwise, of course, including in court cases. When they have done so they have tried one of three tactics:

1) Claim that their in-house peer reviewed journals like the above example count as part of the scientific peer reviewed literature and therefore anything published in them is a paper in the peer reviewed literature.

2) Claim that papers they privately think support their creationist views (but do not actually make the claim themselves) are creationist papers in the peer reviewed literature. It'd be like an apologist claiming that a peer reviewed paper that argues for exceptions to the bering straight theory is a Book of Mormon paper when it doesn't really concern the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. In this case, the papers invariably concern the ability of evolutionary theory to account for something rather than any case for design.

3) Claim their papers in a their normal day-to-day research that isn't about creationism constitutes being in the peer reviewed literature.

This has been laughed out of the courts thus far and is not really creationism in the peer reviewed literature for what should be obvious reasons. In truth, I've seen the same tactics from Book of Mormon apologists like Peterson and nothing else, but I've never investigated closely enough to know if there are examples of the case for the Book of Mormon being an ancient document in the peer reviewed literature to make any definitive statements.

[_JustMe]

EAllusion
In truth, I've seen the same tactics from Book of Mormon apologists like Peterson and nothing else, but I've never investigated closely enough to know if there are examples of the case for the Book of Mormon being an ancient document in the peer reviewed literature to make any definitive statements.

Do books count? Raphael Patai's book The Children of Noah, Jewish Seafarers in Ancient Times, Princeton University Press, 1998, actually has an appendix of John M. Lundquist about the Book of Mormon themes of oceanic crossings and the very valid concept of Jews having ships, using ships, sailing ships, and working with and in and by shipping in ancient times. After all, Patai *asked* Lundquist to include his views! And Princeton obviously does not publish New Agey Atlantis type crap. The implications being the Book of Mormon theme *is* in a peer reviewed publication by a university press, and it ain't ridiculous. Mormons are not afraid of publishing our views, when they are allowed in the literature.