Peer review

To submit articles for Peer Review - see CreationWiki:Peer review

Peer review broadly defined is the process of inspecting and scrutinizing an author's material (usually of a scholarly or scientific nature) by collegues on an equal level to the author. The process exists to provide impartial judgment of a work or works, determining authenticity and originality, and to screen out errors, flaws and frauds. The backbone of the scientific process is publication, ideally taking place in a respected professional journal, that uses referees. However, not all errors can be eliminated before publication. Many pass the scrutiny of referees through carelessness, or due insufficient or incorrect information provided in the manuscript.

In relation to the creation/evolution debate, peer review is frequently discharged as a reason not to trust creationist materials, because creationist research is not "peer-reviewed" by secular journals.

Creationists and Peer-Reviewed Journals

While most scientific journals summarily dismiss works of a creationist nature (and in some cases, works entirely compatible with evolution, but composed by a creationist), research within mainstream scientific and evolutionary journals is useful for demonstrating the flaws, changes and revisions to evolution.

Furthermore, in numerous creationist magazines and journals, there exists a system of peer review for the creationist community. In some cases, the review is double-blind; the author does not know who submits criticisms, and the critics are not informed of the author they are critiquing.

Discrimination Against Creationists

There have been very many notable examples of an author's work or credentials being repudiated strictly because of the author's position on evolution. The film 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' exposed bias in academia against Creationism and Intelligent Design.

• Raymond Damadian invented the MRI machine and was denied a Nobel Prize because of his Creationist beliefs.
• Nicolae Paulescu, the discover of insulin, was arguably denied a Nobel Prize because of his Creationist beliefs.
• Günter Bechly, a renowned paleontologist, lost his job at a museum and had his Wikipedia page deleted after he publicly came out as a Creationist in 2015.
• Andrew Snelling was initially denied permission to collect rocks at the Grand Canyon by the National Park Service because of his Creationist beliefs and it took a lawsuit and intervention by a U.S. Representative for him to be allowed a permit.
• Richard Sternberg was cast out of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. because as an editor of a technical journal he dared publish a peer-reviewed article criticizing Darwinian Evolution, leading to an investigation by the U.S. government's Office of Special Counsel after he faced threats and was the victim of a coordinated bullying campaign by the National Center for Science Education.
• Gavriel Avital was forced out as Chief Scientist of Israel's Education ministry because he criticized evolution and anthropogenic global warming.
• Alexander Kudryavtsev, a geneticist and head of the Russian Academy of Science’s Vavilov Institute of General Genetics was fired for publicly affirming that humans once lived 900 years.
• Forrest Mims was refused employment by Scientific American as their ‘Amateur Scientist’ columnist because they found out he was a Creationist. In an unusual twist, he was backed by the ACLU because the discrimination was so blatant.
• Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure because he was a Creationist.
• Caroline Crocker was forced out as a teacher at George Mason University for "briefly discussing problems with Darwinian theory, and for telling the students that some scientists believe there is evidence of design in the universe."
• Nathaniel Abraham was fired by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a post-doctoral investigator for being a Christian who doesn't believe in Evolution. A lawsuit filed by Abraham was dismissed for not filing within 90 days.
• Mark Armitage was fired from California State University at Northridge for discussing his Creationist beliefs, and received a $399,500 settlement because of the discrimination.
• Jerry Bergman was fired from Bowling Green University for his Creationist beliefs and filed a lawsuit, which failed.
• Robert Gentry had his connection to Oak Ridge National Laboratories terminated shortly after it became nationally known that he was a Young Earth Creationist and attempts to publish openly Creationist conclusions in peer-reviewed journals were denied.
• Nancy Bryson was pressured to resign and her administrative contract wasn't renewed after she gave a presentation including arguments against evolution.
• Francis Beckwith was denied tenure in 2006 partly due his writings endorsing the constitutionality of teaching Intelligent Design. The decision was reversed and tenure was ultimately granted but only after an extended public battle.
• William Dembski had his Michael Polanyi Research Center shut down by Baylor University because it was studying Intelligent Design. Dembski himself had his position changed to that of an untenured associate research professor prior to his leaving Baylor and after returning for a grant working with Robert Marks the grant was canceled.
• Michael Reiss was forced out by Britain's Royal Society as Director of Education within days of suggesting that Creation and Intelligent Design could be discussed in classrooms.
• Robert Marks had his Evolutionary Informatics Laboratory website taken offline by Baylor University due to the administration claiming there were anonymous complaints linking the lab to Intelligent Design.
• John Ashton had an article arguing Creationism in a chemistry journal taken down after the Anticreation movement raised an outcry.
• Marcus Ross faced nationwide calls to force his resignation after he was publicly revealed to be a Young Earth Creationist.
• Andy McIntosh faced calls for his firing, including from Richard Dawkins, because he claimed Evolution is wrong.
• Philip Johnson was denied the right to respond to a review criticizing him by atheistic Marxist Stephen Jay Gould.
• Michael Behe was denied the right to respond to critics who were allowed to criticize him by peer-reviewed journals.
• In 1985, Russell Humphreys sent a letter to the journal Science asking with they had a policy against creationists. They replied "It is true that we are not likely to publish letters supporting creationism."
• In 1992 Russell Humphreys submitted an article titled "Compton scattering and the cosmic microwave background bumps" to the Journal Nature. The editorial staff, knowing he was a creationist, refused to publish it. Six months later, Nature published an article with the same conclusions, but by a different author.

