This is just a post to mention that I have a new article/post at The Political Methodologist called “The Multiple Routes to Credibility.” In it, I argue that if we think about peer review as an outward facing activity - that is, something meant to enhance the credibility of scientific claims - we need to start consider how it fits in alongside other more recent open science innovations (replication, reproducibility, registration). And, furthermore, I offer some suggestions for how to improve the peer review process so that it can actually add something above and beyond those other three Rs.

Here’s a teaser:

While scholars are quick to differentiate a study “not yet peer reviewed” from one that has passed this invisible threshold, peer review is but one route to scientific credibility and not a particularly reliable method of enhancing scientific quality given its present institutionalization. In this article, I argue that peer review must be seen as part of a set of scientific practices largely intended to enhance the credibility of truth claims. As disciplines from political science to psychology to biomedicine to physics debate the reproducibility, transparency, replicability, and truth of their research literatures, we must find a proper place for peer review among a host of individual and disciplinary activities. Peer review should not be abandoned, but it must be reformed in order to retain value for contemporary science, particularly if it is also meant to improve the quality of science rather than simply the perception that scientific claims are credible.

The post will also be forthcoming in a future digital issue of The Political Methodologist. There’s also talk of an online roundtable as part of The International Methods Colloquium series.

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