From

Against the Tide: A Critical review by Scientists of How Physics and Astronomy Get Done

edited by Martin López Corredoira and Carlos Castro Perelman

book (click here)

The purpose of science is to determine the true nature of Earth and Universe. The intent is elegant in its simplicity and the goal is laudable, certainly one the highest aspirations of humankind. All this seems so readily attainable, but yet there is nearly overwhelming American institutional opposition. The purpose of this brief communication is to address the principal cause for the institutional and wide-spread perversion and corruption of science in America.

Worldwide, science is and always has been a strange activity, capable of providing the underpinnings for engineering advances that may benefit civilization on a grand scale, but an activity virtually without market value, at least in the important initial “blue sky” stages. Financial vulnerability is the Achilles heel of science. One may begin to understand what went wrong with American science by first looking at the way science worked and was supported before World War II.

Prior to World War II there was little government financial support for science. While supporting himself as a Swiss patent clerk, Albert Einstein explained Brownian motion, the photo-electric effect, and special relativity. Niels Bohr, supported by grants from the Carlsberg Brewery, made fundamental discoveries about atomic structure and served as a focal point and driving force for the collaborative effort that yielded quantum mechanics, the field of science underpinning solid-state electronic technology that so benefits the world today. Although money for science at the time was in short supply, scientists maintained a kind of self-discipline. A graduate student working on a Ph.D. degree was expected to make a new discovery to earn that degree, even if it meant starting over after years of work because someone else made the discovery first.

Self-discipline was also part of the scientific publication system. Prior to World War II, when a scientist wanted to publish a paper, the scientist would send it to the editor of a scholarly journal for publication and generally it would be published. A new, unpublished scientist was required to obtain the endorsement of a published scientist before submitting a manuscript. The concept of “peer review” did not yet exist.

World War II came and then suddenly there was serious and urgent need for scientific and technological advances deemed necessary for the global war effort. Government monetary support for science commenced.

On November 17, 1944, U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, asking for recommendations concerning post-World War II support for science, stating in part, “.… The information, the techniques, and the research experience developed by the Office of Scientific Research and Development and by the thousands of scientists in the universities and in private industry, should be used in the days of peace ahead for the improvement of the national health, the creation of new enterprises bringing new jobs, and the betterment of the national standard of living…. New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness, and drive with which we have waged this war we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life.”

On July 25, 1945, Vannevar Bush responded to U. S. President Harry S. Truman, transmitting the report Science, the Endless Frontier, which was to become the blueprint for peacetime U. S. Government support for science.

In 1951, the U. S. Congress established the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide financial support for post-World War II scientific research. Soon thereafter, someone at NSF or on the National Science Board, which is charged with oversight of NSF, had an idea, a really corrosive idea, the implementation of which would lead to the perversion and corruption of American science for decades ahead. The idea was that reviewers of scientific proposals to NSF for government research grant money should be anonymous; the crux of the idea being that anonymity would encourage honesty in evaluation even when those reviewers might be competitors or might have vested interests. Thus the concept of anonymous peer review was birthed.

The idea of anonymous peer review was considered such a really useful idea that other federal granting agencies which were established later, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, wholly adopted the concept of anonymous peer review. Likewise, editors of scientific journals almost universally adopted anonymous peer review as a basis for making publication decisions. Anonymous peer review must have seemed an administrative stroke of genius, but its application would ultimately pervert and corrupt American science, bringing about the opposite of President Roosevelt’s and Vannevar Bush’s vision.

There is a major flaw in the blanket application of anonymity during peer review. If anonymity leads to greater truthfulness, then it could be put to great advantage in law courts. Courts have in fact utilized anonymity — in the infamous Spanish Inquisition and in virtually every totalitarian regime — and the results are always the same: People denounce others for a variety of reasons and corruption amongst the accusers becomes rampant. For decades, the use of anonymity within NSF, NASA, and elsewhere has been gradually corrupting American science. Unethical reviewers — secure, camouflaged, masked and hidden through anonymity — all too often make untrue and/or pejorative statements to eliminate their professional competitors. Nowadays, it is a pervasive, corrupt system that encourages and rewards the darkest elements of human nature.