Scientists are pressured not to challenge established dogma (Talk.Origins)

Damadian was denied a Nobel prize because he was a creationist (Talk.Origins)

Scientists are motivated to support naturalism and reject creationism (Talk.Origins)

Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals (Talk.Origins)

Examples of secular publication

Despite the widespread discrimination against creationist, critics continuously claim that creationist do no original scientific research. They claim no credible intellectual can deny evolution. For example Niles Eldredge claims that no creationist "has contributed a single article to any reputable scientific journal."

"Peer-review is critical for scientific research to be taken seriously … Basically, several other scientists who are experts in the field examine your work to see if it contains errors. Occasionally you will see young earth claims of their work being peer-reviewed. … However, for young earth work to be taken seriously, it must pass the muster of peer-review from non young-earth scientists … Normally, a peer-reviewed article which passes muster would be published in a leading journal such as from the Geological Society of America, [not just] on the ICR website. If the RATE [Radio isotopes and the Age of The Earth] project truly publishes some work which is good enough for publication in secular journals, then they would surely pursue that route. It is clear in this case that the “peers” for these articles are other young-earth proponents, which cast serious doubts upon the validity of the works."-Greg Neyman

Despite these claims, creationist do manage to publish papers supporting their ideas.

Creation in secular publication

The Pitfalls of Peer Review

In the haste to put such emphasis and respect on peer review, some of its difficulties are overlooked. There are at least two important factors that can influence research, and the reputation of peer review, negatively.

Bias

Personal bias may allow mistakes or even fraud to be published. For example, research from the Health Partners Research Foundation published in Nature revealed that five percent of scientists admitted to completely discarding data because it did not fit their previous conclusions. Fifteen percent changed or altered data or conclusions from data based on gut instinct, or to satisfy parties sponsoring the research.[1]

Error

According to research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), "previously published statements, regardless of whether they are subsequently shown to be true or false, can have a profound effect on interpretations of further experiments and the probability that a scientific community would converge to a correct conclusion."[2]

Fraud

Despite what many might think, blatant fraud does sometimes pass peer review. Normally, the people commiting the fraud are smart to keep it underwraps for a years and then get exposed when it is more closely examined.

Evolution myths

Related References

• Problems with Peer-Review: A Brief Summary Casey Luskin February 10, 2012
• Is Peer Review Broken? The Scientist, February 2006
• Why Most Published Research Findings Are False Public Library of Science (PLOS), August 30, 2005
• For Science's Gatekeepers, a Credibility Gap The New York Times May 2, 2006
• Study: A Third of Medical Studies are Wrong Live Science July 14, 2005
• Is Peer-Review the Be All and End All of Science? Discovery Institute November 15, 2006
• How Circular Reasoning Passes Peer Review
• Peer Review: Can You Trust a Scientific Journal Paper?
• The Relative Longevity of Science Frauds
• Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals? (Follow-up)
• So, maybe I made most of this up, but, hey, does it really matter? The Times, October 16, 2006
• Research into research can be improved
• Niles Eldredge The Monkey Business (1982) p.83

See Also

• Creationists are prevented from publishing in science journals
• Evolution myths
• SCIgen