The invisible hand of peer review

Abstract

The refereed journal literature needs to be freed from both paper and its costs, but not from peer review, whose "invisible hand" is what maintains its quality. The residual cost of online-only peer review is low enough to be recovered from author-institution-end page charges, covered from institutional subscription savings, thereby vouchsafing a toll-free refereed research literature for everyone, everywhere, forever.

Human nature being what it is, it cannot be altogether relied upon to police itself. Individual exceptions there may be, but to treat them as the rule would be to underestimate the degree to which our potential unruliness is vetted by collective constraints, implemented formally.

So it is in civic matters, and it is no different in the world of Learned Inquiry. The "quis custodiet" problem among scholars has traditionally been solved by means of a quality-control and certification [QC/C] system called "peer review" (Harnad 1985): The work of specialists is submitted to a qualified adjudicator, an editor, who in turn sends it to fellow-specialists, referees, to seek their advice about whether the paper is potentially publishable, and if so, what further work is required to make it acceptable. The paper is not published until and unless the requisite revision can be and is done to the satisfaction of the editor and referees.

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ORCID for Stevan Harnad: orcid.org/0000-0001-6153-1129

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