If humans want to survive under adverse conditions, they adapt to their environment. And, survival in this current, cruel environment has led to a “consensus only” mentality. Scientists are quick to realize that citing work that challenges the “consensus view” might result in their own reports not being published and their proposals for research funds garnering unfavorable reviews. Consequently, important scientific contradictions, if they can be published at all, rather than being discussed, debated, and subjected to experimental or theoretical testing, are selectively ignored. Suppressing and/or ignoring important scientific contradictions is like lying to the international scientific community and, in my opinion, is tantamount to perpetrating fraud on the American taxpayer.

For more than 50 years, American science has been infected by NSF’s instigated concept of anonymous peer review. The methodology of that institutionalization is fully described in an Office of Management and Budget report, dated December 15, 2004, entitled “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review”, which is downloadable from the following URLs:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/peer2004/peer_bulletin.pdf

http://UnderstandEarth.com/peer_bulletin.pdf

Eleven days after the report was made, I transmitted my critique of it to the White House where it made little impression. But the document does serve to detail the fallacies inherent in peer review in general and in the methodology of its application by the U. S. Government. It therefore seems appropriate to bring this brief communication to a close with that critique.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGES IN

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PEER REVIEW:

A CONTRAST TO CURRENT PROCEDURES

SET FORTH IN THE

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

Final  Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review: December 15, 2004

J. Marvin Herndon, Ph.D.

Transdyne Corporation

December 26, 2004

Introduction

This Bulletin is a broadly based document pertaining to the federal government’s application of peer review in a wide variety of circumstances. The present document is specifically limited to peer review as applied to reviews of scientific grant/contract proposals, although there may be some carryover into other areas. As detailed in the Critique below, the procedures and methodology described in the Bulletin, together with omissions of substance, lead to a system of administration open for corruption. Recommendations are made for systemic changes to correct the present, seriously flawed system of administrating peer review.

Critique of Bulletin

This Bulletin appears to have been crafted by individuals who either are extremely naïve of human nature or choose to ignore human nature (see Appendix). The Bulletin appears to be predicated upon the tacit assumption that in all instances peer reviewers will provide honest, truthful reviews. The tacit assumption that peer reviewers will always be truthful leads to a principal flaw of this Bulletin, namely, the failure to provide any instruction, direction, or requirement either to guard against fraudulent peer review or to prosecute those suspected of making untruthful reviews. The long-standing failure of the federal government to require and to aggressively enforce truthfulness in the making of peer reviews (1) encourages and rewards those who make deceitful peer reviews and (2) can be expected to have and to have had a deleterious impact on America’s scientific capability, adversely affecting America’s technology, and, concomitantly, weakening America’s economic and military capability.

The Bulletin states, “… the names of each reviewer may be publicly disclosed or remain anonymous (e.g. to encourage candor).” The Bulletin approves the application of anonymity and even appears to promote some alleged virtue of its use, while being completely blind to its downside. If anonymity did in fact encourage candor and truthfulness, anonymity would be of great value in our legal system. There is in fact a historical record of the use of anonymity in courts: Anonymous testimony was used in the Spanish Inquisition and in nearly every totalitarian regime.  In each instance, the results were the same: individuals denounce others, for a variety of reasons. Anonymity, instead of being a positive element, as implied by the Bulletin, is instead an extremely negative element, encouraging and rewarding the worst aspects of human nature and human behavior.

In the selection of participants in peer review, the Bulletin urges “due consideration of independence and conflict of interest” but, at the same time: (1) the Bulletin provides a highly restricted financial definition of conflict of interest, ignoring personal, professional, or scientific conflicts of interest, (2) the Bulletin falsely accords some individuals a conflict-of-interest-free-status, specifically, “…when a scientist is awarded a government research grant through an investigator-initiated, peer-reviewed competition, there generally should be no question as to that scientist’s ability to offer independent scientific advice to the agency on other projects”, (3) the Bulletin acknowledges that “the federal government recognize that under certain circumstances some conflict may be unavoidable…” and, (4) the Bulletin completely prevents the avoidance of conflicts of interest by approving the use of anonymous reviews, a practice which is wide-spread in federal government agencies that support scientific research.

The Bulletin fails to provide any instruction, direction, or requirement either to guard against fraudulent peer review or to prosecute those suspected of making untruthful reviews. At the same time, the Bulletin approves of the use of anonymous reviews that are free from accountability and from civil recourse. The Bulletin gives tacit approval to circumstances that allow conflicts of interest and prevents the avoidance of conflicts of interest. With that combination, the Bulletin encourages and gives free rein to any criminal or quasi-criminal element that seeks to attain unfair advantage through deceit and misrepresentation in the anonymity-protected peer review system.

