Considering a New Scientific Journal

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In the secular science industry, the peer review process seems more like a "good ol' boys" club than the dissemination of objective scientific information. While gatekeeping keeps out much of the riffraff, it also protects favored views from contrary data.

Although creation scientists do publish in peer-reviewed journals, they cannot get material refuting evolution, supporting the global Genesis Flood, and so on published. Not only is evolution protected, but leftist views on climate change and other things are shielded. The peer-review process has numerous flaws that bother even secular scientists.

Made at Redkid.net
I've got some bad news for you, Sunshine: Scientists are not the bastions of integrity and impartiality that many people think. They are human and subject to wicked urges just like the rest of us. Peer review has cheating, ethical problems, a reproducibility crisis, and other flaws. There appears to be a rebellion in the works. Some want it scrapped. I pointed this out and someone replied along the lines of, "Yes, it has problems but it's the best we have so they have to stick with it." Such a remark sounds like the sunk cost fallacy.

There are people who believe that scientific research should be made available right away. This would impact the journals that charge big money to publish a paper, and also speed up the availability of research. Open journals are available for everyone, not just those who pay to see the material. (Perhaps that is one reason for all the fraud that is conducted, there's money in publishing status.) Even negative reviews could be available. These things would be very important in medical research and may curtail another suppression of information such as happened with COVID-19.

I wonder how this would impact creation science, since it has been blackballed from secular publications and creationists need to use their own for creationist material. For that matter, a paper on dinosaur protein was peer-reviewed in a secular journal. This is surprising to me because it gets close to the border of protected territory for secularists.

At Just the News, Greg Piper reports that the editors of the new Journal of the Academy of Public Health are addressing oft-complained-of problems with peer reviewed journals: JAPH offers paid peer review, for example.


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Proposals for reform include open access and open, signed peer reviews, as well as payment for the reviewers and reduced “gatekeeping.”

    Intrigued? Read the rest at "Who’s Afraid of This New Science Journal?"