The Bulletin states that “reviewers may be compensated for their work or they may donate their time as a contribution to science or public service”. All instances with which I am familiar, specifically, NASA and the National Science Foundation, do not pay reviewers for their time. Reviewers do reviews for a variety of reasons, such as to curry favor with agency officials or to exercise control over their competitors, but the bottom line is that time is money and agencies often get for their non-compensation a hastily done, superficial review.

The most serious short-coming of the Bulletin is its failure to recognize or to admit the debilitating consequences of the long-term application of the practices described above. The application of anonymity and freedom from accountability in the peer review system and the openness to conflicts of interest, gives unfair advantage to those who would unjustly berate a competitor’s formal request for research funding. The perception – real or imagined – that some individuals would do just that has had a chilling effect, forcing scientists to become defensive, adopting only the consensus-approved viewpoint and refraining from discussing anything that might be considered as a challenge to other’s work or to the funding agency’s programs. That is not science!

If a foreign power or a terrorist group had set out to slowly and imperceptibly undermine American science, I doubt that it could have devised a methodology for the purpose any more effective than the practices set forth in the Bulletin. Used for decades, these practices have diminished American science to the present point of approaching third-world status.

 Recommendations for Systemic Changes in the Administration of Peer Review

Like the Critique, the following recommendations are specifically limited to the administration of peer review as applied to reviews of scientific grant/contract proposals that are not subject to secrecy considerations related to national security and defense.

Generally, conflicts of interest, in the broadest definition, should never be permitted and should never be tolerated in peer review. Federal regulations permitting same, such as those under which NASA operates, should be changed.

Anonymity should never be used in peer reviews. Reviewers should sign and swear their reviews “under penalty of perjury” and should be held accountable for the truthfulness of their reviews.

Reviewers should always be compensated, and compensated well, for making reviews.

An independent “ombudsman agency” should be created to address conflicts and disagreements between the individual or organization submitting the research proposal and the agency to which the proposal was submitted. The “ombudsman agency” should be empowered to bring potentially unlawful activity to the attention of the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.

Recipients of federal research grants/contracts should incur the responsibility of making some pre-determined number of reviews under the conditions described above. Like defense attorneys selecting a jury, each grants/contract recipient should be accorded a number of “pre-emptive strikes” so as to be able to remove himself/herself from certain specific proposal reviews.

An individual or organization submitting a research proposal should be presented with an official list of names that the funding agency proposes to be peer reviewers. Like prosecuting attorneys selecting a jury, the individual or organization submitting the proposal should be accorded a number of “pre-emptive strikes” so as to be able to remove certain specific proposed reviewers.

Implementation of the above recommendations will begin to correct the long-standing debilitation of American science. The above recommendations are intended to correct the short-comings displayed in the Bulletin. Additional managerial improvements are possible, but are not specified in the present document.

Appendix

In 1623, Galileo, one of the greatest scientists of the millennium, precisely characterized human nature, especially the response to new ideas, in a letter written to Don Virginio Cesarini (translated by Stillman Drake): "I have never understood, Your Excellency, why it is that every one of the studies I have published in order to please or to serve other people has aroused in some men a certain perverse urge to detract, steal, or depreciate that modicum of merit which I thought I had earned, if not for my work, at least for its intention. In my Starry Messenger  there were revealed many new and marvelous discoveries in the heavens that should have gratified all lovers of true science; yet scarcely had it been printed when men sprang up everywhere who envied the praises belonging to the discoveries there revealed. Some, merely to contradict what I had said, did not scruple to cast doubt upon things they had seen with their own eyes again and again....How many men attacked my Letters on Sunspots, and under what disguises! The material contained therein ought to have opened the mind's eye much room for admirable speculation; instead it met with scorn and derision. Many people disbelieved it or failed to appreciate it. Others, not wanting to agree with my ideas, advanced ridiculous and impossible opinions against me; and some, overwhelmed and convinced by my arguments, attempted to rob me of that glory which was mine, pretending not to have seen my writings and trying to represent themselves as the original discoverers of these impressive marvels....I have said nothing of certain unpublished private discussions, demonstrations, and propositions of mine which have been impugned or called worthless....Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new."

I have myself observed similar responses. Human nature does not change on a time-scale of a few hundred years. The peer review system cannot and should not ignore human nature.

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For the bigger picture of the consequences of a half century of anonymous peer-review, see Maverick's Earth and Universe (click here)